Becky Robinson's Blog, page 39

3 Tips to Pitch Podcasters

Millions of people tune into podcasts weekly. Podcasts are present across industries, and landing an interview on the right one can help authors move past the informational noise across so many mediums and into the right audience.

Podcasts are no longer just a love for millennials, they are reaching millions of ears across multiple generations. They are convenient: whether you are driving, cooking, cleaning, etc., the format and accessibility of podcasts helps listeners stay informed and entertained.

The often-relaxed conversation style helps authors talk about their work to potential readers in a way that publicizes more personality, revealing the energy behind their books.

Know Your Audience

There is truth to the saying there is an audience for everyone. Podcasts serve as a great medium for enthusiasts, experts, and everyone else with a shared love for a topic to come together in order to stay informed on it.

To get the most out of your podcast pitching it’s important to understand who your audience is. At Weaving Influence, we serve several business thought leaders. So we aim to reach out to podcasts that discuss business, leadership, management, and other workplace topics.

To find your audience, think about the topics that your book discusses and who else finds them interesting too. You may have expertise in one subject, but you might have enough background to expand that expertise to other topics.

Be Resourceful

Once you track down who your audience is, get familiar with the top podcasts for that industry. What are the top-tier publications or top blogs in your industry? They might have done some of the work for you. See what podcasts they suggest.

You can also see which podcasts are doing well in your industry by seeing what’s featured on streaming services like Podbean, Itunes, and Spotify. These services often include reviews and the number of downloads to help you get an idea of their reach.

Social media is a good place to understand a podcast’s reach as well. Try to find the name of the podcast on Facebook and Twitter. If you don’t see a presence look for the host, see if he or she has a large followership, and if the hosts shares those interviews to followers.

Be Unique, but Relevant

Once you find 3-5 podcasts with subjects relatable to your book, skim through the episodes and written content for them. Make sure the podcast conducts interviews, and try to find previous interviews dealing with a similar topic you would like to pitch.

Take some time to listen to the intros and, if possible, listen to more. Once you find an episode relevant to your work, use that information in your pitch. Show you can make a good fit because you have a similar perspective that the audience values, but also share something unique about it. Something new the audience can gain from your perspective.

Share Your Interview

Once you get an interview booked and conducted, find out when the interview will be live and if you can have the link shared to you when it is. Then share, share, share! Publish the podcast across your social channels and website for your followers to learn more about you and as a means to attract new ones.

Taking the time to pitch podcasts thoughtfully will help you reach your target audience faster, and share with them the authentic energy behind your work.

Facebook Is Changing. What Does That Mean for Your Social Media Marketing?

Facebook is undergoing one of its most significant changes in years. Mark Zuckerberg has promised to “fix” Facebook after continuing turmoil over “fake news” proliferating on the site. His idea — increase content from friends, family, and groups in the news feed; and limit content from companies, brands, thought leaders, authors, journalists, celebrities and more.

Zuckerberg says he wants to make Facebook a place for more meaningful and personal interactions, to put the social back in social media, but stripping news from news feeds has panicked social media marketers. We don’t have specifics yet about how these changes will play out, but we expect anyone who posts from a Facebook page, rather than from a profile, will experience a sharp blow to reach and engagement.

While it’s yet to be seen if these changes will deepen and enrich conversations on the platform, it is clear is that content marketing efforts will organically reach fewer people. The question for thought leaders will be whether it’s valuable to pay to be seen on Facebook, or whether it makes sense to focus marketing efforts elsewhere. With more than 2 billion users on the platform, it’s tough to walk away. Before taking any drastic action, however, there are a few strategies we recommend to drive continued growth and engagement for pages.

Things to Do

The algorithm change will prioritize content based on the number of likes, shares, and comments. This means that pages will need to work harder to create engaging, actionable content. Quality of posts will matter much more than quantity of posts.
Posting from a personal profile will get greater reach. Thought leaders will benefit from leveraging their personal profile, along with their page.
If there are privacy concerns, Facebook allows users to create more than one profile. A second email address is required. The current profile can be made private for communications with just friends and family, and a second profile created for a professional audience and community.
Groups will continue to get solid exposure in the news feed. Creating a group around a book launch, discussion topic, or more, is a way to continue to reach an organic audience.
Lastly, boosting targeted, high-performing content is a way to ensure marketing efforts reach a sizeable audience. (Keep in mind, both a profile and a page are required for boosting.)

