Nice Guys Finish Last, But With Respect
Posted on June 18, 2009 by Derrick Schommer
Filed Under Editorials, Inspiration | 1 Comment
Every now and again I learn something. That’s actually a bit of a lie, I learn stuff all the time. One thing I’ve learned is the truth to the saying that “nice guys finish last.” It sounds bad, but in the world of Internet broadcasting, video shows and niche markets being last doesn’t mean being worst. It just means you’ll get there eventually but behind other aggressive people that kiss everyone’s ass to climb the latter of success.
When it comes to building your “celebrity” presence on the Internet, you can go about it two ways: hard work and struggle or kissing up to other internet celebrities. Getting into the web celeb circle can be a real bitch if you’re not one of “the boys” and they’re really not looking to sign anyone up as friends “just because.” However, if you continue to tell every web celeb you see just how awesome they are, they may eventually notice you.
I don’t mind kissing a little ass to get around but I also have my own personal ideas of respect. Hard work pays off and building a list of friends that actually like you on a genuine level appeals to my personality. Building real relationships creates a stronger bond with people that will be there for you while kissing people’s asses only gets you as far as they want you to go. If I meet a few Internet celebrities along the way I can tell them of my hard work and struggle with truthfulness and everyone can respect it.
Hopefully, whatever decision you make when you climb the latter of recognition and success you can go to bed satisfied with the work you did to get there. Struggle, hardwork and a final win is how I want to be remembered, you?
Make Friends In Your Industry, You’ll Be Rewarded
Posted on May 20, 2009 by Derrick Schommer
Filed Under Editorials, audio, brand, community, podcast, promotion, social networks, video | Leave a Comment
So many people are out to make a quick buck in the most “automated” way possible. These “get rich quick” or “get wealthy with little work” schemes may be great ways to build bank but what have you learned in the process? Have you learned any techniques to make yourself more approachable, a better sales person or established strong relationships with people?
Screw the get rich quick method, I think you’ll be more valuable making some friendly contacts in the industry of your choice. Recently, I watched a video on how you can make money on twitter in a “fully automated” fashion selling who knows what to who knows who for whatever cost — really? There is no passion or challenge, it’s all about finding something exploitable and selling it to anyone your automated bots can find.
I’m not really jealous of the technique that “anyone can do” (so could I, right?) but I am blown away by those that will try the techniques. Most will fail and come out of the experience unchanged and lighter in pocket. The only person getting rich quick is the one taking your money to sell you the techniques that they say they’ve learned. Here is an idea, find an industry you’re passionate about and see if you can find a way to make your own techniques and money making systems.
Here is my modest little technique that seems to work okay: establish relationships with people in your industry. You’re no doubt smaller than most of them so you’re going to have to be ready to give some of your services away for free in order to show them you’re serious. In my video podcasting studio, I’ll record an episode of Common Man Cocktails with a product that I’ve been given (if it works as advertised) and give them free exposure to my viewers.
Why wouldn’t I take the aggressive route and ask them to pay me for the exposure? Because I’d like them to see the results of what I can do, show off my techniques and give them a taste for how successful their product can be in my own brand. No doubt I’ll ask them to sponsor an episode in the future, but what trust have I built if I started by asking for money up front? What trust have I built with my viewers if they find out I’m only pitching an item because they paid me to do so?
As the little guy, you’re going to have to admit to yourself that you’re a nobody with no influence outside of your own audience. You’re building your audience and your brand but you’re going to want others to help you along the way; those friends you establish will come back to reward you later.
Perhaps you show off a product on your audio/video show and send it off to the makers of the product. They may give you a nod and a big ol’ “thank you” or they might enjoy the work you did and spread your video to their friends in the industry along with their own customers. That free exposure you gave them can come back to you ten fold with new viewership and exposure.
Who knows, a few months later that new friendly brand may ask to work together no future partnerships. What’s the risk? Nothing but a bit of work on your side, for free, in hopes of establishing stronger relationships. Give it a try.
Care About Your Community
Posted on April 24, 2009 by Derrick Schommer
Filed Under Editorials, Feedback, community, etiquette | Leave a Comment
The only way to really grow as an internet video/audio podcaster is to realize you’re playing with New Media and a system of two-way communication. There is no better way to thank your audience for viewing your show than to actually acknowledge their existence, this is part of the New Media way of doing things.
