Grow The Dream Show | Podcast Archive

Ever get those automated messages on Twitter or LinkedIn that are clearly not personal and not relevant? Of course you do. Ugh. Our takes on how to do it right and why it’s worth a few minutes. We also discuss some incredible killer content from Ziploc®, and whether Medium is a good idea for your brand — especially with the latest updates. If so, how can you make the most of it? A lot of usable content in this show.

Show Notes

In a serious ironic twist, this week’s “Brew of the Day” is Sound Check Blend from Left Roasters. Had we taken an extra moment or two for a sound check, we would’ve realized that the audio in our headphones was not the same as the audio going into the recording. So… our usual audio quality is a bit reduced this week.

Here are some links from the show’s content:

* Ziploc® creates brilliant content for their target market. How can you take this formula and create content with incredibly high relevance and get huge engagement?

* If you’re going to use Socedo, for crying out sideways, please take a moment and re-write the default messages.

* Last week, Medium announced some major updates, including an API that you can use to publish from other places, including this shiny new WordPress plugin.

* Facebook has made Instagram ads available to all advertisers via the Power Editor. Look for it at the “Ad Set” level within your campaigns. If you don’t see it yet, you’re likely to get it very soon as they roll it out.

* Moo has announced business cards with NFC chips in them. What do you think?

Questions? Comments? Cries of Outrage? Sound off by adding a comment!

This week, we talk about secrets to getting more bang for your Facebook ad buck and how to make sense out of your “Direct” traffic in Google Analytics. We also have a discussion about “rented” space for your content—like Medium—and ways to grow your following there while using POSSE to ensure you always own the original copy of everything. And more!

Show Notes

* Josh’s group is discussing Breakfast with Fred

* The Ziglar Podcast: iTunes / Web

* Josh’s viral post: The ultimate collection of podcasts for startup founders and the Facebook ad campaign… why is it getting standout results?

* The Indie Web created the idea of POSSE: Publish on your Own Site, Syndicate Elsewhere (or Everywhere)

* Known is a personal publishing platform you can use to POSSE your content. Download and install on your own server or use their hosted service, much like you can do with other open source projects like WordPress.

On Eclectic Marketing Monday, the ongoing growth of ad blockers, highlighted by the release of Apple’s iOS9 options, not only means ongoing struggles for the publishing industry, but means marketers and small businesses need to be agile and flexible. Is native article advertising the solution? We also talk about using employees who interact with customers for content, the very real possibility of legal smackdowns when using unlicensed images; use of Facebook notes and uplosions — upload explosions.

Show Notes

* Hershey’s Logo & Poo Emoji: You decide. (Hershey’s is no longer using this logo)

* Google Chrome Extension to preview wikipedia links: WikiPreview

* Seth Godin on ad blockers

* FTC Disclosure Guidelines for Advertising Content (March, 2013)

* Wired Magazine (2009) FTC Tells Amateur Bloggers to Disclose Freebies or Be Fined

* Where to find free images to use: WikiMedia Commons and Flickr are good sources for images with “Creative Commons” licenses. (Avoid anything with a “NC” in the license if you’re a business, and anything with an “ND” in the license if you plan to make changes, including superimposing text over the image.)

* Low-cost, “royalty-free” images: We use & recommend BigStock (We buy license packs, but if you’re using a large volume of images each month, the subscription might make sense.) Another good source is DepositPhotos.

 

Larry Kim will blow you away with a whole new understanding of engagement metrics, a post’s relevancy score and the concept of ‘auditioning’ Facebook posts on Twitter to determine the best choices. As founder of Wordstream.com, which manages about a half a billion dollars in digital advertising, Larry Kim is one of the most knowledgeable people in this industry. If you are doing (or want to do) any social media advertising, you need to listen to his measurable and successful strategies for getting strong engagement with the people you’re aiming at.