Things to Avoid

Because engagement will be a deciding factor in content reach, there is a temptation to post more frequently. However, more content that receives low engagement will just further depress reach. Avoid the “more is more” temptation.
Engagement-baiting will also hurt reach. Posts that encourage users to like, share, or comment in order to answer a question or a poll will be kryptonite to organic growth.

These organic strategies should keep growth and engagement going, but it’s clear that Facebook is increasingly becoming a “pay to play” space. It will be important in the next few months to monitor engagement and growth on Facebook pages, and to evaluate which social platforms are creating the most supportive community for a thought leader’s work.

Large companies and celebrities will be able to survive this seismic shift — but individual thought leaders may increasingly turn to other platforms to find success.

 

Four Fresh Looks at Four Old PR Tools

With a new year always come new goals—and likely one of those goals is growing your business. Sharing with the world what you do is a great way to accomplish this, but it isn’t always easy. Our world is noisy. There’s lots of competition. Media space is limited.

Instead of advising you hop on the latest public relations bandwagon, I wanted to share a fresh look at four traditional public relations tools.

The Press Release

The original purpose of the press release was to garner media attention. But today, press releases often don’t lead to big-time interviews, because the competitive media market doesn’t want to report on what everyone else is reporting on.

Yet press releases are still very important, in large part because they help build your brand. They officially mark important events and recognitions, and thus tell your business’ story. Investment in this tool is still worthwhile, but the goal is different. Posting releases on your website and sharing the news with your key audiences is as critical as sending them to the media.

The Angle

You have a story to tell—but instead of trying to control the news cycle, insert yourself into it.

We call this “news-jacking.”

Media are always looking for different angles on a hot story or trend. Take advantage of this by quickly offering up your expertise in a popular area. In the pitch, include why you are an expert or worthy of commenting, and an example of what you might be able to say. Be sure to be available to them ASAP.

Help-A-Reporter-Out (HARO)

HARO and ProfNet, services in which reporters send queries looking for information for a story, are great ways to get in on the news cycle.

But the reporters often dig through hundreds of responses and only use a select few. Thus, respondents might think the work they put into the pitch is wasted if not used.

That’s not the case. Use these discarded responses to fuel your content marketing. Wait a month, then turn it into fodder for your site, blog, or newsletter.

The Media Pitch

While email is still the most preferred method of contact for media, many prefer social media outreach—(caveat!) after a relationship is built.

Target a few media contacts that really reach your audience, and follow them to get familiar with their interests and work. Then comment, like, and share about once or twice a week.

Public relations is all about relationships, and this tactic helps build rapport and get on their radar. Then, when you or your publicist pitch the media contact, they should recognize your name.

Taking a fresh approach or new look at these old PR standbys requires little money, time, or effort. Instead, a bit of creative thinking will go a long way in making 2018 the best yet for your business.

Winter Wheat: A Different Way of Thinking about Goals from a New Homeowner

In the American Midwest, where the Weaving Influence headquarters are located, there is a special variety of wheat that grows through the winter. Decoratively, it’s used just about everywhere. Clumped in yards and golf courses, scattered along highways. (It also accounts for 70-80% of total U.S. wheat production.) And honestly, I never noticed it much until I became a homeowner and started to care about things like perennials and low maintenance shrubbery.

Now that it has been hovering just around 0 degrees all week, I really, really like that there is a bit of winter wheat waving cheerily in my yard. It makes me feel like maybe I am strong and sturdy like my pioneer ancestors.

Of course, the thing that’s so cheeky about winter wheat is that it grows when it’s not supposed to. It grows at the “wrong” time. It grows when the calendar is telling those of us in the northern hemisphere to stay inside with a cup of cocoa, reflecting on the past year and planning for the next one. When most plants have wisely chosen to retreat from the cold, and take pause and rest from growing, there goes that winter wheat again.

What if growth isn’t happening when you wanted it to?
What if growth is happening when something should be—or appears to be—dead, dormant, or sleeping?

Both scenarios can be awfully lonely.

This picture (courtesy of Wyoming state archives) also really captured my imagination this year, just before we made a cross country move 700 miles west: a 1908 photo of a woman and child standing in a field of winter wheat near Newcastle, Wyoming.

The message is pretty clear here too: young pioneer, super alone. It’s lonely, growing things.

I did a little more digging on her. It turns out that a major oil gusher was discovered near this spot just a few years later. Tons of people poured in searching for a profit. This woman was standing, figuratively if not literally, on more wealth than she could imagine. Her life was about to become anything but lonely.

Dead things, or even growing things, may disguise other imminent growth.

Of course, the great thing about my (decorative) winter wheat is that . . . you don’t really need to do anything to it. Along with so many other plants, it repeats the life cycle on its own. We even learned this fall that in some yards, you don’t need to rake! You can just run the mower over the leaves to mulch them up, which makes a lovely winter coat for tree roots.

This is not true, however, of one particular tree in our yard, which is full of nasty black fungus. The solution for this is to burn every last leaf from that tree, several years in a row, so that none of them make it back into the soil. The exact opposite of my newfound, lazy mulching method.

I love the irony of this.

Am I killing myself over accomplishing unnecessary tasks?
Where is my fungus? And am I willing to do as much leaf burning as it takes to get rid of it?

On behalf of Weaving Influence, wishing you much winter wheat and no trace of fungus in this brand New Year.

How to Build a Support Network for Your Book (hint: you may already have one)

Your already existing networks are your greatest asset in book marketing. Your book marketing efforts will succeed (or not) based on your follow-through in reaching and mobilizing your networks.

As part of our book launch process, we brainstorm lists of networks with our clients, outlining every possible group or individual with whom the author is connected who may be supportive of their book marketing efforts. We include obvious networks —like professional organizations and community groups — and less obvious ones, like siblings and neighbors. I encourage authors to list these affiliations in a spreadsheet and to identify key individuals, then to match specific requests with each group/individual. The challenging part starts next: following through to contact each group or individual with specific asks.

When an author has a key network that is primed and ready for their work, such as facilitators already teaching content from their organization, it is even more critically important to have a strategic and focused way of involving those people.

Here are some suggested way of mobilizing your built-in network in marketing your book:

Involve them early. The sooner you involve your network, the more they will be invested in your success. Share glimpses of your journey to publishing your book. Tell the story of why the book is important for your organization and, (by extension), for them. Let them know as early as you can that you view them as integral to sharing the message of your book. Remember, book promotion is not promotion of you as an author — it’s promotion of the important messages contained in your book.

Personally invite them to be involved in the marketing effort. The more personal your requests to support your book marketing, the more likely people will be to follow through. With an already existing group identity, for example,”facilitators”, you have a short-cut to a group identity. Take it a step further, call them Ambassadors of your message or some other catchy name.

Provide a place for your network to connect and share ideas. A temporary Facebook group, for use during the book marketing campaign, is a great place for people to collaborate on book marketing ideas and for you as the author to celebrate people’s contributions while fueling their participation. The more insider-information you can share in the group, the more important and involved your group will feel.

Plan a schedule of requests and email/post these requests regularly. Before starting your formal asks of the group, let them know what to expect. You might let people know that you’ll be emailing a requested activity weekly for 6 weeks, for example. Then plan out the asks and write as many of the emails in advance as you can.

Here is a suggested list of weekly asks, starting 6 weeks before book launch:

Six weeks before launch, request pre-orders and encourage your networks to invite others to pre-order the book.
Five weeks before launch, ask your network to get involved by promoting your book locally. Ideas could include contacting local bookstores to host events and stock your book, sharing about your book with local media, or inviting local friends to a Facebook group discussion about your book. Encourage individuals to reply with their specific action steps.
Four weeks before launch, encourage your network to share a favorite quote from your book on social media channels or in email marketing to their lists. Provide graphics to make this request easy to fulfill.
Three weeks before launch, ask your network to prepare to share Amazon reviews. This message can include a reminder to people to finish reading their advance copies of your book and some simple instructions to craft a 2-3 sentence review. You can also request that your network remind those they may have told about the book to participate in writing Amazon reviews. provided they’ve also received advance copies.
Two weeks before launch, involve your network in promoting any launch week events including webinars or in-person events. Encourage them to invite others through social sharing, email marketing, or individual email outreach.
During launch week, request that your network buy the book to share with others while sharing about the book through social media channels, email marketing, or personal emails.

