Free Webinar Wednesdays

Keeping the Conversation Going with Video Marketing and WSI’s Ryan Kelly

Date: Wednesday, November 20, 2019 @ 1 pm Eastern (NO show November 13th)

This week’s show is is the first in what will be a continuing series of shows dedicated to sharing detailed information on the various chapters that appear in WSI’s 3rd edition of the best-selling book, Digital Minds.

You’ve all heard the saying… “A picture is worth a thousand words,” right? While the inspiration for this famous quote can be found as far back as 1906, the literal use of that exact phrase can be attributed to a 1918 newspaper article from the San Antonio Light - well before internet users were spending countless hours on YouTube or live streaming videos on their personal Facebook profiles.

Video is here (and has been here for a while now) and won’t be going away. Smart business professionals have figured out ways to harness the power of this medium to educate, entertain, inform, and most important of all… build trusted relationships with an audience far beyond who they could ever imagine speaking to in person.

This week I’m super excited to welcome to the show one of my very good friends, fellow WSI consultant, and co-author from the book, Digital Minds, Ryan Kelly. His chapter focuses on how to leverage the power of video in building a conversation online, and over the past year has been busy building his own YouTube channel to do exactly that! 

Meet Our Guest - Ryan Kelly

Ryan has been a principal at WSI Smart Marketing since 2008. He has assisted countless companies throughout the United States in developing and achieving profitable business strategies and goals through advanced online digital marketing solutions.

Although he has a passion for all things related to digital marketing, he especially loves using video to tell stories. You can visit his YouTube channel at “SEO on the GO.” Ryan’s experience in marketing, sales, and training keep him in high demand as a speaker.

Personally, I'm super excited to welcome Ryan to the show and know it's going to be a great conversation. If you're lucky, we may even tell you the story about canoeing together in Canada (while recording video for his YouTube channel). You'll have to tune in to find out!

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If you are not yet registered for the Free Webinar Wednesdays series, click here to register. We look forward to seeing you online!

About Free Webinar Wednesdays

Free Webinar Wednesdays was created as a community building tool to bring professionals together to share pertinent business development information, provide subject matter experts with a platform to open a learning dialog, and inspire small business owners to reach their professional goals.

Free Webinar Wednesdays is sponsored by WSI Digital.

Register Today

If you are not yet registered for the Free Webinar Wednesdays series, click here to register. We look forward to seeing you online!

About Free Webinar Wednesdays

Free Webinar Wednesdays was created as a community building tool to bring professionals together to share pertinent business development information, provide subject matter experts with a platform to open a learning dialog, and inspire small business owners to reach their professional goals.

Free Webinar Wednesdays is sponsored by WSI Digital.

WSI’s New 2019 Digital Minds Book Chapter Review

Date: Wednesday, November 6, 2019 

First things first, this week I have to share with you some thoughts from an article I read that talked about the “5 Things to Stop Doing Immediately on LinkedIn”. Some of these may seem obvious to those of you who are familiar with LinkedIn, however for those of you who are just starting out or relatively new… you may want to pay attention. 

1. Posting inflammatory comments (LinkedIn isn’t the place to start a fight or build controversy - and while differing opinions are always respected, remember to keep those comments constructive.) 
2. Sending sales via LinkedIn messaging (#1 PET PEEVE of mine. Do not send mass sales messages via messaging after connecting with someone. While you may think these are effective, they are increasingly becoming seen as spam and could ruin your brand image.) 
3. Tagging unrelated people in posts for exposure (If they are not involved in your post or your life, avoid the temptation of adding others to your post in hopes of getting more views by using their connections. This could easily backfire on your if the other person feels they are being “used” by you.) 
4. Talking about politics (If you wouldn’t get into this with your boss, probably not appropriate for posting on LinkedIn.  While there may be some conversations that may touch on politics, try to avoid anything that would be overtly polarizing.)
5. Circumventing the job application process and going right to senior leadership (Companies hiring on LinkedIn will have a process that’s best to follow. If you do happen to have a good (and real) connection to a senior member of the leadership team, then reaching out to them directly should be fine. But if you are just using LinkedIn to get around the HR process in hopes that you can sneak in the back-door, don’t do it. )

Moving on from the taboos of LinkedIn, I dive into a very special announcement… I'm excited to announce that WSI's 3rd edition of our best-selling book, "Digital Minds," is complete and coming to a bookstore (or more likely Amazon) nearest you! While I was traveling and could not make it to the WSI global convention in Cancun, there was an early release and every author signed autographs on the book

As with the prior two editions of the book, I was again asked to write a chapter and contribute to its creation. You’ll find my thoughts in chapter 7, Shortening the Sales Cycle with Conversational Marketing, and cannot wait to share it with all of you on a future episode of Free Webinar Wednesdays. 

During this week’s show, I walk through a high level summary of all the chapters, and how you can utilize them in your business. Future shows will have fellow WSI authors joining me on the show to share their insights, so stay tuned!

Next week’s show will be canceled due to the fact that I’ll be presenting for the Independent Community Bankers of America at their 2019 Marketing Conference in Dallas, TX. I’ll be spending the entire day with 50+ bank marketers from around the country talking all about digital marketing strategies (some of the most fun I get to have in my business)! But we will hopefully be back the following week to get back on track! In the meantime, scroll down to check out some of the other shows and  listen in on all the other past topics created right here on Free Webinar Wednesdays for your benefit!

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If you are not yet registered for the Free Webinar Wednesdays series, click here to register. We look forward to seeing you online!

About Free Webinar Wednesdays

Free Webinar Wednesdays was created as a community building tool to bring professionals together to share pertinent business development information, provide subject matter experts with a platform to open a learning dialog, and inspire small business owners to reach their professional goals.

Free Webinar Wednesdays is sponsored by WSI Digital.

 

Register Today

If you are not yet registered for the Free Webinar Wednesdays series, click here to register. We look forward to seeing you online!

About Free Webinar Wednesdays

Free Webinar Wednesdays was created as a community building tool to bring professionals together to share pertinent business development information, provide subject matter experts with a platform to open a learning dialog, and inspire small business owners to reach their professional goals.

Free Webinar Wednesdays is sponsored by WSI Digital.

LinkedIn Rolling out Some New Feature for Fall 2019!

Date: Wednesday, October 30, 2019 

Have you seen all the new features on LinkedIn? On this week’s episode I’ll walk through all of these new features and chat about how you can put them to work for your own personal (and business) LinkedIn strategy.

First things first, I’d like to share with you a quote that I keep in the back of my head when creating LinkedIn profiles for brands, as well as working on mine. On social media it’s all about getting someone to “Know me, like me, trust me.” Developing relationships on LinkedIn is extremely beneficial, and not only to your sales revenue.

What this really means is your connections need to really know who you are, like what information you are sharing, and trust that the information is authentic and accurate. This personifies your brand and helps you reach more individuals. Through the content you are sharing, you can further this concept of personifying your brand through posting/positioning yourself as an educator and a resource to make the industry (and your connections/followers) better. People will reach out with trust that you can help them rather than selling them on something. 

Getting into the actual features that have recently made their way to LinkedIn, I start with ‘LinkedIn Events’.This feature unfortunately is only available for personal profiles and cannot be used on company/brand pages (yet); however we see that this feature has room to grow and can predict to see this in years to come. I do talk about how you can leverage your personal profile to create an event that will work to benefit your company/brand.

For example, I travel and speak at conventions, marketing forums and banking schools. Therefore, I could post the event to my personal profile, ‘Digital Marketing Forum, Presented by Eric Cook’, share the location, time, and a brief description that includes the host’s information (to help build awareness and maybe even sell tickets for them). This helps positively represent myself as a speaker in the industry, as well as helps to promote the event itself - making it a win-win for everyone!

Continuing on with the new features we see ‘Notifying Employees’ when a post is made to a company page. This gives you, as a company page administrator, the opportunity to push out an article to LinkedIn, and notify your employees it’s been updated, so they can in turn share on their personal profiles as well. This gives more visibility to your post and can bring in new customers or connections to your company! We do this internally here at WSI.

