074 - Robert Sofia: What Your Brand Should Say on Social Media
In this episode, Emily and Robert Sofia, CEO of Snappy Kraken, talk about how to have a unique voice on social media and what that really means.
What does it really mean to be authentic on social media? For financial advisors and for any company brand, this is a common piece of advice but it’s not always clear how to walk the walk.
Robert Sofia is the Founder and CEO of Snappy Kraken and has over 20 years of digital marketing experience. Among marketing automation programs for financial advisors, Snappy Kraken is ranked #1 in customer satisfaction and is also the fastest growing according to the 2020 T3/Morningstar Advisor Technology Survey.
Robert and Emily Binder discussed what it takes to make your brand stand out on social media.
WATCH THE VIDEO
Emily asked Robert what it sounds like when an advisor has a unique voice on social media and how this can carry over to other marketing like email.
Robert also revealed some surprising advice on email marketing based on his firm's analysis of over one million emails. The episode wraps up with some key tips that financial advisors and all businesses need to know about the kind of brand personality that makes marketing successful. Get some valuable advice about marketing your business on social media and share this episode with a colleague or friend who could benefit.
Listen to this podcast anywhere:
“He’s not intimidating. He’s fun, so is our culture. We’re snappy, we make things happen quickly.” - Robert Sofia on the character and brand design of Snappy Kraken.
Topics and timestamps:
01:24: Meet Robert Sofia, CEO of Snappy Kraken. How did Robert get started in marketing, and what was the inspiration for Snappy Kraken? Robert entered the financial industry in 2004 and noticed a marketing vacuum. He was inspired to shake things up and provide marketing guidance for financial advisors.
02:59: There is a lot of "copy and paste" marketing advice in the financial industry since the early 2000s. Why is that a problem? It creates a flat playing field where no individual can possibly stand out.
04:32: Competing factors for the psychology behind marketing decisions in the financial landscape: lack of creativity, social pressure from social media, and trusted brands serving as a “safeway”.
06:30:
What does it mean to be authentic on social media?
We are often afraid to be our true selves because it’s vulnerable, but this is the most effective way to present your brand on social media because you’ll attract the right people. Click here to skip to this part of the video.
07:56: Should you customize your brand's voices, tones, or content based on the platform you're using How can you analyze when you're mastering one channel over another?
"It depends so much on context, and what works in one context or maybe even one period of time, may be different in another context or another period of time. It could even be on a different channel; it will completely flop, where it thrived on one." - Robert Sofia
09:49: Snappy Kraken's most recent study analyzed over 5 million data points to test the different design and strategic components of email marketing. They were able to translate that data to other platforms and optimize their social channels and landing pages and improve their strategic decision making.
"When there's true uniqueness and creativity combined with solid data, that's when marketing magic happens." - Robert Sofia
10:55: The secrets to optimizing your email marketing templates: buttons or no buttons, CTAs, and more.
12:05: Robert answers the question once and for all: Is email still an effective marketing channel? Yes.
"When we look at every single marketing channel, and we analyze the performance and response rates, invariably, the highest ROI is coming from building and nurturing an email list over time, and the actual highest response rates and click rates are coming through email." - Robert Sofia
14:29: Spam gives email marketing a bad name, but if you focus on the value and advice you're providing your audience, you will be able to keep and grow that audience. Make sure there is a valuable service, solution, or advice in every email you send.
Snappy Kraken uses the data it collected in their own data analysis to continuously improve their landing pages, social media, and more.
16:00: What does it mean to create a unique brand, and how can you make yourself stand out? Let's face it; it's hard to cut through the noise. Managing your marketing tactics can leave little time to dedicate to your strategy.
23:00: So, why the name "Snappy Kraken"? How did Robert find the symbol for his brand? What are some examples of other companies that haven't taken their branding so literally in the financial world? Lighthouse, anchor, and tree logos no more!