Look for ways to support and reward the people who help. Expressing gratitude for the ways people are involved is an important part of the process. Consider creative ways to express your thanks.

Include your network in an ongoing plan. Your built-in network showed their commitment to your work/message before getting involved in your book marketing. They are likely a long-term member of your community. Involve them in plans to spread your book’s message far after the launch. Are you creating new certification programs based on the book’s content? They are the first ones to invite. Are you creating new events? Invite your communities participation. Consider involving your network in the planning as well as the execution of any ongoing work.

What other ideas do you have for involving key stakeholders in your efforts to spread your message in the world? 

When You Have a Built-In Support Network for Your Book

Your already existing networks are your greatest asset in book marketing. Your book marketing efforts will succeed (or not) based on your follow-through in reaching and mobilizing your networks.

As part of our book launch process, we brainstorm lists of networks with our clients, outlining every possible group or individual with whom the author is connected who may be supportive of their book marketing efforts. We include obvious networks —like professional organizations and community groups — and less obvious ones, like siblings and neighbors. I encourage authors to list these affiliations in a spreadsheet and to identify key individuals, then to match specific requests with each group/individual. The challenging part starts next: following through to contact each group or individual with specific asks.

When an author has a key network that is primed and ready for their work, such as facilitators already teaching content from their organization, it is even more critically important to have a strategic and focused way of involving those people.

Here are some suggested way of mobilizing your built-in network in marketing your book:

Involve them early. The sooner you involve your network, the more they will be invested in your success. Share glimpses of your journey to publishing your book. Tell the story of why the book is important for your organization and, (by extension), for them. Let them know as early as you can that you view them as integral to sharing the message of your book. Remember, book promotion is not promotion of you as an author — it’s promotion of the important messages contained in your book.

Personally invite them to be involved in the marketing effort. The more personal your requests to support your book marketing, the more likely people will be to follow through. With an already existing group identity, for example,”facilitators”, you have a short-cut to a group identity. Take it a step further, call them Ambassadors of your message or some other catchy name.

Provide a place for your network to connect and share ideas. A temporary Facebook group, for use during the book marketing campaign, is a great place for people to collaborate on book marketing ideas and for you as the author to celebrate people’s contributions while fueling their participation. The more insider-information you can share in the group, the more important and involved your group will feel.

Plan a schedule of requests and email/post these requests regularly. Before starting your formal asks of the group, let them know what to expect. You might let people know that you’ll be emailing a requested activity weekly for 6 weeks, for example. Then plan out the asks and write as many of the emails in advance as you can.

Here is a suggested list of weekly asks, starting 6 weeks before book launch:

Six weeks before launch, request pre-orders and encourage your networks to invite others to pre-order the book.
Five weeks before launch, ask your network to get involved by promoting your book locally. Ideas could include contacting local bookstores to host events and stock your book, sharing about your book with local media, or inviting local friends to a Facebook group discussion about your book. Encourage individuals to reply with their specific action steps.
Four weeks before launch, encourage your network to share a favorite quote from your book on social media channels or in email marketing to their lists. Provide graphics to make this request easy to fulfill.
Three weeks before launch, ask your network to prepare to share Amazon reviews. This message can include a reminder to people to finish reading their advance copies of your book and some simple instructions to craft a 2-3 sentence review. You can also request that your network remind those they may have told about the book to participate in writing Amazon reviews. provided they’ve also received advance copies.
Two weeks before launch, involve your network in promoting any launch week events including webinars or in-person events. Encourage them to invite others through social sharing, email marketing, or individual email outreach.
During launch week, request that your network buy the book to share with others while sharing about the book through social media channels, email marketing, or personal emails.

Look for ways to support and reward the people who help. Expressing gratitude for the ways people are involved is an important part of the process. Consider creative ways to express your thanks.