While old school media is a one-way conversation, you’ve got a tough job to do when it comes to answering all those e-mails and blog post comments. You may want to establish a dialog with each user independently to really add focus to their existence and be more direct on answering their questions. This can be time consuming and, frankly, hard work but you owe it to them to make the effort as it will strengthen their bonded relationship to your show.
Your viewers are probably used to old school media where they really become fans with the host(s) of the show but can never contact the person directly. In the new world way of doing media, the minute you shoot them back an e-mail, they’ll respect you more and identify more with you as an individual.
It’s important to remember that folks contacting you directly via e-mail, web contact forums or by posting on your website have taken time out of their day to say hello. The least you owe them is a little time to do the same, no?
Niche Video Casts Get Marketing Dollars Too
Posted on March 19, 2009 by Derrick Schommer
Filed Under Editorials, Inspiration, blogging, brand, content, media, podcast, promotion, revenue, video | 2 Comments
If you’re looking for a way to make some money in video podcasting you’ll want to find an area of content that isn’t overcrowded. Of course, the video game, and tech shows are all over the place, what you’ll want is something completely different yet interesting enough to grab a crowd.
Looking through iTunes, I can find tons of untapped niche markets that could bring old advertisers to new media. Want to test the waters before you start down the road of video podcasting? Start a blog.
This sounds like old school marketing but this is your petri dish to start building relationships with companys and PR agencies. If you become a small “professional” in your field of blogging, from yarn, wood, tools, clocks to gardening you’ll start receiving e-mails asking to post reviews, news and events for people in the industry. Once you grab a few PR agencies and establish relationships with them, they’ll send you press releases, product demonstrations and perhaps hook you up with interviews with company owners.
As you build your reputation over the course of three to six months you can start experimenting with some video content as you roll your blog into a vlog. Now, you can push out new shows and begin to build a small viewership of a few dozen or a few hundred downloads. Once you’ve got your fan base started, four months after producing some video shows and providing evidence that people care enough to come back and watch your episodes, you can start pitching to sponsors.
Some people will say you need 1,000 to 2,000 views a day to get sponsorship but that’s highly dependent on your industry. You can get sponsorship with as low as 450 views per show if you price it right and provide content that’s so niche and specific that your viewers actually desire the products of your sponsor.
Using a $30.00 CPM ($30 per 1,000 viewers) model, you can sell a sponsor a full episode of your video show for around $12 (considering you don’t have 1,000 viewers yet) and still get them interested. Why? Because $12 to gain 450 highly focused eyes on a brand is huge value to anyone that understands new media. Plus, when six months down the line their ad is still in the old video and new viewers typically drive through old archives to catch up and see what you have covered in the past. Their old sponsorship grows with the audience of your show, long after they paid the measly $12.
Companies will spend millions of dollars to reach 2% of a large pool of viewership. You’re just asking for $12 to gain 100% attention of the viewership pool, sounds tempting, no? A single episode will not build huge brand awareness and your sponsor knows this; they will buy a block of episodes to test the waters. Realistically, without at least three to four episodes on your show there is no way to track the impact. So, even if they decide not to renew, they’re probably already in it for $36 to $48 which goes into your pocket for your hard work.
It is hard work. Don’t expect to toss your mug on a camera and get people to throw money your way. You’re going to have to prove to them that you’re energetic, consistent, trustworthy and have the passion to get the job done. Of course, $12 an episode isn’t going to make you rich, but everyone has to start somewhere.
You start at the bottom and work your way to the top. If you think there is an easier way, show us. Otherwise, get out there and produce great content and watch your community grow.
Gary Vaynerchuk Says Hustle, But I Think That’s Changing
Posted on March 12, 2009 by Derrick Schommer
Filed Under Editorials, brand, content, media, motivation, ramblings, video | Leave a Comment
While Gary Vaynerchuk has successfully built a small wine store into a much larger business and is on the forefront of social media, I think life will be changing for him very soon. He’s not only a representative for the Wine Library and WLTV branding, he’s sharing his knowledge with others on his blog and it may be time to pass the torch.
Gary is having a child soon and this is a life changing event; beautiful and fun but changing all the same. Add to that the popularity of his show, speaking gigs and all the work that goes into the day-to-day life of retail, there are only so many hours in the day — there is only one Gary. Gary preaches both “love your family” along with “love your job” and most of all “hustle” but too much of any one thing and something has to give.
The big “Gary V” has been a role model for the little guy growing a brand and becoming a “web celebrity” (but not an A list celebrity mind you!) I’ll admit it, I learned a lot from watching Wine Library TV and used the format to launch EverydayDrinkers.tv which is much like a WLTV for cocktails. Many of my viewers have said “so, you’re an @GaryVee fan aren’t you?” However, I’ve learned a lot from Rhed Pixel as well, in relation to lighting, video formats and how to launch a show but people only see the signature “Gary V” in the content. This is because Gary’s shares many of the same qualities that I’ve lived with for years: passion, intensity and the need to meet your own standards and goals.
He says “hustle,” but I believe the next few months we’ll see less e-mail responses from him along with a slight slow down in his social media presence. I believe this is why he’s using user comments on his latest episodes, to redirect some of the more difficult responsiblities of responding to every person by allowing a few key viewers their 5-seconds of fame on his show. This will allow people to “forget” the lack of e-mail responses by trying to get their commet listed on the show. It also helps inprove the quality of comments because “you rock” isn’t a worthy show shout out.
I think he’ll begin answering the most meaningful of e-mails while simply reading the others (without responses) or farming out an in-house e-mail reader to help him out with day-to-date e-mail. Perhaps he’ll focus more on mass mailing community news letters to keep in touch with people through news letters, thus avoiding the single-instance replies. He’s already mentioned the difficulty he’s had keeping up with e-mails on twitter.
As his fame grows he’ll hit the same brick wall Leo Laporte hit. Niche markets can still have thousands upon thousands of viewers and subscribers – one man cannot carry the world upon his own shoulders. When you breech 100,000 viewers and your inbox is constantly full of 1000 new e-mails, what can you do? You need to take a realistic view and realize you can’t please everyone all of the time.
I’ve read some of the comments, had a presence in some of the UStream live broadcasts and I see a pattern: a large portion of his fans do nothing more than scream “you rock” or become the first to post about how right he is or that he’s “the man.” That’s wonderful, fans are great for your show and your ego but you really don’t have to respond to them all, do you?
We’ve seen this happen with small music bands as well (anyone remember when Dave Mathews used to let you plug into his sound board for personal recordings?). Like a brand, Gary and his products will grow and he’ll find it harder and harder to touch every single soul along the way. Having a child arriving and “loving his family,” Gary is going to have to make some hard decisions in life, do you respond to another 1000 emails and “hustle” or do you rock your baby to bed instead?
Success is a bitch. But I’m happy for him just the same.
Promoting Yourself With Social Networking and Media
Posted on March 8, 2009 by Derrick Schommer
Filed Under brand, content, media, motivation, podcast, promotion, social networks, video | Leave a Comment
In a few weeks I’ll be guest speaking at Keene State college, the school I graduated from in 1999. Since graduation a lot has changed in terms of my own experience and the experiences on the Internet. We used to use the Internet to chat on forums, IRC and finding video game news. Today, the game has changed.
The Internet is not only a place to find information about products, it is a place to build information about yourself for others to learn about you. The trick to this seminar will be covering all the major disciplines by giving them relevant information that could potentially change their lives. The methods of promoting yourself with social media as a teacher entering the field is not the same as a student in broadcasting, geography or software development.
We’ve got to put reality first, students graduating from college this year are entering a market where extremely talented and experienced folks are being laid off due to budget cuts. How does a student walk into the “real world” and get a job in an economy where the unemployment rate is rising a percent at a time? For this, there is no clear answer, but there are other solutions to building your reputation and experience so you’ll be a valuable asset when hiring freezes thaw.
Students should create accounts on a few key social networks, such as Linkedin. For the Facebook and Myspace generation, this should be a fairly straight forward process, except, rather than showing people what your favorite music may be, you’re showing them where your focus and talents can be found. Students should be building their linkedin profile along side their resume and link up with all their friends on the social media site so that you can review each other and explain “why” your friends are worth looking into — you scratch their back and they’ll scratch yours.
Plenty of headhunters use Linkedin and like site to farm for new talent. Market yourself, build a profile that is both desirable to potential employers, headhunters and friends alike. Believe it or not, a potential new hire at a company may be inspected through a “background search” involving pulling up profiles on linkedin and/or google to see what you say you know and what others are saying about you.
Broadcast and communications major should be using twitter to build their fan base and audience, promote products you love (for free) to try your hand at building yourself and your personality. You’ll want to build a large quantity of followers so you can promote yourself to them when the time is right. You may use that audience to “crowd source” (ask them questions) when you do get your first job, or perhaps use it to ask folks if anyone is looking for your talents and, in general, make friends with folks of like interests – this can be a handy tool in your future.
Students who plan to become teachers or explore further avenues of education can start practicing now. How? Get yourself a microphone and computer and start podcasting your talents. If you’re looking to find a career in biology and you’re having problems getting that job, start by podcasting some educational shows about biology, this may be audio or video depending on your budget and willingness to promote your own brand.
Creating your own video or audio podcast will grow your experience along with give you real life technological advances over your competition. When going into an interview to get a job as a science teacher you can either say “I graduated six months ago but I’ve not found a job” or you can say “While looking for a job I’ve started an audio show teaching listeners about weather, cloud formations and natural disasters, I’ve got a thousand listeners interested in the content.” You can build niche markets quickly and get dedicated fans that are interested in learning about new topics and concepts. Use what you’ve learned for students in a classroom when teaching students remotely. Your potential employer will no doubt be impressed with your focus, effort and passion compared to that other kid that watches History Channel while eating nachos and waiting for call backs from schools.
There is a great deal of potential to get your name known, be found by potential hires and discover new experiences and technologies you never thought were possible. You’ll gain experience in across many fields including communications, networking, media recording and promotion regardless to your actual major. Who knows, you may find yourself interested in something completely unique and different, something you didn’t learn in school.
Those are just a few ideas that I’ll be talking about in the 45-minute presentation at Keene State College in the moutains of New Hampshire. I wish I had that knowledge when I graduated!
PR Agencies are Your Friend
Posted on March 5, 2009 by Derrick Schommer
Filed Under Editorials, content, press | Leave a Comment
As a podcaster, video producer or blogger you’re probably trying to build fresh new content as fast as possible to keep readers returning to your brand. You’re probably becoming a “professional” in your field which could be anything from custom brewing, tea reviews to video games, frozen food or alarm clocks. Many people are buying products to review them and generate fresh content on their websites.
PR agencies can be your friend. They’re more than willing to ship you products for free to get the word out about the products they are marketing. You’re the public and their public relations so it’s their job to be willing to work with you to promote their brands. They won’t pay you, but they’ll send you samples of the products they’re representing in order to gain more exposure through you.
Establishing relationships with PR agencies give you the chance to get new press releases on products in your niche, new product launch information, high resolution press kits and the potential for free products to test drive. Why would you avoid passing up such opportunities?
Build Your Audience One Person at a Time
Posted on February 26, 2009 by Derrick Schommer
Filed Under Editorials, Inspiration, audio, content, motivation, social networks, video | Leave a Comment
If you’re a struggling video caster or podcaster, you’re probably struggling to find an audience for your show, not struggling for new content. Content is easy to build if you’ve got a passion for your branding. However, audiences are not free and you’re asking them to take time out of their day to listen or watch you. That’s a huge commitment.
A few folks have been disgruntled at the effort of promoting yourself on every social media site and getting very little result. For instance, I’ll post my videos on digg.com and receive six hits for a specific show, only two to four “diggs” from those six leads. Then people will say, “well, it’s not worth my time to only get six hits for posting my shows on digg.”
It is worth your time.
People get too hung up watching internet celebrities pimp their shows on one site and get 10,000 hits from the exposure. Everyone else has to fight one person at a time, this is how you grow. If you’re not willing to put in the 2-minutes of effort to post your show on digg or other social media sites to get one or two referrals than you’re going to struggle with success. You might as well quit now.
One new user may find your content interesting. Why else did they click the link to go there? If you get no referrals than you have no chance to obtain an audience but if you get one, just one, you now have a chance to build a fan. Six users gives you six times the luck in building a fan. A single fan can tell their friends about the show, send the link to a buddy or sit down and listen/watch your content in the office with co-workers or at home with family and share the experience together.
It all starts with one person in your audience. After you get a few dedicated folks you’ll know if your content is something people are willing to return to view. If they are, it’s only a matter of time before you’re audience grows from one to one-hundred and beyond.
No matter what the effort, every single encounter is a chance to establish a relationship with a new fan.
Establish Relationships, Screw Traffic and Page Views
Posted on February 5, 2009 by Derrick Schommer
Filed Under Editorials, Inspiration, affiliate, blogging, content, keywords, podcast, video | Leave a Comment
Let’s get something straight, you don’t have to be pulling in billions of page views to find great relationships with potential advertisers or products in your space. If you’re a podcaster or a videocaster you’re probably also running a blog or site for your show (or you should be!), but your site doesn’t need to be the next digg.com to be a success.
Success is really what you want to make it, if you want to be the next big social networking scene than do it, but you’ve got a lot of challengers. Or, you can just try to be something unique and different all together. Niche markets exist for all areas of life and they’re going to draw a smaller audience than a broad topic but have less competition.
You can be a success in a small demographic more so than you can in a huge demographic. Much the way I chose a college, I could go to a smaller college and be known as someone or I could go to a huge college and be yet another number in a classroom of hundreds. I wanted to stand out without having to break through the thousands of peers. Was I looking for less of a challenge? No, I was looking to be seen for who I was: an individual with desires and motivations in a timely manner.
I’ve found the Internet follows much the same social structures. By picking an area to blog, talk or video yourself you’ll soon become somewhat of an expert in the field: no certification required. If you take it seriously, you’ll learn a ton of information along the way as you prepare your show notes, blog articles and news reporting. You’ll establish a small community of like-minded individuals that, hopefully, enjoy the content you are providing. You’ve got your niche and you’re ready to take it to the next level.
Now, you can establish relationships in your area of “expertise.” When you seek advertisers or look to establish partnership with others in your industry you’ll find plenty of great opportunities. If you run a show about beer cozy’s, you’ll be able to affiliate with folks making custom cozies, labeled cozies or beer products expanding beyond the cozy. You may not reach Coors Brewing Company’s attention, but who cares? You’ll find plenty of smaller businesses and individuals trying to make it in the industry, like yourself, by grouping together with like-minded folks.
You may find a person that can produce custom glassware, a shop looking for some promotions on their home brew accessories or small/local cozy manufacturers. One by one your circle of relationships grow and each one makes your brand stronger than the last. But, why would they want to work with you?
Because your community, the viewers of your content, want to know what you have to say. They’re not random readers, they are people that are interested in the topic you’re working in. They are the perfect eyes and ears to promote products and advertising; the industry is learning this quickly. Why bid on a google keyword “cozy” hoping someone will find your ad, click on it and be interested enough to buy it from you. Furthermore, what if they’re looking for a “cozy place” to vacation? Wrong audience.
However, had that cozy been talked about on a show by a host that’s passionate about the topic, someone you can relate to on a personal level (as often happens with viewers) then the game changes. Your community will get to know you, even if you’ve not met them all or communicated with them. You see this behavior all the time with celebrities who have tons of fans talking to them as if they’re their best friends – complete strangers! If you run a website, video podcast or audio show your fans will feel much the same, only in smaller quantities and with less insane fervor.
Do you trust a google ad or the word of someone you’ve grown to watch on internet shows, audio shows or a frequented blog? Most people won’t click a banner ad and those that do may still not purchase the product. You and your brand are more important than ever to these advertisers looking to spend their cash for the “biggest bang for the buck.”
In this down economy advertisers want to make more with less. Focused niche markets are a great place to experiment with little cash in hopes for a big return. You start a website about tea and write about tea for two months and you’ll probably find tea producers asking to ship you products so you can review them on your website or Internet show. You get free products, they get virtually free advertising and your community gets to learn about a product they may never have heard about otherwise.
It’s a win win situation. You win relationships and you win great content for your brand.
How Often Should I Release A New Episode?