About Larry Kim

Larry Kim is the founder and CTO of WordStream, which provides Pay-Per-Click (PPC) advertising software and services to thousands of businesses. With his background as a software engineer, Larry has a vast knowledge of technology systems. Recognized for a number of years as a thought leader in internet marketing circles, Larry can often be found on stage at events or interacting on his wildly popular Twitter account.

In this episode, Larry shares some amazing tips and tricks that will help you lower the cost of your Facebook & Twitter ads, get better engagement out of your posts, and promote your content to wider audiences on what he calls, “microbudgets.”

Show Notes

Brew of the Day: Dulce Leonarda by Left Roasters. “This is my favorite variety from Left Roasters so far! It’s got a really nice lemony-citrus thing going.” – David (Thanks, Nathan!)

Note: Scroll down for all the slides from Larry’s presentation at #INBOUND15: “The Top 10 Social Media Advertising Hacks of All Time”

Links:

* Josh’s notes from Larry’s presentation are available on Medium

* Put more emoji in your tweets from the desktop with CopyAndPasteEmoji.com

An example of one of his highly engaging, emoji-laden tweets:

My slides for "The Top 10 Social Media Advertising Hacks of All Time" http://t.co/sE5bqqJ1Vp

David and Josh were at #INBOUND15 in Boston with 14,000(!) other marketers and mined a wealth of insights that they barely get started on, such as: the biggest detriment to successful content marketing is a lack of buy-in — making it part of the company culture. And on that point are some amazing examples of success, from appliances to Mini Coopers.

Show Notes

* We were thrilled to be involved in HubSpot’s INBOUND Conference in Boston. Next year’s event will be held in Boston in November!

* A HUGE shoutout to @NoemiKrause for bringing us chocolates all the way from Switzerland! Thank you, Noemi… best of luck to you!

* We referenced our episode featuring Marcus Sheridan. If you haven’t heard it yet, you’re missing out!

* Josh published his notes from “The Top 10 Social Media Advertising Hacks of All Time!” by Larry Kim on Medium.

* David published his notes from “The 30-Minute Marketing Plan: Eliminate the Five Most Common Challenges With Executing Inbound Marketing” by Eric Keiles on Inbound.org.

* “Hi” to our newest listener!

Some Fun Photos for you…

http://growthedream.tumblr.com/post/129087065948/joshmuccio-and-david-from-our-podcast-the-grow

Chris Goward is founder of WiderFunnel and a former biochemist who spent time in advertising, seeing the dramatic need for measuring outcomes. He gives some incredible information on conversion rate optimization, squinting your eyes to see the big elements on your landing page, the best ways of testing different options, even the best color for your “buttons!”

About Chris Goward

Chris Goward is the author of You Should Test That! and the founder of WiderFunnel—the full-service marketing optimization agency that pioneered landing-page and conversion-rate optimization methods for companies such as Google, Electronic Arts, Iron Mountain, Magento and BuildDirect.com.

Chris is a frequent speaker at some of the top marketing conferences, and has also been invited to speak on behalf of companies such as Google, Magento, Citrix, MarketingProfs, Netprospex, Unbounce and Optimizely.

Show Notes

For starters, you’re definitely going to want to grab a copy of You Should Test That: Conversion Optimization for More Leads, Sales and Profit or The Art and Science of Optimized Marketing from Amazon or wherever you get your books.

That said, here are some links we mentioned:

* Download a free chapter of Chris’ book here.

* Check out the WiderFunnel blog

* Here are the books Chris recommended:

* Predictably Irrational by Dan Ariely

* Influence: The Psychology of Persuasion by Robert Cialdini

* Nudge: Improving Decisions About Health, Wealth, and Happiness by Richard H. Thaler

* Brainfluence: 100 Ways to Persuade and Convince Consumers with Neuromarketing by Roger Dooley

* How to Get People to Do Stuff: Master the art and science of persuasion and motivation by Susan Weinschenk

* One tool you can use to get started with testing and optimizing: Optimizely

* Another is the Visual Website Optimizer

Maybe our most eclectic show ever. We cover 1 billion Facebook users in one day, Uber advertising on radio for drivers, the ever-fun “latent semantic indexing,” the end of the corporate bubble and the requirement now that people be lifelong learners and not rely on one employer.

