Brands, Art, and Fear

I had the chance to meet Seth Godin about 8 years ago. His perspective of marketing and branding is so unique and spot on. I always say, branding is who you are and where you are going.

It’s about the humans behind the name, product, or company. It’s about making things. It’s about the creation of ideas and the risk of crushing the status quo. We have to care. We have to love what we create. People don’t want to be fooled by flashy logos and bright colors, only to find out, the soul of the individual, product, or company doesn’t give a sh*t. As the old saying goes, “give a damn, many damns.”

Engagement

It’s easy to get mesmerized by the Follower and Like numbers on your Instagram account, but learning how well you’re engaging is key.

I always remind my clients that while Social Media is in fact media (algorithms, numbers, ratios), it is very much a social platform. In the real world, social success in not rated by how many people said they were interested in a party, but how many actually showed up and actively engaged. Not how many people you know, but how many friends you feel you can actually call.

Most people are surprised to find that many 500K-2M follower Instagram accounts are averaging any where between 3%-9% engagement. It becomes a numbers game. You spend a lot of money on advertising hoping some will actually engage, increasing your ROI.

For years, Social Media “gurus” have preached that content is king. Well, it’s true, but people want a king that feels accessible. Delivering content that has both value and access is imperative on these platforms. Keep the narrative clear, offer valuable content, keep it as authentic as possible, and make sure it’s something your audience would want to share.

Of course, coupling this with effective boosts and promotions via Instagram and Facebook definitely helps. But that’s for a different day…

Morning Rant

Thoughts on Branding & Marketing. What makes you unique? What sets you a part? How are you telling that story to create a positive emotional response?

 

A Client Story: Tim Storey

Over the past handful of years, I’ve worked with Life Coach, Author and Speaker, Tim Storey to develop his unique brand. Tim has his hands both in the church world as a gifted speaker and author, and in “Hollywood” as a unique advisor and life coach to some of today’s most powerful people. Both circles come with their own perceptions and judgements. Tim found himself connected to empowering spiritual movements all over the world, as well as intimate meetings with creatives like Robert Downey Jr, Lee Iacocca, Kanye West, Quincy Jones, Stevie Wonder, John Paul DeJoria, Grant Cardone, Steve Harvey, and more. His audience was struggling to label him.

The process was simple (yet, painstakingly difficult at times), focus on Tim Storey, the person. What is his narrative? Why is he unique? What sets him apart from the other preachers, motivational speakers and self-help authors. The answer, him. No one can do Tim Storey like he does. He has his own style, stories, and insight and strives to get others to see the uniqueness within themselves.

I told Tim, no matter what someone’s background or where they come from, everyone seems to like you when they meet you, when they sit with you for coffee. So we directed the message to getting the audience to get to know Tim. More Facebook/Instagram posts, LIVE videos, behind the scenes videos, and daily rants.

Since then, he has been a featured speaker at PTTOW, Grant Cardone’s 10XCON, Oprah’s Super Soul Sessions, Steve Harvey’s Act Like A Success, Mastermind Event, Paul Mitchell’s The Gathering, and more. He is quickly becoming one of the most sought after speakers in the world. He was also featured on Super Soul Sunday with Oprah Winfrey (watch it now)

Tim Storey & Common

Tim Storey & Grant Cardone

Tim Storey & Oprah Winfrey

Tim Storey & Kanye West

Tim Storey & Stevie Wonder

Tim Storey & Charlie Sheen

Tim Storey & Dog the Bounty Hunter

Tim Storey & El DeBarge

Tim Storey, Brian, & Eddie Holland

Tim Storey & Quincy Jones

Tim Storey & Brent Bolthouse

Tim Storey & Lynn Whitfield

Tim Storey & Marvin Winans

Tim Storey & Raphael Saadiq

Tim Storey & Robert Downey Jr

Tim Storey & Ruth Pointer

Tim Storey, Shawn Achor, Brené Brown, & Michael Beckwith

Tim Storey & Smokey Robinson

Why I May Not Download Your Free App

With Apps becoming more convenient and relatively inexpensive to create via services like Pushpay, AppyPie, and BuildFire, more and more churches, schools, small business, bands, and organizations are creating apps for their supporters.