The last feature I will share here in the blog, (trying to keep these short and sweet!) is the ‘Content Suggestions/Status Update’ feature. This feature is really helpful if you are not quite sure what content to share to increase engagement with your connections. LinkedIn has a team of journalist that hand pick articles, pictures, and overall content. What is interesting is they analyze your page, the industry you are in, and the category that you identify with, and this is how they accurately provide content/post suggestions.

Check out the recap of the show to hear a couple more features that LinkedIn has recently rolled out! Post in the comments your favorite - or better yet, let’s connect on LinkedIn and we can chat there. Either way, I look forward to your thoughts.

Register Today

If you are not yet registered for the Free Webinar Wednesdays series, click here to register. We look forward to seeing you online!

About Free Webinar Wednesdays

Free Webinar Wednesdays was created as a community building tool to bring professionals together to share pertinent business development information, provide subject matter experts with a platform to open a learning dialog, and inspire small business owners to reach their professional goals.

Free Webinar Wednesdays is sponsored by WSI Digital.

Here Comes a New Collection of Google Stuff!

Date: Wednesday, October 16, 2019

This episode of Free Webinar Wednesday we experience a couple hiccups due to an undiagnosed power outage, if you were listening to the live recording you got in on the action… However if you are coming back to listen to the recorded version, there are a couple sections that are edited out due to technical issues with audio. Needless to say we survived and continued on with the show! This week we talk all things new in the realm of Google, and why I think Google products are a good option for you. It should come as no surprise that the world’s leading search engine is well equipped with its own bag of tricks.

Google has released a new platform called ‘Google Posts’. This platform has similar functionality to Facebook or Instagram stories, essentially a slideshow of different images/text. The main difference in relation to stories, is the Google Posts do not disappear after 24 hours. You can decide the duration that you want this feature to run, or you can choose to use this permanently and not remove it from your page/site. You can learn more about this site on the link I shared in the video! It is an amazing way to get ahead of competitors in the industry and become more visible to consumers. 

Like Google Posts being an amazing option for your business, I would also encourage you to take a look at ‘Google’s Family of Products’ page. All Google products on their website has been recently updated and I am going to walk you through the site! First mind blowing product, Buds. You may be thinking they did a little R&D (rip off & duplicate) from Apple’s new ‘AirPods’, however Google has included far more features that will aid your day to day activities. The first addition to the bluetooth speaker that absolutely blew my mind was the access to Google Assistant.

Normal bluetooth headphones upon receiving a notification will ding, or make a sound in your ear to notify you; Buds, if given access to your Google Calendar, will audibly tell you what appointment or event you have coming up. For example mine may say over my heavy metal music, “Eric, you have a call with the team in 10 minutes”. You can also program your contacts and caller  ID. So now if Alicia calls me, it will say “Eric, your wife is calling you”. How cool is that? 

The Buds do not stop there… Google has incorporated “real time language translations”. This means if someone is speaking in a different language to you, the Buds will pick up what they are saying, translate it, and read it back to you. This feature would have been  crazy helpful throughout my travels this summer, instead of me only knowing foreign words for beer and bathroom. 

The next Google Product we chatted about was the Google ChromeBook.This is Google’s edition of a laptop which was released in 2011. The updated version of the ChromeBook is now called the PixelBook. After having issues with my Mac I decided to try out the PixelBook, and was pleasantly surprised. There are increased security measures, it is cloud based so it works offline, and in general a lot of schools and institutions are over to this!

Thank you to all those who tuned in live, and stuck with me through the technical problems! Check back to watch the recording to learn more about all the Google products I chatted about and other platforms I have been loving recently! Also no show next week!

Register Today

If you are not yet registered for the Free Webinar Wednesdays series, click here to register. We look forward to seeing you online!

About Free Webinar Wednesdays

Free Webinar Wednesdays was created as a community building tool to bring professionals together to share pertinent business development information, provide subject matter experts with a platform to open a learning dialog, and inspire small business owners to reach their professional goals.

Free Webinar Wednesdays is sponsored by WSI Digital.