Show Notes

Brew of the Day: Sumatra Mandheling Gayo Mountain Supreme from Wicked Joe – thanks to Bob Mullen from Mullen Brothers Jewelers!

Links we mentioned:

* Zuck on Facebook’s 1 Billion people in a single day milestone

* The blog post from Convince and Convert that brought “Latent Semantic Indexing” to our attention.

* You can use the Google Adwords Keyword Planner to discover useful keywords (free if you have an Adwords account)

* WordTracker is another keyword research tool (paid) we use and recommend

 

As you already know, we think blogging is indispensable for your business. Now HubSpot has issued a deeply researched report on how to write blog posts that compound — that continue to grow over time. Why? The report finds that while only 1 in 10 blog posts compound, they account for 38% of blog traffic. So you want to increase the number of compounding blog posts. We break down the report and explain the key takeaways.

This week’s show is brought to you by Audible.

Get a Free Audiobook of Your Choice! Visit growthedream.com/audible & you’ll also get a free 30-day trial of their service!

 

Show Notes

* Another Google Analytics tool from Josh: Filament

* Are you going to INBOUND? We’ll see you there!

* The TED Talk from Brené Brown that David mentioned: The Power of Vulnerability

Compounding Blog Posts

The big story for today: HubSpot’s report on compounding blog posts. Download it here.

In today’s episode, Josh and David talk about how to make Google Analytics more useful for your business. If you’re guilty of only checking your analytics account once a month and you aren’t getting actionable data, then this show is for you. We’ll explain how important it is to configure goal tracking the extra steps you can take to make analytics more useful.

Show Notes

Here’s where to find stuff we mentioned on today’s show. (Did we miss something? Let us know in the comments!)

* Geckoboard – Web-based “dashboard” tool for measuring your major marketing KPIs, including info from Google Analytics, social media profiles, email platforms like MailChimp, etc.

* The “Perfect” Dashboard – click to install this in your Google Analytics account. Only really useful for e-commerce businesses.

* CallRail – Call tracking software that dynamically swaps out phone numbers on your website based upon Google Adwords campaigns and other traffic sources.

* GAget – App for displaying your Google Analytics info in a simple, beautiful fashion (iPhone and OSX)

* GetSiteControl – Competitor to HelloBar, offers multiple types of attention-getting promo widgets for your site, along with really useful

What are the hottest marketing trends right now? No surprise that content marketing tops the heap, according to a SmartInsights.com poll. But some of the others are eye-opening. Number two? Big Data. What is Big Data? Well, we educate ourselves and you on what it is and how it is becoming increasingly relevant to marketing business — and not just big businesses anymore. We also have an ongoing dispute over two famous John Williams themes.

Stuff We Mentioned

* Josh’s Twitter Tool: Narrow

* David’s “insights for your Twitter account” tool: ThinkUp

* Find your Twitter “unfollowers” with CrowdFire (formerly JustUnfollow)… and do lots of other interesting things

* Another tool (Josh uses this one) for finding people who aren’t following back: Toolset.co

* The History Channel show that David & his Twitter account love to watch: Alone (Tweets: #AloneShow)

* Brand the links you tweet and promote your own content simultaneously: Start A Fire

* Nice receipts & automated follow-up for e-commerce: Receiptful (works with Shopify & WooCommerce)

* Big Data & Predictive Analytics made available to small business: What homes are about to go on the market? Offrs.com

* Targeting a single person with Facebook ads: The Ultimate Retaliation: Pranking My Roommate with Facebook Ads

The Big Chart We Discussed: