I was watching my Twitter feed today and someone posted a link to a site called Screenr.com with instructions to watch a cool video. I was thrilled to find this wonderful tool. Screenr has created a free web based tool that allows you to create videos of what is happening on the screen. You can click on links, go to different web pages, watch Youtube videos, and even add your voice as commentary. It captures everything and saves it as video that can be viewed on the Screenr.com site or uploaded to Youtube for viewing there. You can even download the video to your hard drive as an .mp4 file. Prior to Screenr, I used a software I purchased called Camtasia. While Camtasia has many features not present in Screenr, many of them are not needed for creating simple screencasts. Additionally, using Camtasia requires you to install it on your computer and then upload the finished video to the web in order to embed it within in your site. Both are time consuming and can be cumbersome. Screencasts have a number of wonderful and useful business applications to help you communicate with your customers or audience. Some ways that came to my mind are:
Provide voice guided tours of your website
Help videos to assist customers with navigating around your website
Video email responses to customers who have functional questions about software they have purchased from your company
I would love to hear some ideas from readers about how they might use Screenr.
I just found about this limited time free offer from HP’s LogoWorks division and PRWeb. I created a press release for my business and it was in fact completely free with no strings attached. PRWeb is known as one of the most reputable online source for creating press releases so you don’t want to miss out on this. There is an art to crafting a good press release which will garner the interest of reporters and various media outlets. Read this great blog post I found for excellent tips on creating a press release, and if you want to reach bloggers you must read this online publicity guide. While there are no SEO benefits from the actual press release on PRWeb’s site, if other websites pick up your story, the links back to your site will help your SEO in Google and other major search engines. Get your free press release now before this offer expires.
I was checking out the Live News Feed on my Facebook account when I saw a post by Guy Kawasaki with the title ‘Dating site axes 5,000 members for gaining weight‘. Of course this got my attention and before I knew it, the dating site beautifulpeople.com was on my radar. It was newsworthy and interesting enough that later that same day, I made it a topic of conversation with my fiance. This was a brilliant marketing stunt because it accomplished a few big things. First off, it grabbed headlines. When a press release says that 5,000 people are kicked off a website for being fat it immediately becomes a link everyone wants to click on to read more. Second, because of all the new awareness of beautifulpeople.com I’m almost certain there was a surge in new members. Single people will be interested in submitting their own image and creating an associated profile to receive validation about their own looks in addition to meeting single beautiful people. Third, the press release created the conversation that is considered the Holy Grail of buzz marketing, ‘The Water Cooler’ conversation. Employees at offices everywhere will be talking about the dating website that only allows beautiful people and about the curiosity of what the singles allowed to remain on the site must look like. This is about controversy. According to the Free Dictionary, the definition of a controversy is a ‘dispute between sides holding opposing views’. Controversy creates intense conversation, discussion, and curiousity. Often if a product is in the mix of the controversy it will see its sales skyrocket because people want to see what the controversy is all about to formulate their own opinion.
History has taught us that controversy also increases business. Remember the 2004 movie that Mel Gibson directed called “The Passion of the Christ”. There was so much controversy surrounding the supposed anti-Semitism in the movie that no Hollywood movie studio would finance it and no distribution company would agree to distribute it. Undeterred, Mel Gibson decided to finance the movie himself for $30 million and created a new distribution company to handle distribution. All the controversy and ensuing press created a growing buzz which resulted in the movie becoming the highest grossing non-English language film ever made. The film was a enormous success and went on to earn 611 million dollars at the worldwide box office.
Controversy can be created to bring public awareness to a wrong that may need to be righted. For example, a few months ago, there was a undercover video filmed at a chicken hatchery showing cute little chickies being sent into a disintegrator seconds after they were born. It brought attention to the plight of male chicks who were being killed in order to make room for the egg producing female chicks. This tugged at the heart strings of people (me included) and brought lots of attention and discussion about the way hatcheries operate and the choices we make as consumers. The story was being retweeted thousands of times, was viewed almost 2 million times on YouTube, and people like myself were sending out emails to family and friends about the plight of these poor chicks along with a link to the video.
Think about how you can leverage controversy in your own business. Your business does not have to be directly involved in the controversy itself, but can still be a benefactor. Often you can pluck controversial headlines from the news and use them to draw attention to your products or services.
“If you build it, they will come” only works in the movie ‘Field of Dreams’. In the business world, simply launching a website for your business does not guarantee customers will be breaking down your door to buy from you. Of course there are social media tools like Facebook, Twitter, and Tumblr that can help you with customer acquisition, but more often than not if you really want to establish a strong connection with potential customers you will have to meet them IRL (AKA: In Real Life). You have to network, network, network! Networking is the vital next step after you’ve engaged with them on social media marketing channels. I’ve had conversations with hundreds of people on Twitter in the last year, but its the people that I’ve met at conferences or meet-ups who have become customers or evangelists for my business. In this ever changing digital world, the face to face hand shake still holds a lot of weight. IMO, sales or the act of selling is more about having the customer like you than it is about the product you’re selling. Of course you need to have a good product as well, but the deciding factor often boils down to the likability of the salesperson. Imagine this scenario: two sales people approach you about the same product, one is knowledgeable but not so friendly and the other is not as knowledgeable but has a positive attitude. Who would you buy from?
So what does it take to be likable? According to a famous study by Dr. Albert Mehrabian, people determine if they like another person based on three elements. Non-verbal communication, tone of voice, and verbal communication. Based on Dr. Mehrabian’s research, he found the determination for liking another person was 55% based on non-verbal communication, 38% tone of voice, and just 7% for the actual words spoken (verbal communication). I have listed 3 social skills you should practice to become more likeable:
1) Mirroring – A technique where the listener subtly replicates the gesture or positioning of the speaker. Mirroring helps to create rapport because on the subconscious level it makes the other person feel like they are dealing with someone like themselves. An example of mirroring would be if the speaker scratches their head with their left hand, the listener would also scratch their head with their right hand. Another example would be if the speaker crosses their legs while sitting, the listener would also cross their legs. Remember that mirroring must be done subtly and must appear natural. This is core part of Neuro-Linguistic Programming (NLP) that is very effective for establishing rapport.
2) Kinesthetics – Humans feel a deeper connection to each other through physical touch. When someone touches us we feel tend to feel closer to them. When we are in a social setting, you will notice that when someone hugs you tend to feel closer to them at that moment. They become more likeable. In a business setting, a handshake between two people can create a basic level of rapport where the customer becomes more open to hear what you have to say. During conversation, simple gestures such as a subtle pat on the shoulder continue to establish a connection between people increasing the level of rapport. Practice using subtle touch during conversation with friends, lovers, and colleagues and you will notice a significant increase in rapport.
3) Empathy - Its the ability to relate to another persons feelings. Research has shown the your ability to empathize increases with the size of your social circle. A larger social circle means you are exposed to a wider variety of personalities and social situations which improves your social tuning and your ability to relate to people. Social tuning is being able to read the verbal and non-verbal cues given off by the people you meet and being able to tune your own verbal and non-verbal communication signals for that person. One example of this is “mood matching”. If the speaker is upset about something and you respond with an excited voice, the speaker will not feel rapport with you. The reverse is true as well. If the speaker is excited and you respond with an indifferent voice, the speaker will not feel rapport. You need to tune your responses to the mood of the speaker.
Additionally, people are usually more responsive to one of three kinds of sensory input: visual, auditory, or kinesthetic. Once you determine which they respond better to, you can tailor your message to the sensory input their subconscious is more agreeable to. For a visual person, you can use sentences like “I see what you mean”. For people receptive to auditory signals you can use sentences like “I hear what your saying”. For kinesthetically receptive people you can use phrases like “I understand how you feel“.
I was checking out the Live News Feed on my Facebook account when I saw a post by Guy Kawasaki with the title ‘