Conference Planning for 2020 - Join me in San Diego for Social Media Marketing World

Date: Wednesday, October 9, 2019

Social Media Marketing World’s Social Media Marketing World Conference is on the horizon (yes, 2020 will be here before we know it) and this week I am going to give you all of the tips on how to convince your boss that this needs to be in your 2020 budget. March 1-3 of 2020 this event comes to downtown San Diego at the Convention Center. The first time I attended was in 2018, I had no other words to describe it other than I felt like a “kid in a candy store”; that is why I decided to go back in 2019, and already purchased my ticket for 2020!  If you geek out (like me) over anything digital marketing based… this is the event for you. 

The number one reason why I continue to go back every year, other than the amazing content, would be the accessibility to the experts. The workshop instructors, the keynote speakers, and those deemed experts in their field, attend the event just like you and me. They walk through the networking plaza and do not mind if they are shouted out to take a selfie (thanks Mari Smith, Michael Stelzner, Vivika VanRosen, Chewbacca Mom...). For my banking people out there, listen to the recording to hear the advice Mari Smith, an expert in all things Facebook, gave for the community banking industry! 

I urge you to visit the website and look through the different categories in the digital marketing field that the event will touch on. The pillars of the event are mainly the different Social Media platforms, like Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, Snapchat, YouTube, Pinterest and all of the strategies to use them. Learn from the experts how to use these platforms effectively to engage and retain consumers. Once you are browsing on the website to gain more information you will come to the ticket information.

Each year I have been, and 2020 will be my third, I purchased the all-access pass. This pass allows me to attend all of the events and workshops, have networking time with the individuals presenting, and also have access to recordings of each workshop or speaker. This opportunity allows you to go back and listen to any speaker you may have missed, or wanted to learn more, after the event itself has ended.

With that said if you are unable to attend the event for any reason, there is an option to purchase a “Virtual Pass”. This pass gives you access to attend each of the workshops/speakers virtually, while also giving you access to the recordings after the conference. Both amazing options for you depending on your availability and interest in the event. I highly recommend the first option, as you can sip cocktails in the lobby with not only myself… however the experts running the event. 

Go to the website and register for your tickets through this link http://bit.ly/sme-events (affiliate link)! I hope to see you there! 

Register Today

If you are not yet registered for the Free Webinar Wednesdays series, click here to register. We look forward to seeing you online!

About Free Webinar Wednesdays

Free Webinar Wednesdays was created as a community building tool to bring professionals together to share pertinent business development information, provide subject matter experts with a platform to open a learning dialog, and inspire small business owners to reach their professional goals.

Free Webinar Wednesdays is sponsored by WSI Digital.

Another Hashtag to Follow and Facebook Ads Update

Date: Wednesday, October 2, 2019

We are back on schedule! Second show in two weeks, produced and recorded and we are on top of the moon (ok, not really). This week I’m going to dive into what I learned this year at the 2019 Sales and Marketing School at the Graduate School of Banking at the University of Wisconsin in Madison. Be sure to hop out to your favorite social network and search for the hashtag #GSBSMS19 for a recap of all the great posts from those who attended!

In today’s online world we finally have a way to filter through information or posts online. I share a quote from author Clay Shirky in the episode, “It’s not so much a case of information overload as it’s a case of filter failure”. What is a tool that can be used to do this? Hashtags. This week is all about hashtags and the importance to digital marketers. So, what can a hashtag do for you? Hashtags serve as a label to a conversation, or a keyword that sticks out making it easier to group/locate later.

Hashtags are especially important when you when organizing an event. This gives the event a location/page to view all the participants tweets, in one location, if the user decided to include the tweet. Hashtags on LinkedIn and Instagram can also be “subscribed” to, or “followed” to increase the likelihood that mentions of them will appear in your newsfeed as well. So, if you follow the hashtag #digitalmarketing in your feed you will see all of the posts that have used that hashtag in the past, and any that pop up in the future. This also helps you find new users, information to share, and provide value to your followers.

Last week I mentioned a platform called TweetBinder, which allowed us to track the hashtag analytics from the PCBS Hashtag Battle. If you missed last week’s episode, go check out our last write up to learn more! I talk this week about the different features of TweetBinder not mentioned on the last episode.

For paid users of the platform, TweetBinder allows you to further utilize the data coming out of Twitter. I talk mostly about the section labeled classified. This tab lets you view original tweets along with user demographics of who shared, commented, or liked the post. Original tweets are those that used the hashtag but included their own unique text, or photo.

We conclude this episode with a topic that is very prevalent in the digital marketing industry Facebook advertising (and privacy). Facebook has recently put restrictions on the amount of information you can use when creating advertisements targeted at three main areas. These are ads focused on the extension of credit, employment or housing (whether targeted to homeowners or renters). The demographic information you once used to be able to easily attain, has been restricted by the platform to increase their reputation in privacy settings. This means as marketers we need to remain creative and find different ways to target our audiences! Tune in to find out more and we’ll see you on the next show!

Register Today

If you are not yet registered for the Free Webinar Wednesdays series, click here to register. We look forward to seeing you online!

About Free Webinar Wednesdays

Free Webinar Wednesdays was created as a community building tool to bring professionals together to share pertinent business development information, provide subject matter experts with a platform to open a learning dialog, and inspire small business owners to reach their professional goals.

Free Webinar Wednesdays is sponsored by WSI Digital.

4th Annual Hashtag Battle and Getting Things Done

Date: Wednesday, September 25, 2019

Free Webinar Wednesdays has not gone anywhere! But I have… This week’s edition of FWW allows me to fill you in on some of the things I’ve done in my two weeks of absence. I start with my class at the Pacific Coast Banking School, where I’ve taught for four years now. As you all know I like to have a little fun, so my class had to incorporate some kind of competition during my week-long session.

To help appreciate and visualize the power of building relationships and visitability online with social media, both of my classes selected their own unique hashtag for use on Twitter first thing Monday morning. We then used a service called TweetBinder to analyze activity and the 4th annual ‘Hashtag Battle’ was on!. They selected  #PCBSFamily19 and #PCBSRockStars19 and were busy getting their “tweet on”. What hashtag do you think got more engagement? 

Throughout the week we utilized the analytics from TweetBinder to see which hashtag was performing better. We analyzed the advanced stats tab, which showed us the number of Twitter users that were impacted and/or reached. This also showed us that the Twitter users that engaged with the tweet, could be categorized as either unique users and/or contributors. TweetBinder allows you to take a step further in your twitter analytics, by looking at the activity report section. From individualizing Twitter users handles, to segmenting activity by days/time, to overall illustrating the engagement of your tweet. This feature within Twitter calculates the value of your tweet/Twitter profile based on your performance results. Who doesn’t love when technology can do it for us?

In addition to the hashtag learning observations, I also chat about Flipboard--one of my favorite apps of all time. During today’s webinar, I share with you some of my tips and secrets of how to get the most out of the Flipboard platform. Again, thank you all for tuning in! FWW is back, and will be live next week as well! 

Register Today

If you are not yet registered for the Free Webinar Wednesdays series, click here to register. We look forward to seeing you online!

About Free Webinar Wednesdays

Free Webinar Wednesdays was created as a community building tool to bring professionals together to share pertinent business development information, provide subject matter experts with a platform to open a learning dialog, and inspire small business owners to reach their professional goals.

Free Webinar Wednesdays is sponsored by WSI Digital.

Register Today

If you are not yet registered for the Free Webinar Wednesdays series, click here to register. We look forward to seeing you online!

About Free Webinar Wednesdays

Free Webinar Wednesdays was created as a community building tool to bring professionals together to share pertinent business development information, provide subject matter experts with a platform to open a learning dialog, and inspire small business owners to reach their professional goals.

Free Webinar Wednesdays is sponsored by WSI Digital.

No Show This Week (or Next)

Date: Wednesday, September 11th 2019 

Sorry everyone, while I was fully planning on doing a show, I'm not going to be able to make it this week. :-( 

While I've got you... I also want to send along thoughts and condolences to the families who lost their loved ones on this day 18 years ago. I still remember exactly where I was when I saw the news of "nine-eleven" and ask that you take a moment to do something nice for someone else - even a stranger.

After a couple weeks with no show, I'm sorry to keep pushing off but life calls. Next week I'm off to Wyoming for their Bank Lending Conference, so not sure if I'll be able to swing a show or not, but I've got my fingers crossed (and hope flights are in my favor). Thank you for your understanding, looking forward to the next show! 

Register Today

If you are not yet registered for the Free Webinar Wednesdays series, click here to register. We look forward to seeing you online!

About Free Webinar Wednesdays

Free Webinar Wednesdays was created as a community building tool to bring professionals together to share pertinent business development information, provide subject matter experts with a platform to open a learning dialog, and inspire small business owners to reach their professional goals.

Free Webinar Wednesdays is sponsored by WSI Digital.

 

Register Today

If you are not yet registered for the Free Webinar Wednesdays series, click here to register. We look forward to seeing you online!

About Free Webinar Wednesdays

Free Webinar Wednesdays was created as a community building tool to bring professionals together to share pertinent business development information, provide subject matter experts with a platform to open a learning dialog, and inspire small business owners to reach their professional goals.

Free Webinar Wednesdays is sponsored by WSI Digital.

No Show This Week - But Check Out the PCBS #HashgagBattle!

Date: Wednesday, September 4, 2019

No show this week, as I'm in Seattle teaching a full week of classes for the Pacific Coast Banking School. My course is all about Digital Marketing and Social Media and as part of the week, I'm running the fourth annual PCBS #HashtagBattle. Each of my two sessions (8 am and 10 am) select a unique hashtag on Monday, then use it throughout the week to build conversations and engagement via Twitter (and other platforms).

To follow along, hop over to Twitter and search for #PCBSFamily19 (8 am session) and #PCBSRockStars19 (10 am session). You can also follow the PCBS Twitter account directly at @thePCBS - or your's truly at @EricCook. 

We're also measuring activity using a cool tool called TweetBinder and you can check out the live reports for the 8 am and 10 am classes online! 

Register Today

If you are not yet registered for the Free Webinar Wednesdays series, click here to register. We look forward to seeing you online!

About Free Webinar Wednesdays

Free Webinar Wednesdays was created as a community building tool to bring professionals together to share pertinent business development information, provide subject matter experts with a platform to open a learning dialog, and inspire small business owners to reach their professional goals.

Free Webinar Wednesdays is sponsored by WSI Digital.

 

Register Today

If you are not yet registered for the Free Webinar Wednesdays series, click here to register. We look forward to seeing you online!

About Free Webinar Wednesdays

Free Webinar Wednesdays was created as a community building tool to bring professionals together to share pertinent business development information, provide subject matter experts with a platform to open a learning dialog, and inspire small business owners to reach their professional goals.

Free Webinar Wednesdays is sponsored by WSI Digital.

Some Things I Love - My Pixelbook and Bamboo Underwear (now that’s a combination!)

Date: Wednesday, August 28, 2019

This week’s show has a bit of a unique feel to it, as I start off talking about some new technology I’m using (loving my Google Pixelbook) and the pros - and some cons - of the Chrome OS. With me using it as my daily driver for the past week+ and being without my Macbook Pro, it’s got me thinking about my fallback process if a primary piece of technology I’m using fails - and you should too. Certainly something to think about before you “have” to think about it (meaning something failed and you don’t have a Plan B to fall back on).

For my next topic of discussion... and this is where the “bamboo underwear” reference in the title comes to play, I share two great, and one not-so-great, personal customer service experiences to get you thinking about what sort of a culture you’re creating in your business or organization. While I’ve talked about my experience at the Fort Wayne International Airport on past shows, I recently had an even better experience with the Cariloha company stepping up and honoring their lifetime guarantee. They produce amazing bamboo products (yes, like underwear) and started wearing their briefs many years ago. Listen in and you’ll hear what makes them so awesome, and why the next time you see me there’s almost a 100% chance I’ll be sporting their bamboo briefs.

Register Today

If you are not yet registered for the Free Webinar Wednesdays series, click here to register. We look forward to seeing you online!

About Free Webinar Wednesdays

Free Webinar Wednesdays was created as a community building tool to bring professionals together to share pertinent business development information, provide subject matter experts with a platform to open a learning dialog, and inspire small business owners to reach their professional goals.

Free Webinar Wednesdays is sponsored by WSI Digital.