Joel Comm's Blog, page 25

How to Use the Musical.ly App and Become a Rock Star

The Musical.ly app is one of the hottest social networks right now. A free app for Android and iOS devices, the app allows anyone to make their own music videos that you can share with friends. Being a former DJ and someone who always wished he had a better singing voice, I’ve had great fun exploring this app and creating my own short music videos. In this video, I explain why the Musical.ly app is so popular and demonstrate how to use the basic features.

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AltspaceVR – Virtual Reality Community for Oculus Rift, Samsung Gear VR and HTC Vive

What is AltspaceVR? It’s a new application for Oculus Rift, HTC Vive and Samsung Gear virtual reality devices, and it allows people to get together in a virtual space and interact. In the early days of the Internet, we had chat rooms where people could talk via text. Then, graphical chat rooms like The Palace began to surface. Though primitive with their 2D images and smilies for avatars, The Palace gave people a sense of space as they chatted via text. Next we had virtual worlds such as Second Life, which allowed people to create avatars and engage with others in a virtual space on their desktop computers. The space was confined to the size of the monitor you used to run the software. Fast-forward to 2016, and we have the release of consumer VR devices such as the Oculus Rift, HTC Vive and Samsung Gear VR. With the hardware, there are now software developers creating applications for these futuristic headsets. Among these applications are the world’s first consumer-ready virtual reality communities that put real people together in an immersive virtual space. And in these spaces you can move around, have real voice conversation, play games, watch videos and more. It’s truly an incredible experience and one you need to see if you want to understand what the future looks like. In this video, I take you inside the world of AltspaceVR and demonstrate what it looks like through the Oculus Rift headset.

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AltSpaceVR – Virtual Reality Community for Oculus Rift, Samsung Gear VR and HTC Vive

What is AltSpaceVR? It’s a new application for Oculus Rift, HTC Vive and Samsung Gear virtual reality devices, and it allows people to get together in a virtual space and interact. In the early days of the Internet, we had chat rooms where people could talk via text. Then, graphical chat rooms like The Palace began to surface. Though primitive with their 2D images and smilies for avatars, The Palace gave people a sense of space as they chatted via text. Next we had virtual worlds such as Second Life, which allowed people to create avatars and engage with others in a virtual space on their desktop computers. The space was confined to the size of the monitor you used to run the software. Fast-forward to 2016, and we have the release of consumer VR devices such as the Oculus Rift, HTC Vive and Samsung Gear VR. With the hardware, there are now software developers creating applications for these futuristic headsets. Among these applications are the world’s first consumer-ready virtual reality communities that put real people together in an immersive virtual space. And in these spaces you can move around, have real voice conversation, play games, watch videos and more. It’s truly an incredible experience and one you need to see if you want to understand what the future looks like. In this video, I take you inside the world of AltSpaceVR and demonstrate what it looks like through the Oculus Rift headset.

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The Best Live Video Streaming Apps

As a live video broadcaster, you will undoubtedly be eager to hear of the best live video streaming apps. I’ll never forget when I started live video streaming on my iPhone. It was January 2015 and Hang w/ had recently launched their app for iPhone. Since that time, I’ve been on the Meerkat bandwagon, streamed over 150 broadcasts on Periscope and become a big fan of Facebook Live. Meerkat is not being used by many anymore. However, there are now MANY options for live streaming from your smartphone. Being an iOS user, I shopped the appstore and found a bunch of new apps you might want to look at. From Busker and Live.ly to YouNow and FireTalk, the number of choices broadcasters now have is growing by the week. In this video, I give a quick rundown of what I discovered.

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Facebook Rolled Out Live Video Streaming. Here’s How to Do It Right

