FIR Podcast Network

#382: Josh Allan Dykstra and Mitchell Levy on Thought Leader Life Credibility Episode

Revolutionize your company culture with an energy-based operating system to help people love their work. This episode features #ThoughtLeader and #Expert, Josh Allan Dykstra (https://www.linkedin.com/in/joshallan/), a recognized thought leader on the future of work and company culture and an author, TEDx speaker and CEO of Helios – a community of leaders and work revolutionaries who are committed to creating a world where everyone can love their work.

Josh Allan’s expertise is in positive psychology, organization design, talent management, change management, employee engagement, learning and development and multiple assessments. He is a passionate holistic systems thinker who helps build healthy organizations with sustainable change efforts by looking at emerging technologies, cultural and social trends and value-centric organization design.

If you need someone to help with big-picture strategy, workplace trends and a clear vision of how to create a much better future for everyone, consider reaching out to Josh Allan Dykstra by visiting his website https://helios.work/ and going to https://www.linkedin.com/in/joshallan/.

Here are a few AHA messages from this episode:

* Organizations struggling with burnout should reach out to Josh Allan Dykstra. https://www.linkedin.com/in/joshallan/

* Do you want to help your employees experience love in their work? My role is not just to neutralize their burnout or cure them out of it by going back to zero. It is to actually energize them to be happy at work. #LoveWork https://helios.work/ @joshallan

* I can help to create a culture for your company by guiding you to increase the well-being of your people. People who are more focused and more positive are more efficient and more productive. #LoveWork https://www.linkedin.com/in/joshallan/

* The stories and case studies of clients and iconic brands that I have worked with gives me the credibility to save you retention costs and to produce manifold returns on the investment of what you pay me. #LoveWork https://helios.work/ @joshallan

* Peak performance at work is closely related to states of flow and energy alignment. I can mentor you for what you need to accomplish in order to draw that kind of performance from your people and not force them to perform. #LoveWork https://helios.work @joshallan

To learn more about Thought Leadership and how it can help you be successful, visit https://thoughtleaderlife.com/.

 

#383: Adrienne Barker and Mitchell Levy on Thought Leader Life Credibility Episode

Create a winning advertising campaign in order to effectively use promotional products that are beneficial to your firm. This episode features #ThoughtLeader and #Expert, Adrienne Barker (https://www.linkedin.com/in/adriennebarkerpge/), senior brand marketing manager at HALO Branded Solutions which is the second largest promotional product supplier in the US.  She is lifetime-certified with a Masters of Advertising Specialties, a PPAI fellow (Promotional Products Association Industry) and a SCORE-certified mentor and director of marketing.

Adrienne Barker has a complete understanding of the promotional product industry, supply chain management,

All praise the highly coveted link to your website! 

In the PESO Model process, where earned and owned media overlap, search engine optimization reigns supreme. Though SEO seems scary to a marketer or communicator who is not trained in the intricate details of the specialty, we are not going to focus on anything technical. Rather, the process focuses on doing what you do best while implementing some search engine optimization at the same time.

Once you get the hang of it, it’s fun and measurable and you will fall in love. With the process. Not with me. I mean, unless you want to fall in love with me. And, on that ridiculous note, let’s dig into earned media in the PESO Model process.

If you missed the high-level look at the model and the owned media deep dive, go do some reading (or listening). 

Today we’re going to look at earned media, how it differs from the media relations you’re accustomed to doing, and how it integrates with owned media to boost your search engine optimization and build credibility and expertise.

With the foundation of your owned media program, you’ve begun to create the content in your plan. If you haven’t started that process yet, now is the time. 

Because, as we begin to build the earned media foundation, it’s important to have content on your website and/or blog to link to from all the stories you’re going to get placed. If you don’t have content published and sitting on your site, the earned media process in a PESO Model program won’t be effective.

So get going on your content. It’s the most important piece of this process.

And then you can move on to the earned media section, which is the topic of today’s podcast episode.

If you want to learn how to implement this for your clients or for the organization for which you work—and become certified, which tells everyone you know what you’re doing and have done the deep work to put theory into practice–visit us in the Spin Sucks Academy.

And, if you have questions or need help, you can find us in the comments below or in the (free) Spin Sucks Community.

#378: Karthik Nagendra and Mitchell Levy on Thought Leader Life Credibility Episode

Engage your web visitors and convert them into clients with Thought Leadership Marketing. This episode features #ThoughtLeader and #Expert, Dr. Karthik Nagendra (https://www.linkedin.com/in/dr-karthik-nagendra ), an award-winning marketing consultant, certified life coach and entrepreneur with years of experience in strategy, marketing, operations and HR.

Dr. Karthik is dedicated to transforming companies and businesses into influencers by unearthing their big ideas and branding them as experts in their fields. His approach is grounded in facts that are sought out from fresh perspectives and research. He further helps in building corporate campaign portfolios that effectively strengthen image and value.

If you are an agency or company that is struggling with social media outreach, and you are determined to deliver value, consider reaching out to Dr. Karthik Nagendra through his website http://www.thought-starters.com/ and going to https://www.linkedin.com/in/dr-karthik-nagendra.

Here are a few AHA messages from this episode:

* Companies struggling to convert their web visitors to clients should reach out to Karthik Nagendra and start delivering top leadership contents that work. https://www.linkedin.com/in/dr-karthik-nagendra http://www.thought-starters.com/

* We help companies build Thought Leadership Programs effectively. And we do this by helping them with content strategy such as designing and marketing for their programs. https://www.linkedin.com/in/dr-karthik-nagendra http://www.thought-starters.com/

* Researching the customers and the prospects and identifying the kinds of content they are focusing on are the ways we convert visitors into a client. That’s precisely what we do. https://www.linkedin.com/in/dr-karthik-nagendra http://www.thought-starters.com/

* The approach to building a concrete content strategy includes lead generation and database building. It also focuses on creating content assets like articles, blogs and other outreach plans. Are you using digital media well? http://www.thought-starters.com/

To learn more about Thought Leadership and how it can help you be successful, visit: https://thoughtleaderlife.com/.

 

#379: Wael Zaki and Mitchell Levy on Thought Leader Life Credibility Episode

Acquire and retain the right talent by integrating the gig economy into your business. This episode features #ThoughtLeader and #Expert, Wael Zaki https://www.linkedin.com/in/WaelZak/, who is a seasoned human capital transformational leader with over 20 years of experience in EMEA. He partners with CEOs and other executives to transform their businesses via people strategies.

If you have an organization and you can’t afford full-time people, but you need help and support at a significantly greater level, you’re going to want to reach out to Wael Zaki at https://www.linkedin.com/in/WaelZak/. #GigEconomy

Here are a few AHA messages from this episode:

* Companies that cannot afford to hire full-time employees should see the work being done by Wael Zaki at https://www.

Many organizations had a go-to-market strategy in place heading into 2020, but the pandemic made them go back to the drawing board.

In this episode of AMP Up Your Digital Marketing, Glenn Gaudet speaks with Diana Stanley, Sr. Director of Marketing at Osmosis, a healthcare education platform that focuses on medical students and caregivers. They discuss Osmosis’s go-to-market strategy, and how it had to adjust during COVID-19.

You’ll learn:

* Why you must adjust your marketing strategy.  

* What to do if much of your traffic isn’t your target market.  

* How to build brand affinity. 

Being an organization that focuses on health education, future clinicians look at content from Osmosis in order to learn about specific health conditions and continue their education. It might be on YouTube, where it has over 1.6 million subscribers, or Facebook, where it has over 110,000 followers.

But when a global pandemic hit, medical students weren’t the only ones who wanted to know more about health conditions. COVID-19 became a sought after topic. So in this situation, how do you change your go-to-market strategy? Many of the people consuming this content are just in the general public and will never convert. So, what do you change?

“The core competency of what we do is education,” Stanley said. “With COVID-19, we leveraged that and made sure all of the different types of learners we have [were represented]. We extended the offering to everyone, including medical and health students, as well as general public caregivers.”

Osmosis had to ramp up content it had planned in the next several months and accelerate the content creation process. All its COVID-19 educational and informative content is free, and the offering and packaging of its curriculum for medical students and caregivers did not change.

Importance of Segmentation

Despite getting tens of thousands of more views on some of its COVID-19 content compared to its other content, Osmosis is able to handle the spike in traffic.

To adjust its go-to-market strategy for these new visitors, the company segments people who visit the company’s content and website into appropriate categories. If they’re able to identify someone is not a medical student or caregiver and is just trying to learn about COVID-19 to be safe, they won’t be treated as a lead, but they will get information on how to be safe and precautions they should take.