Of course, this sounds great…FREE Apps! Well, not so fast. Free memory space is limited. Even with a microSD in your Android and extra cloud storage on your iPhone7, you will find yourself asking whether or not the FREE app is worth the space your giving up. That space could be used for more music, videos, pictures, and other apps that you will actually use.

When creating an app for you organization, the most important thing to consider is value. Is the app worth the time and space you are asking your supporters to give up? Is your app basically a memory sucking version of your website or does it offer exclusive functions that can only be accessed via the app?

When creating your app, remember FREE is not always enough reason to download. And even if you’ve convinced them to download, when another app they need comes along, will your app meet the chopping block?

Experimenting with Facebook Live

Facebook Live is something that I’ve been experimenting with my client Tim Storey, who’s been a speaker, life coach, & author for over 30 years. After being on Oprah’s Super Soul Sunday and speaking at Super Soul Sessions last year, his audience has grown by leaps and bounds. The strategy is evolving as we go along. The agenda…to reach and engage more people at one time at a low cost.

Earlier this month, we went Live, behind the scenes for 30 minutes, before The Study Hollywood, a unique evening in Hollywood, CA with emerging creatives, entrepreneurs, and dreamers…interviewing attendees, peeking in on sound checks, and expounding on the vision of the event. Then just this week, we experimented with an hour long World Shakers Summit Q&A, Live from Tim’s home office in LA.

The World Shakers Summit Q&A involved live Q&A with fans all over the world and will most likely become a weekly event. We had people from South Africa, Scandinavia, U.K., and throughout the United States. We had over 520,000 reached, over 15,000 views, and over 1,300 comments. We announced it about 8 hours prior to going live (and threw $100 towards boosting the post), with a quick reminder about 40 minutes prior. We had a couple hiccups minutes before going live while we attempted to use Telestream’s Wirecast studio software on an iMac with a NESSIE Blue Mic. Unfortunately, we could not get it to work properly, but because we had to go live, we just used an iPhone 6. We had two people (including myself) going through the live feed and pulling questions (via an LG phone and Macbook Air). To mix it up a bit, we invited a some guests to jump in and add insight and help answer some questions. We received tons of great feedback and had sign up for both his personal One on One Life Coaching, as well as his Visit Tim’s Facebook Page at https://Facebook.com/TimStoreyOfficial.

Although, it’s still fairly new, Facebook Live is going to change the game for brands, individuals, to reach and most importantly engage with a diverse audience…at a very lost cost.

 

Innovation?

Innovation is a unique thing. Depending on perception, an idea can be revolutionary or rhetoric. In the branding world, there are those that focus on the unique, as well as those that just creatively repackage the mundane. Consider with me for moment, that even the most mundane and unimaginative ideas potentially have a unique characteristic. We can be convinced for a time that what we are seeing or hearing is innovative, but time will tell. Every brand should have something unique to offer. Let’s focus on that. As consumers, let’s demand innovation and turn our backs on rhetoric. Let’s strive for new ideas…that will actually revolutionize the way we live. Branding shouldn’t be a con game. It should be rooted in effectively telling real stories of unique ideas. We can do better. Adario Strange of Mashable.com shared this video from Canadian Public Broadcaster, CBC and their series, This is That. Enjoy.

If you’ve ever clicked on an inspirational video link before, you’ve probably seen a TED Talk.

They promise lofty ideas and profound truths, and yes, sometimes they do live up to the hype. But sometimes, well, they don’t.

That’s what this brilliant parody of the speech series focuses on, delivering a blistering takedown of some of the most common onstage methods used to convince the audience that they are witnessing one of the most important speeches they’ve ever seen.

And while it is pretty hilarious, the scary part is that even while the parody talks about nothing, the presentation’s tricks and devices manage to give the empty speech the air of, dare we say, importance.

And for that reason this might be the best (fake) TED Talk we’ve ever seen. If you’re ever invited to give a TED Talk, you now have the perfect cheat sheet for success. 

Adario Strange | Mashable.com

The Crazy Ones

“Here’s to the crazy ones. The misfits. The rebels. The troublemakers. The round pegs in the square holes. The ones who see things differently. They’re not fond of rules. And they have no respect for the status quo. You can quote them, disagree with them, glorify or vilify them. About the only thing you can’t do is ignore them. Because they change things. They push the human race forward. And while some may see them as the crazy ones, we see genius. Because the people who are crazy enough to think they can change the world, are the ones who do.” ― Rob Siltanen

Steve Jobs didn’t just create a computer. He created a form of technology that was a direct extension of human imagination. Human imagination is limitless, thus Apple was not limited by technology, but only limited by human creativity.

We must understand that our brand, our product, our non-profit, our corporation, our identity, if set up properly, can only be limited by your ability to create…to imagine. That’s how you change the world. That’s how you make a plastic box with wires, chips, and tubes, revolutionize culture.

Gary Vaynerchuk: Stop Storytelling Like it’s 2007

Please note: This talk contains adult language.

In a world with Vine, Snapchat, and Twitter, how can creatives capture attention to make their voices heard?

In this 99U talk, best-selling author and founder of VaynerMedia, Gary Vaynerchuk breaks down how our work can cut through our current “A.D.D. Culture” — one where we binge-watch entire television seasons in one sitting and prefer texting to phone calls.

“We’ve gotten to a point where everything is on our time,” says Vaynerchuk, “So why is everyone storytelling like it’s 2007 in a 2014 world?” The best digital storytellers, he says, use the social media to “hook” audiences in for the deeper stuff. We should give, give again, and give some more before ever asking for anything from our community. “We have to start respecting the nuances of every platform.”

0:39 no matter what you do, our job us to tell our story
1:44 storytelling in micro moments
4:05 storytelling on social
8:14 quality storytelling always wins
8:34 social networks = distribution
10:30 biggest asset: time
11:56 eyes and ears “attention is the only commodity”
12:58 “give, give, give, ask”
13:30 give people happy stories, make them laugh
14:51 we have to act human.

Related articles

• Jab Jab Jab Right Hook: Interview with Gary Vaynerchuk

A Client Story: Brett Hayworth

I met Brett a while back in Hollywood. We ended up chatting a bit about branding and telling each other we should work together one of these days. He called me out of the blue about a year later as he was ramping up for production on a sitcom pilot. I won’t go into too much of the production headache that was evident when I starting working with him, but let’s just say, I spent a lot of time helping him breathe.

As we talked, we honed in on specific characteristics and goals. Brett Hayworth is more than an actor, producer, screenwriter, and author. He is also a gifted speaker, entrepreneur and family man.

Recently completing the television pilot, “Just Brett and Lilly” (WATCH NOW), Brett sets out to use his story to empower and inspire audiences. A single father for many years, he found himself on the brink of hopelessness, doing everything he could to raise, protect, and inspire his daughter Lilly. Recently, he married an amazing mother of two, Lisa, and they have begun their journey as a larger family. In February of 2015, Lilly (10 years old) was diagnosed with Type 1 Diabetes and once again, their family took a difficult hit.

It has always been a dream of Brett’s to pursue acting, writing, and producing. Holding on to a dream that seemed so far out of reach, he picked up small acting parts and began writing and producing a sitcom. He is in final talks with producers concerning an upcoming full feature dramatic film, diving into some of the more challenging aspects of his story. He is currently finishing up his book “Backwards: How to Live Forward!”, set to be released early 2016.

Brett’s message of hope, perseverance, and purpose is his story, a man from humble beginnings blessed with an innate sense of what it takes to become the best, most successful person God created him to be, who also has the talent for transferring that knowledge to the rest of us. He believes in giving the gift of going second, understanding the art of true leadership. He is available to speak to universities, schools, churches, organizations, and businesses. Brett touches on topics such as, pursuing your God-given purpose, reaching dreams, setting goals, growing leaders, the gift of going second, and family.

Watch his newest project, “The Gift of Going Second” (WATCH NOW), a 2 minute short inspirational film.

Visit BrettHayworth.com for More Info