You knew this was coming. The moment Evan Spiegel rejected Mark Zuckerberg’s $3 billion offer(!) for Snapchat, Facebook was always going to produce its own live streaming feature and try to wash Spiegel away. Now it’s here. After testing with select figures since August 2015, Facebook is now rolling out Facebook Live to everyone. The feature allows anyone to broadcast video directly from their profiles or from the Mentions app. Likes and other emojis float across the bottom of the video in real time, giving broadcasters instant reactions. Live comments make it a two-way channel. Broadcasters can interact with audiences as they’re filming, and the films are later uploaded to the site as static content. For marketers who have experimented with Snapchat, it’s familiar stuff. For everyone else, it’s about to become familiar. But while Facebook Live looks simple, it leaves plenty of space for mistakes that are going to be seen by a lot of people. The launch itself died a minute into its own live stream when Zuckerberg disappeared from the sofa and the screen went blank. Oops!Here are five ways marketers can avoid embarrassing errors as they play around with Facebook’s new killer feature. 1. Plan Your Content… Or Plan A Routine Part of the fun of live streaming is that you can invite audiences into your life at any time. You can bring them behind the scenes of your business or make yourself available for an instant Q&A. But you’ll get a better reaction if you plan ahead. Instead of suddenly appearing in people’s lives, treat a live stream as an event. Tell people what you’re doing and when you’re doing it, and build excitement before the event. Even though Facebook Live makes personalities always available, audiences should value the time they spend with you. If you are going to be spontaneous, then make those get-togethers regular events. I’ve found that live streaming my regular walks has turned my most loyal audience members into a close community. Facebook Live’s features are only going to make that community closer. 2. Don’t Ignore The Title Facebook lets you give your live stream a title. That’s what your Facebook audience will see in their notifications and it’s what will determine whether they watch or turn away. Look at the titles of your most popular Facebook posts, use them to guide your choice of video titles… and check the stats when you’re done. (Facebook is giving viewer stats for live streaming.) It might take a little time to figure out which topics and titles get the best results so don’t rely on your gut for the best clicks and viewing figures. 3. Live Video Is Never About You (It’s Always About The Audience) The selfie generation is used to taking and publishing pictures of itself, and when you’re filming your own face it’s tempting to think that live video is all about you. It isn’t. It’s always about the audience. Don’t just use the front camera. Switch to the back camera to show what’s going on around you, and react to what the audience is saying. The comments that you’ll be able to see at the bottom of the video will be a great guide to what people want to know. Know what marketing message you want your stream to deliver but make sure you give viewers the entertainment and information they want. 4. Facebook Live Is A Dialogue, Not A Monologue Anyone who’s delivered keynotes knows the importance of engaging the audience: asking questions, handing out prizes, getting people to raise their hands. A talk should be an event, not a lecture. Live streaming should be just as interactive. Marketers should chat with audiences, not talk at them. Ask questions and tell them to share their answers in the comments. Instruct viewers to send their likes and hearts in response to great comments from other people. Facebook Live doesn’t just put a camera in your hand; it puts an audience in your hand. Play together! 5. Edit After The Stream Ends Once the stream ends, it’s uploaded to your wall and becomes a very different piece of content. Don’t ignore it. Go back and edit it. Choose an inviting thumbnail, select the category, and most importantly add a Call To Action. Facebook Live’s videos have two lives. It’s mistake to only let it live once!

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How Sir Winston Churchill’s Example Can Make You a Better Communicator

“To do our work, we all have to read a mass of paper. Nearly all of them are too long. This wastes time, while energy has to be spent in looking for the essential points.” Sound familiar? It could be a complaint made by anyone who has to read memos to make decisions. But that complaint wasn’t made by a company executive yesterday. It was made by Winston Churchill on August 9th, 1940, as Britain was facing its darkest hour against Nazi Germany. Overwhelmed by long-winded reports that he had to read before making a decision, the British Prime Minister issued a single-page memo to the War Cabinet with a one-word title: “Brevity.” The memo had four points: 1. Officials should “set out the main points in a series of short, crisp paragraphs.” 2. Statistics and “detailed analysis” should be laid out separately in an appendix. 3. Instead of writing a complete report, officials should try to produce an “aide-memoire” consisting only of headings that they can explain orally. 4. Writers should cut the padding and use conversational language. That advice is more than seventy years old, and it’s just as sound today as it ever was. If anything, the situation for decision makers today is worse than ever. We’re overwhelmed by white papers, reports, PDFs, ebooks and Web pages. We have an entire Internet that we can search for information as we research a market, and that’s before we’ve even opened our email. Inbox zero? Zero chance. Anyone can now put up a Web page, write a blog post or publish their own book on Kindle. Email threads go on and on, and drag in more people. Our problem isn’t that we don’t know enough to make smart decisions. It’s that it’s so hard to pull out the exact information we need. And even harder to do it quickly. We can all do something about that. Churchill’s memo is a great example of how to get across an idea. Each point is numbered. Each sentence gets straight to the point. The entire memo is no more than a page. You can read the whole thing in less than two minutes and come away with a clear understanding of what you have to do and why you have to do it. When we write emails to colleagues and partners, create reports that we want to publish or produce sales copy for products, we should be following Churchill’s advice. Get right to the point. Cut the jargon. Write as though we’re talking. Include plenty of headlines so that readers can skim and still understand. And we can pick up the phone. That’s not going to work for every piece of communication but if we treat readers as though they’re leaders who have giant decisions to make quickly, we’ll save everyone’s time and energy, create less work for ourselves, and land more sales.