Osmosis has content on over 1,500 topics, so when people visit other topics, it’s more likely they are in Osmosis’s target audience.

Handling a Traffic Spike

Being in the field it’s in, Osmosis had a massive jump in traffic due to the educational resources it offers for COVID-19.

Furthermore, the company’s CMO, Rishi Desai, became the subject of a viral video after his appearance on Fox News, leading to even more of the general public visiting the site and consuming its content.

“With COVID, [traffic] exploded,” Stanley said. “We had this influx of traffic from people who weren’t part of our core target audience. And that was OK. Our mission statement is to provide future clinicians and caregivers the best experience possible. Caregivers are anyone and everyone who might have a medical condition or have a loved one with a medical condition, and they just want to learn about it. So that was OK. What we needed to focus on was, how do we segment this audience and make sure we are still engaging with them in some way?”

#374: Gerard Dache and Mitchell Levy on Thought Leader Life Credibility Episode

A way for people to get involved in blockchain. This episode features #ThoughtLeader and #Expert, Gerard Dache (https://www.linkedin.com/in/gerard-dache-60254023), the founder and executive director of the Government Blockchain Association.

Gerard has established over 100 government blockchain chapters around the world and has established approximately 50 working groups. GBA working groups cover a wide range of topics. Gerard has developed blockchain training materials that cover most of the established blockchain protocols, platforms and products.

If you and your org want to get involved in blockchain but do not know how or where to go, you should consider reaching out to Gerard Dache by visiting his website https://www.gbaglobal.org and going to https://www.linkedin.com/in/gerard-dache-60254023.

Here are a few AHA messages from this episode:

* People who are trying to get involved in #Blockchain but do not know how or where to go, should reach out to Gerard Dache. https://www.gbaglobal.org @Gerard_Dache

* #Blockchain is a phenomenal system that is new to most people. We are here to consolidate and put things together. We provide the road map for you to get involved. https://www.gbaglobal.org @Gerard_Dache

* Many members of the GBA include governments, individuals and orgs. We have more than 15 thousand people that we help to connect and get together in order to develop and build out #Blockchain solutions. https://www.gbaglobal.org @Gerard_Dache

* People join the GBA to leverage the professional workflows of #Blockchain technology. We work with four sectors: 1) the public sector; 2) the private sector; 3) orgs; and 4) governments. https://www.gbaglobal.org @Gerard_Dache

* I demonstrate through action that the GBA is an org that is going someplace. We care enough so that, if people come along, there will be lots of win-wins. People don’t care how much you know until they know how much you care. #Blockchain https://www.linkedin.com/in/gerard-dache-60254023

To learn more about Thought Leadership and how it can help you be successful, visit: https://thoughtleaderlife.com/.

 

#375: Jim Janosik and Mitchell Levy on Thought Leader Life Credibility Episode

Recruit key people for your organization with a collaborative talent acquisition approach. This episode features #ThoughtLeader and #Expert, Jim Janosik https://www.linkedin.com/in/Jim-Janosik-3180485/, who is a managing partner at J. Paul Partners.

Jim has developed a reputation with his clients for being a trusted advisor who is called upon to fill key leadership positions that will have a high impact on their organizations.

If you’ve got a high-ticket, high-touch candidate who you need to have sourced and presented, you’re going to want to reach out to Jim Janosik at

https://www.linkedin.com/in/Jim-Janosik-3180485/.

Here are a few AHA messages from this episode:

* Companies that are looking for the right candidate for a key leadership position should reach out to Jim Janosik at https://www.linkedin.com/in/Jim-Janosik-3180485/. #CandidateQuality

* #CandidateQuality is the elephant in the room in acquisition discussi...

The PESO Model has been around for a few years.

It’s a fairly new integrated model, in the big scheme of things, but it’s been in practice long enough that we know what works, what doesn’t, how to apply it to corporations and to non-profits, and how it works for B2B and B2C organizations.

The challenge with it, though, is a good majority of marketers and communicators look at the graphic that accompanies it and think, “Oh, I can do that!” because it’s simply a list of tactics.

When we revised the graphic earlier this year, we paid particular attention to how the media types overlap and what makes sense strategically.

Of course, people still look at it and think, “Oh, I can do that!” because all they see are the tactics.

But it’s not a tactical process. It’s a fully strategic and integrated model.

If there were ever a time to learn how to build a strategic PESO Model program, it is now.