Posted on February 2, 2009 by Derrick Schommer
Filed Under Editorials, Publishing, adsense, audio, content, podcast, ramblings, search, seo, social networks, video | Leave a Comment
I’ve received a few e-mails lately asking about how I handle some of my shows release schedules. In short, how often should a podcaster or video podcaster create a new episode? Every situation may be different but there are some obvious trends I’ve seen over the last few years.
Although a release schedule really depends on your shows content and purpose, the best possible scenario would be short episodes on a daily basis. This turns out to be a lot of work if you’re working alone or in a small group. This is most challenging if your content is time sensitive, such as daily news, industry news or the like. Large firms have benefited from daily shows like CNET Buzz Out Loud. Others, such as Wine Library TV grew from a retail store into a daily show by pushing out great content for 18+ months before making it big.
A daily show between five and ten minutes seems to be the sweet spot for video shows (and 20-minutes or so for audio shows.) Viewers will be able to watch your show during lunch, breakfast or sneak one in during work hours when the boss is not looking. You’ll find it’s fast to edit and produce a show that’s small and tight because there are few chances for major errors or interruptions and the post production is quick with very little render time required. Audio episodes requires less attentiveness so longer shows will be more acceptable.
A short video show will lend itself well in terms of disk storage, quick downloads and easy to post content on sites like Blip.tv. The downfall? You’ll have limited time to squeeze in all your content per episode. If your information isn’t time sensitive you can sit down and record five episodes in under 30 minutes of real time! You can edit each show individually (which could take an hour or so depending on how much post production you’re doing) and launch each one at the start of your day.
You may opt for a weekly show because it fits your schedule better while still working in about 20-30 minutes of great content. Nothing says you have to meet a 20-minute marker, a 10-minute weekly show is fine too. The downfall to a short weekly show comes down to keeping your audience attentive over the long term. A short show might leave less of an impression and they could forget to visit your site each week. If you provide great syndication methods, such as iTunes, you can help remind your audience to tune in each week.
There may be opportunity for a video show that runs only once or twice a month if you’re looking to test the waters, have a rough schedule or your show guests are hard to coordinate. The major downfall being the slow growth of your audience because there is less content to consume. You’re statistics will increase greatly as you have more shows for people to go back and watch after they’ve discovered your content. We’ve got plenty of people new to our shows that go back and re-discover old episodes and that greatly pushes up our download count.
Look at the release schedule over a single year. If you run a show once a month you’re going to end up with 12-episodes at the end of the year. If you run a show twice a week you’ll have 104 episodes after the year is through and, of course, a daily show will have upwards of 250 episodes (if you take weekends off). More shows means more statistics and a better chance to grab new listeners because you’ve always got something new to promote.
Now, let’s talk about statistics. Granted, many video podcast producers will tell you “it’s not about the numbers, its about the content” but we’re human and we love to categorize, organize and know what the heck is going on. What we’ve noticed, with trends in Common Man Cocktails, is that each episodes viewership peaks the first two days after its launch. Then, viewership declines as everyone has seen the latest show while a few new viewers are slowly keeping your numbers going throughout the dead-space between launches.
When we launched the show once a week on Wednesday we’d have big numbers from Thursday to Saturday and then they would fade nearly to nothing by the following Tuesday night. Then, we started pushing out an episode on Wednesday and Saturday, our numbers would pop from Sunday through Tuesday night, just as we prepared to launch the next show. This allows our viewership to maintain a constant rise throughout the week as we gain more momentum and new viewers.
The end result, each new episode peaks the day of launch by another twenty views or so, incremental growth each episode shows progress and interest in the brand. So, wouldn’t it be in our best interest to do a new show everyday? Sure! Except for the small issue with having a few other jobs to do and producing video podcasts as a hobby as this is not quite the best time to bring a brand to investors.
If you’ve got time and dedication to cut a new show every day, the other technique I’ve seen used quite a bit is to run four short episodes a week and one medium length show during the middle of the week. The small shorts can be used to keep your audience attentive, progress your shows content throughout the week and give them a large dose mid-week as something to look forward to viewing.
While a few techniques may work for you, knowing the different possiblities to work towards gives you a nice goal to achieve. Many people are looking to get into video podcasting and hopefully this gives them something to think about in their preparation.
Just remember, the most important part of creating your podcast is the content. You can produce a show nobody wants to watch each day if you want, but that’s not really worth your time.
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