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How a Bunch of Misfits Are Teaching the U.S. Navy to Think Creatively

When you’re looking for examples of creative thinking, innovation, and a willingness to break the rules, you might think of taking a peek inside garages in Silicon Valley or buying a ticket to SxSW. The last place you’d consider looking would be the military. The armed forces might be great at projecting power but it’s a place where are orders are obeyed, not questioned, and processes are continued because…well, that’s the way they’ve always been done. But a recent article in Harvard Business Review described how one unit in the U.S. Navy is dedicated to fostering new ways of thinking. The “rapid-innovation cell” was set up by Ben Kohlmann, an instructor and director of flight operations who wanted to build a culture of non-conformity. He looked for what the article calls “black sheep,” sailors who weren’t afraid to show dissent. One of his recruits had shouted at senior flag officers. Another had refused to go through basic training. A third had been kicked off a nuclear submarine after refusing an order. Kohlmann added a bunch of regular sailors who had until then followed the rules, took them all to Google and the Rocky Mountain Institute, created a syllabus about innovation, and built a naval A-Team of insubordinate misfits. The result has been the introduction of 3-D printers on ships and the use of robotic fish for stealthy underwater missions. Other parts of the military have started forming their own rapid-innovation cells. So what can the Navy’s rebel team teach entrepreneurs about thinking outside the box? First, it’s not enough to hire mavericks and hope they offer good ideas. Eventually, they run out of new thinking, and other people in the company don’t bother offering their own thoughts. Businesses should be encouraging everyone to contribute and they should be doing it all the time, whether it happens through suggestion boxes, dedicated times in team meetings, intranet forums, or one-on-one meetings with team leaders. Individuals should always feel that they have a place to contribute alone, so that they aren’t mocked or silenced or judged by other team members and managers. Ben Kohlmann tossed out the use of rank in his team so that everyone feels they have an equal voice; members of the unit call each other by their first names regardless of the number of stripes or shoulder bars they’ve earned. Those ideas should also come in volume. Many of them will be standard. Some will be truly bad. But some of them, especially the ones the team members reach for after they’ve thought of everything else, will be worth a second look. Writers at Upworthy, a viral content site, have to produce 25 headlines for every story, and it’s usually the last ones added to the list that perform the best. The rest are ditched. Entrepreneurs have to be equally careful about how they pick those creative ideas. The idea generation can be democratic, but some people are better at judging the viability of an idea than others. Managers tend to prefer the processes that brought them to their position, and the innovators themselves are usually too much in love with their own ideas to judge them objectively. The best people to judge a new way of doing things are usually other innovators: they’re impartial, open-minded, and can think critically enough to see flaws. Ben Kohlmann refers to his team as the “loyal opposition.” “Agitating against the status quo is how we contribute to the mission,” Joshua Marcuse, one of Kohlmann’s Pentagon colleagues, told Harvard Business Review. Agitating against the status quo is also how entrepreneurs get to achieve success.