Between the pandemic and furloughed jobs, and civil unrest and social injustice, the ability to evolve quickly has become more relevant.

That’s why we’re spending the next several weeks working through a strategic PESO Model framework.

Last week, we took a high-level look at it and the certification that accompanies it.

In the forthcoming weeks, we’ll look at how the media types strategically build into a PESO Model.

In this week’s episode, we look at owned media, how it works in this model, and why you have to stretch your left and right brains to do the work.

#370: Mike Wagner and Mitchell Levy on Thought Leader Life Credibility Episode

Win the talent war through a proven people leadership system. This episode features #ThoughtLeader and #Expert Mike Wagner (https://www.linkedin.com/in/michaelcwagner1/), the president of White Rabbit Group. He is a skilled communicator, facilitator, and business consultant and serves business teams to create a strong leadership culture.

Mike has been speaking professionally for over 30 years. He started his career as a pastor and church planter before entering the business world. He now serves leadership teams in the creation of competitive advantage and growth strategies. Mike’s mission is to release the wisdom and capacity of each organization he serves.

Orgs that are trying to win the #TalentWar and are not being successful should reach out to Mike Wagner by visiting his website, https://whiterabbitgroup.com, and going to https://www.linkedin.com/in/michaelcwagner1/.

Here are a couple of AHA messages from this episode:

* Orgs that realize that they are losing the #TalentWar should reach out to Mike Wagner. https://whiterabbitgroup.com @bigwags

* Orgs often face a huge problem: They have a number of talented people but are struggling to retain them. #TalentWar https://whiterabbitgroup.com @bigwags

* Winning the #TalentWar means engaging people so they stay and contribute. The way to fix this is by connecting leaders and followers. I help orgs connect direct reports with their managers and supervisors. https://whiterabbitgroup.com @bigwags

* Conventional training does not work. A different strategy is crucial to winning the #TalentWar. I help orgs deploy a winning strategy: installing a people leadership system for all employees. https://whiterabbitgroup.com @bigwags

* I worked with hundreds of senior leaders for over 10 years, which represents thousands of employees. This gives me the credibility to help orgs win the #TalentWar. https://www.linkedin.com/in/michaelcwagner1/

To learn more about Thought Leadership and how it can help you be successful, visit: https://thoughtleaderlife.com/.

 

#371: Terry Monaghan and Mitchell Levy on Thought Leader Life Credibility Episode

Get more done in less time through proven time strategies. This episode features #ThoughtLeader and #Expert Terry Monaghan (https://www.linkedin.com/in/terrymonaghan), owner of Organizing For Your Life LLC, dba Time Triage. She is a time strategist and performance and productivity expert.

Over the past 25 years, Terry has worked with hundreds of executives, professionals, and entrepreneurs, from Fortune 50 companies to successful solopreneurs. She helps her clients break out of the cycle of busy, overwhelmed, and exhausted to produce extraordinary results.

Executive women who are busy, exhausted, and overwhelmed and need to find balance in their lives should reach out to Terry Monaghan by visiting her website, http://www.timetriage.com, and going to https://www.linkedin.com/in/terrymonaghan.

Here are a couple of AHA messages from this episode:

* Executive women who are busy, exhausted, and overwhelmed should reach out to Terry Monaghan. #TimeStrategy http://www.timetriage.com @TimeTriage

Laura Field, a colleague, friend and fellow communicator, joined the Sharons to discuss how vital it is that we listen to our internal beings—particularly given all we are dealing with in this moment.

Laura has an intriguing background — being both a communications expert and a spiritual director — and offers us  intriguing insights about self-care and burnout.

Laura distills the reasons communicators are more susceptible to burnout, from our natures as thoughtful, nuanced and sensitive people to the oftentimes difficult reality of the environments where we operate. Sound familiar? Hang in for the second half of the broadcast when Laura outlines concrete practices we can put in place, beginning today, that will help us care for ourselves, humanize each other, and be in a better place to share our gifts and talents.

You can learn more about Laura at Soul Play Online.

Even when you have a limited digital marketing budget, there’s a lot you can do, and a great collaborative environment helps.

In this episode of AMP Up Your Digital Marketing, Glenn Gaudet speaks with Joshua Shulman, Digital Marketing Specialist at Bitmovin, a backend video SaaS company. They discuss how a startup can navigate its marketing campaigns on a short digital marketing budget.

You’ll learn:

* What B2C and B2B marketing have in common. 

* How to make the most of your digital marketing budget and find your buyer persona. 

* How great internal communication and collaboration can make up for what you don’t have. 

Marketing departments at startups typically have one common trait – a limited digital marketing budget.

The same is true for Bitmovin, but that doesn’t stop them from hitting their goals. As a SaaS company in a niche market, they had the additional challenge of finding their customer personas. How did they do that? Through a lot of testing, and a strong company culture that had a great internal communication strategy.

“I wish we had a lot of money to throw at it,” Josh said. “It’s all about pulling a lot of levers no matter what your budget is…It’s about chasing efficiency at low costs.”

Diverse Marketing Strategy

When Josh first arrived at Bitmovin a little over a year ago, the company was trying to define who it’s the ideal buyer persona is. Who is their audience? And how can it get that audience’s attention?

While some companies with more money can go all-in on advertising and big-budget marketing campaigns, startups with a limited digital marketing budget have to be more creative. The marketing team at Bitmovin worked together on different types of content, including blogs, ebooks,  and webinars, despite not having a dedicated content person on staff. Everyone was responsible for two blog posts per month.

The company also had a retargeting campaign using cookies and pixels on its website, tracking visitors and following up with them through ads across all its digital arms.

“There was a lot of testing of who our target audience is,” Josh said. “We had a guideline for what kind of persona we were looking for, but we didn’t know exactly how to hit them or who exactly they might have been.”

Team Collaboration

It’s not simple to collaborate on a content marketing strategy. You need people to go in and refine your content, work with Google Ads, create and place CTAs, and conduct keyword research.

It’s a lot of work for just one person and a lot for a team of people who each have other responsibilities, but that’s the reality of a startup marketing budget.

“There are organizations that put huge teams behind this, but we are a small startup,” Josh said. “You get someone from each part of the team to take on a small piece of the cake that is the task. I’ve never been on the content creation side, but I’ve been helping people coordinate blog posts, and I write blog posts. This is the first time for a lot of us.”

During the coronavirus pandemic, Bitmovin’s collaborative culture really came into the picture. The employees set up work-in meetings over video calls. There were some meetings that were just to check-in, but typically meetings were made to work on projects together, rather than have people do them on their own.

“Through quarantine,

The June 2020 episode of The Hobson and Holtz Report features Neville and Shel discussing…

* Their appearance on Joe Jaffe’s broadcast show

* A report on the all-virtual IABC World Conference

* Twitter’s move to let users record and tweet audio

* Three new blockchain developments of interest to communicators

* Flipboard’s new Storyboard feature

* A user email that prompted Merriam-Webster to update a dictionary definition

* How Wikipedia became a battleground for racial justice

* Facebook’s news tab and Instagram’s rise as a source of news

Dan York reports on inclusive language in technology and big players making big plays in podcasting.

We are hosting an FIR Communicators Coffee Break on Zoom each Thursday during the stay-at-home period at 1 p.m. ET. For credentials, contact Shel or Neville directly or request the credentials in our Facebook group or send an email to [email protected]. Spread the word to your communications community.

Special thanks to Jay Moonah for the opening and closing music.

You can find the stories from which Shel’s FIR content is selected at Shel’s Link Blog.

Links from This Month’s Episode

* United Nations: Communicators Can Save Lives. Here’s How.

* Joe Jaffe’s Corona TV on YouTube | LinkedIn | Facebook | Periscope

* Twitter will let users record and add up to 140 seconds of audio to tweets, rolling out to iOS users in the coming weeks

* Your Tweet, Your Voice

* Unstoppable Domains Announces Its First Batch of .Crypto Blogs on the Decentralized Internet

* Will decentralized blogs make freedom of speech Unstoppable?

* New York Times Publishes Details About Its Blockchain Prototype Project

* Microsoft’s ION is an Open-Source Bet on Bitcoin

* Flipboard rolls out Storyboards as a new way to highlight content

* Missouri woman prompts Merriam-Webster to redefine ‘racism’

* Luka Apps, 7-Year-Old Boy, Writes Letter To Lego, Gets His Toy Replaced

* How Wikipedia Became a Battleground for Racial Justice

* Facebook News Tab May Increase News Consumption & PR Impact

* Instagram ‘will overtake Twitter as a news source’

Links from Dan York’s Tech Report

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