"We built the brand; we built a character that was different, but still had a story." - Robert Sofia
Books and Apps Robert Recommends:
Book: Principles by Ray Dalio
Podcast: The BeanCast (hear Emily’s latest appearance on Bob Knorpp’s top marketing and advertising podcast in Beancast episode 593: The Quibi Dilemma and hear more BeanCasts with Emily Binder here)
Robert Sofia, Founder and CEO of Snappy Kraken, has over 20 years of digital marketing experience and listens to book summaries on Blinkist in his free time.
Connect with Robert Sofia:
Twitter: @robertsofia
Connect with Snappy Kraken:
Twitter: @SnappyKraken
Follow @beetlemoment on Instagram
073 - Mikal Abdullah: Problem Solving With a Jiu Jitsu Master
Mikal Abdullah is an entrepreneur, Brazillian Jiu-Jitsu coach, and competitor, founder of Aces Jiu-Jitsu Club, U.S. Army Veteran, and professional fighter. Mikal’s diverse background makes for some very interesting conversation in this latest episode. Emily and Mikal talked about an array of topics including: entrepreneurship, problem-solving, branding, the military mindset, leadership, and more.
How does the philosophy of Jiu-Jitsu apply to solving other problems? Mikal Abdullah is a Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu coach, competitor, founder of Aces Jiu-Jitsu Club, U.S. Army Veteran, and professional fighter. Mikal’s diverse background makes for some fascinating conversation about an array of topics, including: entrepreneurship, problem-solving from a martial arts approach, branding, the military mindset, leadership, and more.
After honorably serving in the U.S. Army, Mikal started training Brazillian Jiu-Jitsu and Muay Thai. He has competed and won in competitions around the world. Mikal now owns an industry-leading group of companies, including facilities, gear companies, and now an online training academy. Mikal also enjoys helping other business owners and entrepreneurs to reach their goals.
Topics:
Mikal Abdullah is an entrepreneur, Brazilian Jiu Jitsu coach and competitor, founder of Aces Jiu Jitsu Club, U.S. Army Veteran, and professional fighter.
02:00: Meet Mikal Abdullah, BJJ master
03:13: What is the purpose and thought behind Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu (BJJ)? Why do people practice it?
04:40: Overcoming obstacles: you have to be in a clear frame of mind on the mat and in life.
07:09: What can people’s actions and tactics on the Jiu-Jitsu mat tell you about how they handle problems in real life?
“We call it a Jiu-Jitsu handshake...when you start to roll with each other, how they handle obstacles is how they handle obstacles. If they shy and wilt under pressure, then that is how they handle things.” - Mikal Abdullah
07:53: What do 360 reviews and rolling on the mat have in common?
“One of the greatest superpowers you can ever have is the ability to see yourself as others see you. The other is to see yourself the way you truly are.” - Mikal Abdullah
09:24: While perception can be a weakness, it’s also very important to be aware of in business, relationships, and Jiu-Jitsu.
10:39: Middle of funnel, top of funnel marketing, and Mikal’s company, Aces Jiu Jitsu Club International.
“When it comes to middle of funnel marketing, I think that community is a big deal. Conversations are king.” - Mikal Abdullah
13:00: Some aspects of the military can be incorporated into your marketing strategy. AARs or After Action Reviews allow for you to sort mission aspects for review and posterity. This inspired Mikal’s strategy of tagging conversations for review in defining the customer journey and their marketing/selling process.
Mikel’s marketing background is focused on top of funnel and middle of funnel strategy. “Branding is always adjusting or evolving.” - Mikel Abdullah
15:20: Branding: much more than just logo design
“As humans, when we use a compass to find a bearing and identify where we want to go and where we want to be, we often start walking, and we start moving in a curve or a zig-zag. It’s important to do a repeated check-in on where we are. For us, our branding is always adjusting or evolving.” - Mikal Abdullah
19:04: How do you form a subconscious or unconscious connection to your target audience? The ultimate success is connecting with your customer on this level.
20:26: Netflix, subscription businesses, DTC and virtual offerings. How did Mikal’s company Aces Jiu Jitsu pivot at the onset of the pandemic?
24:30: Harness the power to scale your business. Sometimes entrepreneurs aren’t thinking big enough at the beginning of their business journey.
26:17: The worst interview question: where do you see yourself in five years? Sometimes that can be a limiting approach to conversation and goal setting.
30:10: Words and language matter.
“We are attempting to communicate so many ideas in just a few words, and it’s so important to be effective and efficient so that you don’t have to go backward and correct things, or correct them as little as possible.” - Mikal Abdullah
34:00: Mikal‘s book recommendations
069 - Steve Pratt: Podcasts - Your Brand's Unfair Advantage (VIDEO)
What makes a good podcast? How about a great podcast? In this episode, Emily and Steve discuss the best ways to create a valuable message to grow your podcast audience as well as how companies should be approaching podcasting as a new form of content marketing. They also discuss emerging opportunities with audio content and voice assistants like Alexa, Google Assistant, and Siri.
Why do Facebook, Dell Technologies, Mozilla, Slack, Red Hat, NYT T Brand Studio, BMW, CBS, Charles Schwab, and more top brands come to Pacific Content when they want to create a branded podcast?
Steve Pratt is the Vice President and co-founder of Pacific Content, a company of 30 passionate podcast nerds that focuses exclusively on creating original podcasts with brands.
Play the video:
1-click play this podcast anywhere:
Pacific Content joined Rogers Media in May 2019 and is one of Entrepreneur's 100 Brilliant Companies. Their shows have won Webby Awards, Digiday Branded Content Awards, MarCom Awards, and Shorty Awards.
What makes a good podcast? How about a great podcast? In this episode, Emily and Steve discuss the best ways to create a valuable message to grow your podcast audience as well as how companies should be approaching podcasting as a new form of content marketing. They also discuss emerging opportunities with audio content and voice assistants like Alexa, Google Assistant, and Siri.
2:20: How Steve started working on branded content and more details on his background.
3:00: Sirius XM and the first podcast ever.
4:19: Getting bitten by the "podcast bug." Opportunities to generate exposure for new bands in Canada emerged through licensing agreements for podcasts.
4:35: The new wave of podcasting hits and with it the need for podcasters to think and act like media companies
5:37: Companies begin realizing a new medium to generate content to increase exposure, without overtly tying it to their brand. It doesn't sound like an ad.
Choiceology with Katy Milkman is an original podcast from Charles Schwab. It explores irrational decision making. The show was created by Pacific Content.
"They all understand that you have to put the audience first, and you have to have a lot of empathy for the people that you're creating this for. Anytime anybody makes a piece of content that is about themselves, it's an infomercial." - Steve Pratt
"If we make something that's about us, maybe people will listen once, and then they'll never come back." - Steve Pratt
7:22: Traditional advertising is becoming less and less effective due to the economic and global impacts of coronavirus. Advertising isn't always about showing off your brand and product; sometimes it's about just about creating something that adds value to the user's experience.
"This is a time for brands to serve instead of sell" - Steve Pratt
Loyalty and ROI
9:00: How do you play to the unique strengths of audio, and how do you measure your success in harnessing it?
11:10: Podcasting can reach people when screens aren't available
Podcasting hit a watershed moment in 2019 when, for the first time ever, over 50% of the U.S. adult population had listened to a podcast.
13:39: Everyone has a podcast, and the market is increasingly growing. Discovery and promotion can be a podcaster's biggest hurdle.
14:48: The same tips for growing your podcast can be applied as you're building a voice experience on Alexa or Google Assistant.
"This is all part of the concert of the marketing instruments; they play together." - Emily Binder
17:58: Word of mouth can grow ambassadors for your podcast or voice experience.
"You can't buy listens in podcasts, you have to earn them." - Steve Pratt
18:30: Goodpods is a platform for users to discover new podcasts and can help podcasters capitalize on the "word of mouth" marketing in a digital form. Goodpods is founded by JJ Ramberg, see our conversation with her here.
19:56: Establish patterns and comfort with users, and it will make them more drawn to new mediums. This will reduce friction to new technology and drive adoption.
"When we first had smartphones, you had to teach someone how to download an app and close an app...now, it has become second nature, and we can't live without it." - Emily Binder
23:05: This is the time to experiment with technology
24:53: Smart speakers are the training wheels of voice, but voice assistant is on so many more devices than just a smart speaker
"We had a 70% YOY increase in global shipments of smart speakers in 2019 over 2018. And voice in the car is actually the fastest growing and number 1 use case of voice." - Emily Binder
27:17: What has Google been doing in the podcast space?
Books and Podcasts Steve recommends:
Connect with Steve and Pacific Content:
Steve Pratt is Vice President and Co-Founder of Pacific Content, an award winning podcast studio
Follow @beetlemoment on Instagram:
068 - Perth Tolle: Free People, Strong Markets (VIDEO)
Hear why freedom weighting is a powerful way to invest internationally, rewarding countries with greater freedom for their citizens. Find out how Perth Tolle has quantified freedom for international investing with her ETF: Life + Liberty Indexes.
Guest: Perth Tolle is the founder of Life + Liberty Indexes, an index company that uses human and economic freedom metrics as the primary factor in its investment process. Prior to Life + Liberty Indexes, she was an advisor at Fidelity Investments in California and Texas.
Play the video:
Find out why freedom weighting is a powerful way to invest, and how Perth Tolle has quantified freedom for the purposes of international investing with her ETF. This fund was created for investors want a broad emerging markets allocation but don't want to support the worst human rights offenders like China, Egypt, Saudi Arabia, and Russia, etc.
Countries are scored by think tanks including the CATO Institute on three measures:
Rights to Life
Rights to Liberty
Rights to Property
1-click play this podcast anywhere:
Perth Tolle, founder of Life + Liberty Indexes, talks about the relationships between human rights and economic freedoms and a country’s market strength. And yes we discussed China.
Guest: Perth Tolle is the founder of Life + Liberty Indexes, an index company that uses human and economic freedom metrics as the primary factor in its investment process.
What effect do greater citizen liberty and economic freedom have on a country's stock market? We’re giving you the breakdown on how Life + Liberty calculates their index. Hear how freedom weighted investing can be a beacon of positivity during tough times.
Disclaimer: This is not a recommendation to buy or sell securities. This episode does not contain any financial recommendations or advice.
Topics and Timestamps
01:43: Life + Liberty Indexes and the mission with the FRDM Index
“We started this company so that people who have an interest in freedom and the benefits of freedom as a foundation for economic growth and societal growth over time can have a way to invest according to those values.” - Perth Tolle
02:30: Index investing: What is it?
03:15: How cultural backgrounds and governments can impact investing habits
05:00: Where does the data come from for the index, and how is it broken down? Think tanks who provide the scoring data include: Cato Institute, Fraser Institute, and the Friedrich Naumann Foundation.
“I break down those metrics into three categories. The rights to life, the rights to liberty, and the rights to property.” - Perth Tolle
07:15: Incorporating economic freedom factors into strategy: “We’re for freedom.”
08:00: The dichotomy of freedoms: How do economic freedoms and human freedoms relate?
“People are the driving force behind an economy in any society. And so if your people are not free to innovate, be creative, and to not live in fear of censorship, arrest, disappearances, or worse, then you’re not going to have as much innovation as you potentially could.” - Perth Tolle
11:20: The Lion King and power dynamics
“You’re either marching towards freedom or away from it.” -Perth
14:00: How does Perth determine which countries are scalable enough to include in the FRDM index?
15:00: Shout out to our friends at Ritholtz Wealth Management, especially to Josh Brown (@reformedbroker) for putting Perth on Emily’s radar. The Ritholtz Mafia puts out some of the best content in finance, from books to blogs to podcasts to their top ranked Alexa Flash Briefing, Market Moment, which we launched.
Recommended reading from Perth’s stack: check out Michael Batnick’s book, Big Mistakes: The Best Investors and Their Worst Investments:
15:40: Building connections and advisory boards - the Fund Board, AKA the Fun Board
19:30: How earned media can help you grow your business. Networking, as always, can help you thrive in the beginning.
22:40: Shining the light on progress: Your investing decisions can be considered charitable in some cases.
23:45: Big stacks of books and recommendations to get you through quarantine.
Books and Podcasts Perth recommends:
Pod: any of Bill Browder’s his many appearances on the podcast Stay Tuned with Preet - e.g. The Death of Sergei Magnitsky (with Bill Browder)
Patrick O'Shaughnessy’s podcast Invest like the Best, episode: Investing During a Crisis with guest Dan Rasmussen of Verdad Capital
Follow @beetlemoment on Instagram:
061 - Dr. Daniel Crosby: Boating and Selfies Are Dangerous, Investing Is Not
Do you know the biggest misconception about investing? New York Times best selling author Dr. Daniel Crosby joined Emily Binder to talk about the psychology of money. Many investors are mistaken that success in the markets is about being analytically minded, but it’s actually more about self control.
So yes, C.R.E.A.M., but emotion rules cash. Daniel shares the three legs of effective investing and why education alone isn’t enough to save us from investing mistakes or weight gain. (Yes, the two are linked.)
1-click play this episode wherever you listen
Daniel Crosby, Ph.D is author of The Behavior Investor and host of Standard Deviations
Guest: Dr. Daniel Crosby is an Atlanta based psychologist and behavioral finance expert who helps organizations understand the intersection of mind and markets. A New York Times bestselling author, his most recent book is The Behavioral Investor. Dr. Crosby is Chief Behavioral Officer at Brinker Capital.
Timestamps and topics:
02:00 Daniel’s background: trained in clinical psychology then searched for non-clinical applications of psychology, stumbled on behavioral finance: the intersection of the mind and the markets
02:50 What do people most misunderstand about investing and their money?
03:20 “My business is full of human behavior” -Daniel’s father, a financial advisor for forty years
4:00 Many people think that success in the markets is about being analytically minded… when in reality the most successful investors have one thing in common: being able to control their own emotions. See Buffett.
4:15 It’s quite easy to be okay or good at investing
04:40 Cognitive errors
05:00 Our brain is wired to keep us alive long enough to pass on our genes, not to achieve excellence
05:25 The ways our brains betray us and hurt our investing: Our ego (especially a problem for men: see Consider Firing Your Male Broker by Blair duQuesnay), emotion, conservatism, and attention (tendency to confuse what’s easy to recall vs. what is probable)
Taking selfies is riskier than investing.
06:20 Example of attention leading us astray: People are very afraid of sharks but not of taking selfies, even though the latter has a higher death rate. Attentional bias for the vivid.
07:13 People think investing is risky even though over any given fifteen year period in history you couldn’t have lost money while invested in the general stock market
07:30 Multi-asset class diversified investing is much safer than, for example, taking selfies or boating, but we don’t perceive it this way
Boating is riskier than investing.
08:20 We tend not to answer the complicated question but to substitute: so we ask, “is this enjoyable?” And investing isn’t fun, but boating is fun. So instead of answering “is this risky?” we answer the question “is this enjoyable?” And then boating seems safer than investing.
10:25 It’s more complicated than just having an advisor help you.
The three legs of good investment decision making:
Education: learn about stocks, bonds, accounts
Environment: your portfolio - well-diversified that won’t scare you to death
Encouragement: good advisors to slap the bad decision out of your hand before you make it
11:00 Self-control parallels to diet and exercise: know what to eat, don’t have junk in the pantry, have a trainer or workout buddy to get you in the gym (apply these analogies to investing)
11:20 We added nutrimental information and calorie labels to food but we are actually twice as obese now - behavior change takes much more than just education
12:00 We want to think that we’re rational but information/education is a weak predictor of behavior change (nutrition labels alone don’t change our behavior)
13:25 For the same reasons that we’re fat, we’re poor. It’s complicated information, and it’s just information alone, which is ineffective (see the three legs). There’s a cottage industry of selling complexity.
Our tweet storm - what do people misunderstand about investing?:
14:00 Are people more empowered to manage their money now with technology and more transparency? Are we on a better path to managing our money better now that we’ve gotten away from old school stock brokers dialing for dollars and manipulating our emotions?
15:00 There’s never been a better time to be an individual investor, yet things we think we want like transparency and liquidity can hurt us. E.g. the more you check your account, the more it induces action, panic, and mistakes.
You’ve probably heard of the famous Fidelity study which showed that investors who had forgotten their account passwords performed better than ones who logged in and traded actively.
16:00 Across 19 different countries, the more active people are with trading, the worse their portfolios tend to perform.
17:15 People need financial advisors, but not for the reason they think.
18:00 Emily mentioned this quote from Stephanie Bogan on Patrick Brewer’s podcast, The Model FA: “When people come into your office to talk about their money, they’re never really talking about their money."
19:00 Literally nothing has more excitatory power in the brain than money - not sex, not death, not anything else.
19:40 Daniel has a strong Twitter presence, is great at marketing himself, and at making his ideas accessible: what is his strategy?
20:35 Daniel’s long term plan: put positive messages into the world and study happiness
21:30 Daniel’s podcast recommendations:
Dateline NBC Podcast - listen on Spotify
Ologies Podcast - study of different sciences
The Pitch (“Shark Tank" for your ears”)
Standard Deviations (Daniel’s podcast) - Emily’s favorite episodes:
24:00 Daniel’s book recommendations:
He is writing a book on the meaning of life, so he is reading about this. Best one he read last year: Alchemy by Rory Sutherland (Ogilvy guy) - great book for anyone into marketing. Topic: behavioral economics and applying psychology to marketing.
Connect with Daniel Crosby:
Twitter: @danielcrosby
Interested in business, marketing, and technology? Subscribe free to our minipod, Voice Marketing with Emily Binder. Under 5 minutes twice a week on podcast apps and Alexa:
Follow @beetlemoment on Insta:
053 - Brian Roemmele - The Key to Successful Branding - Voice and Beyond - Pt. 2
Listen to Part 1 - podcast with Brian Roemmele about Alexa hardware and more
Brands have defining points with their customers, as any human relationship does. What makes a brand successful longterm? How does voice play a role?
Subscribe free wherever:
Topics and Timestamps:
02:00 How do we build a relationship in which our customer is the hero? (A la Storybrand framework)
02:53 All products, companies, and brands are a relationship with their consumer.
03:20 Every purchase is an emotional purchase because it is defined by neurological reactions - neuropeptides bombard every cell of our body when you make a purchase
04:00 Every brand has an emotional connection to the people who use their products. Some covet it better than others. This means a narrative is being spun overtly or covertly all the time.
Apple has a powerful brand narrative on a cerebral (higher brain) level
05:45 It took millions of years for apes and chimps to speak and listen: we had to create a new O.S., the neocortex on top of the limbic system in order to communicate
07:15 Neuropeptide release of a transaction or purchase - pleasure in the body, your cells will remember this
08:15 Carl Jung - the twelve archetypes
Archetypes, introduced by Swiss psychiatrist Carl Jung, are models of people, behaviors, or personalities. Jung suggested that archetypes are inborn tendencies that influence behavior.
08:30 Voice has the opportunity unlike any other one (including film) to create a rich deep emotional lifelong connection with the customer. If you do this ethically and build the persona correctly for our brand that resonates with your cohort
09:00 The human agenda is connection
09:45 Brian consults with brands and tell them to understand where the transaction and neuropeptide release occurs
09:55 A voice comes from a person - it’s not a thing - it has a persona (a life, a gender, a background) - we are hardcoded to assign these traits to a voice
10:25 We instantly categorize anything we hear or see anthropomorphically because of flee or flight mechanism
11:05 Your brand has a voice: who is it? Fashion brand example from Brian’s work
11:30 It is impossible to make a persona that caters to everyone: there is no voice of everybody
12:05 You need to assign a Jungian or Myers Briggs archetype to your brand
12:30 Your customer is on their own hero’s journey, along with you (Apple and Patagonia and Tiffany and Starbucks do this or have done this well)
14:00 Why is Alexa female? This could be a smart move by Amazon: female voice = authority on a neurological level! - profoundly important. Google has an androgynous voice - a mistake? Brian would argue yes.
14:15 The voice of authority is and always will be a female. The first voice your hear is your mother. Long before eyesight you have the resolution of identifying your mother - this is a survival mechanism evolution has granted. That is why we are wired for communication and voice.
15:40 We can’t change our hardwiring in our brains - female voice is authoritative, especially one in tune with your mother’s voice (can prove this neurologically)
16:10 Anthropologically and culturally, the wise woman (hence the archetype) was always the leader of the tribe until western culture labeled them witches
17:30 The divine feminine and goddess culture came because women were the voice of authority, which we knew instinctually. Women became the voice of the tribe and holder of wisdom. “Don’t eat that, you will die.” Sounds like mom.
18:40 We are a victim and a success story of our reptilian brain
20:15 If a brand keeps us too reptilian we are probably not going to be longterm fans or customers; jealousy or FOMO pulls at the lizard brain but that is short term thinking. Apple is successful because they get cerebral (higher brain, invoking ideas of fashion)
19:15 There is more to this than throwing out an app, you are building a tapestry to weave between the customer for life. We define our life by our brand relationships to some degree, e.g., “That’s when I owned that car, that’s when I got my first iPhone…”
Thomas the Tank Engine helps children make sense of the world
20:20 It’s not the brand we connect to, it’s the story and its role in our own narrative (e.g. Thomas the Tank Engine helped kids understand the confusion of the world with “The little engine that could.”
21:00 90% of what we do on our computers is trying to make sense of the world, e.g. social media as confirmation that what we did was right
21:15 Brand expression is to attract members of a desired tribe (e.g. why I use Apple)
22:20 When we build voice brands (brands around voice, which are coming) - ask: what does your brand sound like? Who is it? Where did they grow up? This is more than a Hollywood storyboard - and this is why you need experts to help with branding.
CONNECT WITH BRIAN ROEMMELE:
033 - Top Five Tips for a Great Alexa Flash Briefing - Daniel Hill
What makes a great Flash Briefing? Daniel Hill, creator and host of The Instagram Stories Flash Briefing is our guest. Daniel and Emily Binder, creator and host of Voice Marketing - Daily Beetle Moment Flash Briefing discuss the top five tips for creating a popular Flash Briefing.
Why Daniel has the #1 Alexa Skill for search term “Instagram”:
“Others were doing similar things [marketing tips for small businesses] on Instagram, but no one was doing it on Alexa.” -Daniel Hill
Length - 10 seconds, 90 seconds, or 3 minutes? Daniel suggests a longer briefing than Emily. It depends on your content.
Don’t waste time on your intro and outro. Use markers. (Emily uses Pippa - click here for a $25 Amazon Gift Card when you sign up for a year of audio hosting). Include sonic branding - be consistent.
Schedule / cadence - how often to publish your Flash Briefing?
Make a commitment.
How many days per week? 5 weekdays, or all 7 days? Should you publish on weekends? Whatever you do, be consistent and let listeners know what to expect. Listenership for Flash Briefings diminishes on weekends but you may want to post at least one or two weekend posts for the ones who stay engaged (Daniel). Consider a weekend edition (something short and simple).
Survey your listeners: Daniel used a Google Form, created a bit.ly link to it, and announced it on his briefing - and he gave away an Echo to incentivize listeners to take the survey. Batch record - don’t leave this until the night before (Emily). Daniel: Fresh news briefings require recording daily most of the time. Consider recording early after the gym or whenever you feel most energized. Listeners can hear fatigue in your voice.
Content: what to talk about?
Daniel: It has to be newsworthy.
Emily: Don’t be obvious and basic. Don’t make a briefing about something basic.
Add value: “What do I know that other people don’t?” And add your take on the news you share. Example briefing (share news, give take) below or click here.
What to name your Flash Briefing:
Daniel: Look for a name or word people are talking about. Capitalize on popular search terms because this platform is so uncrowded.
Emily: Look at Google Search Trends or Amazon’s list of top product searches. https://twitter.com/emilybinder/status/1117167808851382274.
What’s the point of your briefing?
Emily: Public speaking should make your audience feel something, remember something, and do something. Look at your briefing as a body of work over time. You need a central theme or idea that is the backbone of all your content.
Daniel: Make a Flash Briefing that is niche: example: not just fishing, not just deep sea fishing, but Sustainable Deep Sea Fishing!
About Daniel:
Daniel Hill is obsessed with figuring what grabs people's attention and holds it. What makes someone tap the "like" button or double tap on a picture? What makes someone post the crying emoji or share a post with their private text message group? Daniel currently works at Columbia University Medical Center and runs DanielHillMedia, where he teaches small business owners how to use Instagram. He hosts an Instagram podcast, called "The Instagram Stories", and launched the first Instagram Amazon Alexa Flash Briefing Skill where he gives daily news updates and answers questions. You can find him on Instagram @danielhillmedia.
Connect with Daniel:
The Instagram Stories Flash Briefing
Twitter and Instagram: @DanielHillMedia
027 - How to Make the Voice Assistant Like Your Brand
Hear how the future ubiquitous voice assistant will decide whether to promote your brand.
We spend major ad dollars on the duopoly (Google and Facebook) with Amazon a distant third. Those ad dollars will shift.
Telenav announced that it is integrating Amazon Alexa into its automotive navigation system offering.
1.0:
The voice assistant we know today will be so much smarter tomorrow.
Your shadow, your assistant:
The voice assistant will be every person’s personal assistant, their shadow, their life historian and documentarian. It will mitigate our drudge work for life admin tasks like errands and comparison shopping. It will save us all kinds of time. I hope we use that time well.
What won't change:
We are at the mercy of an algorithm today: many ecommerce retailers live and die by SEO on Google and on Amazon. Tomorrow our brands will be at the AI's mercy. The data will be richer, the algorithm more complex.
Amazon, which is nearing $800 billion in value, is making a noticeable push in advertising products, hoping to grab a piece of Google and Facebook’s duopoly of digital advertising. Voice commerce is estimated to be a $18.3 billion opportunity by 2023.
This idea of the future is not radically different from the game we play with search engines today. You bid to be at the top based on a user’s query, or you work on your content to rank high organically.
The same process will happen but with less screen, and more anticipation of the user’s needs or next purchase.
When the assistant recommends a product, it will try to match to the user’s needs, history, and preferences. Google does this today with search results. Your website gets rewarded for relevancy. Everyone tries to game the SEO algorithm but ultimately if you have great content that solves the searcher’s problems google knows it and ranks you higher. There is no silver bullet.
Up Next:
Tune in next week for episode 28: my upcoming interview with Jon Chu, an expert in voice first ecommerce and retail.
Get it on Google Play
Click to subscribe then say “OK Google, play Beetle Moment Marketing Podcast”