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What This Fake Commercial Taught a $47 Billion Company About Marketing

Entrepreneurs are always told to turn their weaknesses into strengths…. which is a bit like telling an introvert they should get out more. It rarely happens. Tesla’s new ad, for example, talks about the power of its very cool autodrive system but it doesn’t mention the car’s battery range, the difficulty of finding charging stations outside California or the model’s high price. Weakness? What weakness? But what would happen if companies really did take that advice? What would happen if they took a problem that everyone knows about their product and made it the center of their marketing strategy? For example, we all know the strengths of baked beans as a product: they’re tasty, nutritious, kids love them, they’re easy to prepare, they’re a part of childhood. Those are usually the messages promoted in commercials for beans. And we know the product’s weakness too… trust me, when my company made the iFart app, we were very aware that our biggest competitor was a can of baked beans. So what would a smart commercial that put that product’s… explosive power front and center look like? It would probably look a lot like this commercial for “Haynes Baked Beans”: Sadly, that commercial isn’t real. It wasn’t commissioned by Haynes, or Heinz. It was made by Cinesite, a CGI company that wanted to show off its animation skills. But here’s the thing. Five months after Cinesite released that clip in December 2013, the film had racked up more than 9 million views. An official commercial by Heinz released a month later that used the product’s traditional childhood messaging had been seen little more than 14,000 times. Shared on social media, Cinesite’s commercial now has more than 21 million views. Now, it’s possible that if Heinz had used Cinesite’s commercial as its way of promoting its product, it would only have reminded 21 million people why they hadn’t eaten beans since they were kids. Letting one go in a math lesson could make you king of the class; interrupting a high-value sales presentation is less likely to make you master of the meeting room. But it’s more likely that while some people would have been put off, more people in that giant audience would have felt that they’d like to eat beans right now. Sales overall would probably have risen. That would have been a bold move by Heinz. It would have been a decision to weaken its messaging in favor of the benefits of wider reach. It’s easy to understand why decision-makers so rarely do it and why they tend to stick with promoting their products’ strengths instead of taking the advice to play up their weaknesses. But entrepreneurs are meant to be bold. We’re supposed to be willing to take risks… or at least to consider them. That old advice might not be a strategy for every business and every product but it is worth asking yourself how a commercial based on your product’s biggest weakness would look, and how much of a stink it would make.

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2 Things Most Successful Speakers Do Before a Speech

It was fall 2014. I had one more talk to give before I headed home to finish a two-week run of events and speaking engagements across the country. As I sat in the hall eating lunch with some of the attendees, one of them asked me what I was planning to speak about. It was a simple question but what happened next revealed two powerful lessons. First, I didn’t answer. Instead I asked the people at the table what they wanted me to talk about, and I listened to what they said. I always prepare before every talk I give. I research the audience, understand what they want to learn and adjust my talk to focus on the issues that mean the most to them. But the most powerful form of preparation any speaker can do is to listen. Talk to the audience, listen to their needs and hear their concerns. Nothing reveals more clearly what will most engage an audience. It’s the best preparation you can do. It was good that I listened before my talk because what the people at my table told me surprised the living daylights out of me. I talk about social media marketing, about business success, about making money with Google and about online entrepreneurship. They wanted me to talk about… photoquotes. Just photoquotes. Photoquotes are the images with inspiring quotes that I share on social media. They’re a bit of fun that people seem to like. It was a surprising choice but I listened. And I did it. I changed my talk. That was the second lesson. I hadn’t prepared a talk on photoquotes but I had prepared a talk on social media content. Because I knew my topic so well, it was easy to adjust a talk that I had prepared to take into account the information that my audience had told me it most wanted to know. The audience loved that talk. In fact, they loved it so much that I turned my photoquotes into a book. That book sold so well that I published a second one. When you’ve prepared so well that you really know your stuff, you can adjust on the fly and impress any audience you meet. Those two things that keynote speakers do before a talk–listen to the audience; know their stuff–don’t just apply to speakers. They also apply to everyone who has to address an audience. If you’re making a pitch to a potential new customer or to a venture capitalist, you’re not going to have too much time to grill them about their interests. But you may well have some time for a bit of small talk before you make your pitch. Use that time to ask them what they’re looking for. Listen to what they tell you. And know your product and your company well enough to be able to adjust the talk you’ve prepared. Originally published on Inc.com

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Zombies in the Workplace – with Tom Ziglar

As a young man, I learned a great deal from Zig Ziglar. Attending his seminars, reading his books and listening to his tapes helped shape my mindset and career path. While Zig is no longer with us, The Ziglar legacy lives on through his son, Tom, as well as through the Ziglar organization. In this episode of The Joel Comm Show, I had the opportunity to have a discussion with Tom. Some great conversation and tips resulted.

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