Include your network in an ongoing plan. Your built-in network showed their commitment to your work/message before getting involved in your book marketing. They are likely a long-term member of your community. Involve them in plans to spread your book’s message far after the launch. Are you creating new certification programs based on the book’s content? They are the first ones to invite. Are you creating new events? Invite your communities participation. Consider involving your network in the planning as well as the execution of any ongoing work.

What other ideas do you have for involving key stakeholders in your efforts to spread your message in the world? 

Finding Gratitude in What Could Have Been

We’re currently wrapping up a season of gratitude in the U.S. that starts in November with Thanksgiving and runs through to Christmas. While being thankful is not isolated to a few months in the year, we seem to become more aware of the need to be grateful during this time.

We’re thankful for family and friends, food and shelter, gifts and opportunities. We remind children to say thank you or write thank-you notes for gifts received. We try to always be grateful for what they have.

But sometimes I wonder if we should also be grateful what we didn’t get. The missed opportunities for disaster. The close calls with death.

I heard an interview between social media guru Gary Vaynerchuk, and motivational powerhouse Tony Robbins, that discussed gratitude. They both shared their system for staying grateful. Gary told how every morning, he pretends, just for a moment, that all his family members had been killed and how that puts everything in perspective for the rest of the day.

It is easy to be grateful for what’s in front of us — what we can see, hear, feel and touch. But how about everything else? There is so much that could happen in life. Tomorrow is not promised to any of us. Every day we’re alive and in one piece is a miracle.

When I get a text from my older sister asking for a favor, I’m reminded of her brush with death earlier this year. When I see the healing wounds on my husband’s hand, I think of how close he was to amputation. When I feel like complaining about little annoyances that some would deem “first world problems,” I think of how different — and harder — my life could have been if I had been in a different part of the world or grown up in a different family. The what-could-have-been elicits waves of gratitude in me.

So many in America like to complain about the “top 1%” of wage earners in the U.S. However, most of what we call “lower income” would be seen as rich in other parts of the world. In a land filled with social programs, free hot meals, clothing giveaways, and child sponsors, how can we not be grateful still? I knew a pastor of an inner city church who reminded his people every now and then how blessed they really were, despite their hardships, compared to elsewhere in the world.

This perspective is not meant to make you feel guilty. It is not meant for you to feel superior. I believe this perspective increases an attitude of gratitude. One that hopefully overflows into giving for others. Because no matter where you are in life, there is always something to be grateful for — not just for what you have, but for what you could have had.

There’s a song my family used to play when I was a kid that repeated the phrase “behind every dark cloud there’s a silver lining.” The truth of the matter is that, even in those “why me” times, things could always be worse. There’s always a reason to be thankful. Just sometimes you have to look at what could have been to find it.

What “could have been” scenario are you grateful for this year?

Embolden Yourself to Take More Risks

We’re throwing it back! This week we’re showcasing a guest post from Scott Mautz about taking risks (just in time for New Year’s resolutions, perhaps?).

As we take risks and try new things, we expand our horizons and get exposed to more. Our fear of the unknown diminishes as a result, and we’re more likely to try yet more new things.

As we broaden our horizons, we narrow our inhibitions.

What a wonderful virtuous cycle.

So, what holds us back?

For certain, many of us are working more in a culture of caution than courage. A study conducted by Blessing White found that 41 percent of employees said their manager never encouraged them to take risks, while another 33 percent said their manager only sometimes encouraged them to take risks. Behind this reluctance may lay fear, born from precedent or perception, for the negative consequences of failure.

Perhaps we don’t account for the cost of status quo, we don’t feel equipped to succeed when we do take risks, or we don’t feel we have the capacity to invest the effort it can take to see a risk through. Maybe the poison of practicality seeps into our veins – “I’d like to go for it, but realistically….”

Or maybe we don’t live our lives as if on any given flight someone won’t switch their phone to airplane mode.

Anyway, whatever the culprit, one thing’s for certain.

When our hesitance rules the day, inspiration can’t be our knight (see what I did there).

You can start small in risk taking. You can go big. Either way, the wonderful freedom from familiarity will encourage more and more risk taking.

 

Read Find the Fire to learn the 12 tactics of risk taking.

Are You Who Your Social Profiles Say You Are?

Social media has the potential to connect us. Through Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, LinkedIn, and more, social media offers the opportunity to spread our ideas and to allow us to interact with people we might never otherwise meet.

I’ve seen this in my own life. A few years ago, I joined an author’s Facebook group and connected with a number of new people around the country. Some of these women have become my best friends. I’ve met them in person, traveled with them, and even attended one of the women’s weddings!

But this is all only possible because I’ve been honest, both in my online presence and in our interactions. They know that the person I put out there online is really me. We can trust each other.

The internet allows a layer of anonymity that can be dangerous. It’s easy to misrepresent ourselves. We can hide the bad stuff and put forth the best version of ourselves. We can give advice while not following it ourselves. And we may be able to hold the illusion . . . for a time.

But eventually the illusion gives way to the truth. The truth always comes out, as we’re seeing in the news daily. When it does, at best it can cause tension in a relationship. At worst, it can ruin a career or damage a relationship beyond repair.

For thought leaders, having integrity in your online relationships is even more important. Do your actions line up with what you teach and what you espouse online? Do you practice what you preach? Are you more concerned with gaining followers than in really helping them? Are you who your social profiles say you are?

For thought leaders, your audience needs to be able to trust you. This doesn’t mean they need to know every personal detail or flaw. But they do need to trust that you believe and practice what you teach.

If you’re looking for a way to test your integrity, Whitney shared four ways earlier this month. These steps can also be applied to your online presence. I’d encourage you to take a look back at your social media page, or ask a friend who knows you to take a look. Does who you are online match who you are in real life? If not, what can you do to be more authentic?

As we’re moving into a new year, now is the perfect time to reassess your online interactions and persona. Let’s make 2018 a year of honesty and integrity, both in person and online.

 

First You Must Believe

We’re throwing it back! This week we’re showcasing a guest post from Paul Cummings about the importance of believing in what you do.

As I sat in a room with a group of young and eager sales professionals, I thought back on my own sales career. What key factors led to three decades of sustained growth for our company? Then it hit me like a sledgehammer: we believe in what we do. We believe in our products and our world-class service. We believe in our mission. We believe in each other and our ability help our customers achieve their goals and dreams.

THE KEY TO WINNING IS BELIEF

I asked each person in the room to write down why they believe in their products. I asked them to be specific, to give every reason why that product is the product I should own or use. This was a very compelling moment as many students struggled with the answer.

Many were simply hoping to take advantage of an opportunity. They weren’t there because they believed in a product, but because they wanted to make good money.

You must believe in what you sell if you ever hope to be successful.

The business of sales is challenging enough without trying to convince or persuade someone to buy something you don’t believe in. Believe in your product.

I AM SOMEONE SPECIAL

Belief in yourself and your ability is vital in sales. When you are running short on belief, it’s like trying to make a car run without fuel. No matter how hard you accelerate, the car will not move. Our belief in ourselves is our fuel for future growth and success. We can’t go anywhere with an empty tank.

I asked each student to list all their positive traits. We shared our traits as a group to reinforce this belief. I asked them to tell me why a customer should choose them over a competitor. Is it fair to expect a customer to believe in you if you don’t believe in yourself? The answer is no. Believe in yourself.

THE COMPANY IS AMAZING

A true sense of pride in the company you represent every day will shine through to potential clients. Why would you ever represent a company you don’t have faith in? If you don’t believe your company is amazing, potential customers can tell, and will most likely choose to spend their money elsewhere.

I asked each person to write down why they believe in their company. The majority of the students knew very little about company history. It was obvious we needed to slow down and help them build that belief by sharing all the positive things about who they were working for and with every day. This exercise had a profound effect on the group. Believe in your company.

HOW ABOUT YOU?

Do you have the belief factors operating in your favor presently? If you don’t, slow down enough to figure out why, and take the necessary steps to stimulate and foster belief. Ask yourself why your belief is lower than it should be. How can you have a stronger sense of belief in your products, yourself, and your company? Simply taking the time to ask and write out the answer makes a tremendous difference.

Your beliefs matter. I believe in you, and I hope you do too!