“And then the day came when the risk to remain tight in a bud was more painful than the risk to bloom.” ~ Anais Nin
This is your time to bloom. The season when you share your skill, the talent you have honed over the years. Nothing tells a story like the video and photography being shared today. You have the talent, now start sharing it!
“This is the miracle that happens every time to those who really love: the more they give, the more they possess.” Rainer Maria Rilke – New blog Post on Tips to Promote your Blog! Simple easy tips you must do if you blog. Read the full post I made on Elephant Journal. http://www.elephantjournal.com/2013/03/10-ways-to-promote-your-blog/
Instagram officially hit 100 million users. Put that in your pipe and smoke it. 100 million users. That is a ridiculous number. Why do users love it? Simple, the effects are cool and easy to use. The above picture has a little blur so only Eric’s face is in focus. A Lo-Fi effect so there is a slight hipster factor, just enough to match the white GTI we have been known to role around in. All of this editing and uploading took under 10 seconds. That is why Instagram is so popular. That is why Instagram continues to grow at an astonishing pace. People thought Facebook was crazy for spending 1 billion dollars on the tiny network (actually it turns out Yahoo was crazy and stupid for blowing the deal to buy Facebook for 750 million). Facebook saw how many pictures were being shared on Facebook and went all in on Instagram. You should also.
What does this mean for your social strategy? Treat it like Pinterest. It is o.k. to love it or hate it, but get your content on it. Share your pictures you are putting on Facebook on Pinterest and Instagram. Think of it as a place you can create content and distribute it. This is the basis of your social strategy -create and distribute. Share. The tools are on your iPhone, easy to use and as powerful as your imagination. Start using them…today.
“Discipline is the bridge between goals and accomplishment.” Jim Rohn – I was looking at this quote by Jim Rohn this week, thinking about how quickly social media is changing. Everybody and their mother is a social media expert today. The reality is, everybody should be an expert. Right now, everybody wants to grow their business via Facebook. This is a goal. To accomplish this goal you have to have discipline. Discipline to be consistent in your content creation and even more disciplined in your distribution of that content. In 2013, we will see the gap widen between those who are consistent and those who stop and start again. You may not be a creative genius, but you will look like a social media genius if you practice day in and day out.
“If you’re alive, you can’t be bored in San Francisco. If you’re not alive, San Francisco will bring you to life.” William Saroyan
“You only need sit still long enough in some attractive spot in the woods that all its inhabitants may exhibit themselves to you by turns.” – Henry David Thoreau
“There is one spectacle grander than the sea, that is the sky; there is one spectacle grander than the sky, that is the interior of the soul.” ~Victor Hugo
We just had an amazing 3 days of shooting photographs at Yoga Journal San Francisco 2013 (see them here). The Bay Area was filled with yogis! It was great to see friends from across the country, experience amazing teachers and feel the city vibrate with positive energy. The photo below is a shot from the closing ceremony, filled with smiling faces jumping, hugging and singing. In many ways, yoga is about a celebration of life and love. This conference has everything from drama to mourning to education to asana to connection. All in the City by the Bay!
Your social media presence is a combination of the quality of your content and the consistency with which you execute. It is not quantity, but rather sharing your content using your strategy every single time. Your community wants to trust your content, you have to make it easy for them to engage with and share.
Quality is a subjective word, set the standard high and your content will be shareable. For text, this starts with basics like spell check and ends with creativity. Knowledge transfer is no longer sufficient, there are too many resources sharing the same information you have. The only way to differentiate yourself is quality. If you are taking photos, look at them critically and take small steps to shoot better. The same goes for video, here we are seeing the skills needed to edit out mistakes and keep the video visually stimulating making the difference in what is watchable and what is inspiring to share.
Consistency is the achilles heel of every strategy. As you implement your social media strategy you have to evaluate what works and fine tune your content, frequency and voice to really engage your community. Presenting your content consistently makes it easy for us to like, comment and share your content. The prime example of this shows up in how you capture or create your content. Develop a process and stick with it! I see a lot of businesses posting pictures…randomly. If you are sharing pictures with quotes, paste the quote in the status update as well, every single time. Your consistency creates the opportunity for us to be trained on how and what to share. Trust Your Strategy!!!
Facebook is making BIG changes since going Public. They have finally revamped the Administration of Pages. With multiple Roles from Manager to Moderator to Content Creator to Advertiser to Insights Analyst – These roles are more geared for an Agency than a Small Business. That said, the real question is what do you have to do?
Log-in to your Page and edit the roles of any Admins you have. You can see the images below have descriptions as to what control the different Roles people can have as variations of the role Admin. Think about the Content Creator role, in the end this may be the most important position you assign!!!
Facebook released a new mobile App, Facebook Camera – it is awesome! Why? Photo sharing is the heart of Facebook. Like Instagram, now you can see just the photos your friends have shared and the look great on an iPhone. Is this enough? No!
Borrowing heavily their purchase of Instagram you can easily edit and color your photos to make them more visually appealing. I like the effects on Instagram better, but appreciate the logic and convenience Facebook brings to everything. The Facebook Camera App is fast and easy to use. Photos are not only fun and easy to share, they are very much “in focus.” Share more of what you love…photos.
We were pretty lucky to shoot a yoga event at the White House recently. Inspired by our friend Phillip Askew (click on his name to see an amazing video he shot) we had Peter Sterios do a 10 minute head stand – this was shot as a time lapse – check out the final version in the video below!
