BTUs (British Thermal Units) are a measure of heat output. BTS stands for ‘behind the scenes,’ a style of social media post that pulls back the curtain on who you are and the way you do things. Put them together, and you’ve got a compelling case for adding such personal-brand-boosting content to your social media strategy.

Here’s just one example that was blowing up my social feeds this past week:

This ‘behind the scenes’ video from a rehearsal for his memorable 2018 Grammy’s performance is like crack for fans of Bruno, dance, music, and social media. I don’t know who took it or how, but am guessing it was one of his dance squad with a handheld smart phone. And the results are immediate, low (or no) cost, and in your face amazing. My respect for this bazillion-threat is without end.

The sheer power of BTS style stuff was hammered home this weekend when I took a few minutes to catch up on my Insta-feed. Anyone who’s read Spencer X. Smith’s and my book ROTOMA—The ROI of Social Media ‘Top of Mind’  knows that I’m a big fan of my friend Nicole Klein’s work, and her mastery of Instagram for her business. 

Photos like this have garnered her an international reputation in just a couple of years. That’s really cool, and covered in the book, but this post isn’t about that. It’s about this:

Two consecutive posts. Two distinctly different engagement averages.

Take a look at the likes. 

Pretty good. Around 1000 per post. 

But the BTS video with the crappy poster frame image above? That—times two. WTF?

I believe completely, and have been passionately preaching that video is the king of content online. But I’ve never seen the proof of my argument so concisely rendered. Two consecutive posts, with entirely different results. And those averages are bearing out in other posts of the same type.

And here’s the big thing: the still photos are creatively MUCH better composed, polished and delivered. So why does a ‘look at our backs’ frame shot from a video cause Nicole’s followers to click to see more, and then get them to like at a rate far superior to her better looking still posts?

In a word: *video. And an acronym: BTS.

If you follow Nicole, you’re highly likely to want to know how she gets such killer shots of newborns. The pictures themselves are fantastic, but one glance ‘got it.’ But a video that promises to reveal a little bit about her real-life personality or workflow? Yeah, that’s a video I’d like to see. 

You can’t judge a video by its poster frame.

The visual sophistication of today’s social media aficianado is such that things that used to matter (like production value and polish) just don’t as much anymore. YouTube’s taught us all one very important thing: Content quality trumps production quality every day of the week. If the subject matter is good, the video doesn’t have to be. Cool.

If video isn’t part of your social strategy, it is now.

Just one more example from this past week. Mike Booth of Enterprise Systems Group has been right at top of my LinkedIn feed pretty much all day. Why? He posted a self-produced video about ESG’s upcoming Taps and Technology event, and it appears the Gods of LinkedIn are rewarding him appropriately. The fact that he tore a page out of ROTOMA and tagged me in the post was undoubtedly the biggest factor, but even LinkedIn’s algorithm is clearly beginning to prioritize video content. And word on the street is that native video (that’s posted directly to the site, not just embedded but hosted elsewhere) is coming to LinkedIn soon.

Good job joining the ‘1% Creator’ class on social, Mike. It’s working.

– D.P. Knudten > Chief Collaborator > COLLABORATOR creative

©2018 D.P. Knudten / COLLABORATOR creative – all rights reserved

+++++

D.P. Knudten, the Chief Collaborator at COLLABORATOR creative, is a ~25-year veteran in advertising and marketing. Providing everything from highly personalized marketing consulting; custom copywriting; content marketing strategy, creation, execution; and his NonFiction Branding™ system, D.P. collaborates creatively to identify, craft, and communicate the true brand stories of complicated products, services, and companies, and shares his personal POV about all the above—and more—via speaking opportunities to groups throughout the U.S.

D.P. is also the co-author (with Spencer X. Smith) of ROTOMA—The ROI of Social Media ‘Top of Mind’ You can follow him online as @dpknudten just about everywhere.

ROTOMA the book is out, and needs a just-press-playmate.

ROTOMA—The ROI of Social Media ‘Top of Mind’ is out and selling nicely (thank you very much), and we’re adding a lot of new members to the Tribe Called ROTOMA almost every day. But laurels are not for sitting on, and both Spencer X. Smith (my co-author) and I are way to antsy to just let things gather dust. So what are a couple of such dudes supposed to do now that the book is published?

Start a companion podcast.

As a rabid podcast consumer (current fav: Gimlet Media’s StartUp), I love the medium for its ability to make commutes a lot shorter, waits outside swim practice a lot more productive, and even lawn-mowing something to look forward to. But as ROTOMA advises, it doesn’t make a whole lot of sense to be one of the 99+% who are passive podcast consumers when you’ve got a lot to say and share yourself. A lot of material didn’t make the book. Not because it wasn’t worthy, but because we wanted to keep it something a little more approachable than War and Peace.

So Spencer and I are recording away, creating a first tranche of episodes for our launch in mid-November—and I know I speak for both of us when I say we’re pretty excited and proud about how the episodes are turning out. But this blog post isn’t about the content of the episodes. It’s about the container each will come in.

Learn to love the Pod.

If you’re not a podcast aficionado, it’s worth taking a a sec to look at this growing audio phenomenon. Podcasts have been around since…the very first iPod. I remember seeing a copy of Wired magazine with a feature on former MTV V-Jay Adam Curry in 2005 talking about this exciting new medium. 2005. To say it took a while to catch on is an understatement.

From the Wired feature story ‘Adam Curry Wants to Make You an iPod Radio Star,’ 2005.  Photo: ANDREW HETHERINGTON; DIGITAL MANIPULATION BY MICHAEL ELINS Courtesy of Wired.com

Then a little podcast called Serial came along, and everything changed.

Once a pain in the pod to find, download and listen to, podcasts today are just one click away via a growing variety of iOS and Android podcast players. My fav? Marco Arment’s Overcast on iOS.

And now with podcast apps included in just about every new car coming off the lot as a standard feature, this medium is set for EXPLOSIVE growth. If you don’t listen today, you will soon. After all, with radio stations delivering the same lowest common denominator crap 24/7, being able to choose exactly when and what you want to listen to is addictive in the very best way.

But again, this post isn’t going deep about the medium. It’s going detailed into our marketing of the podcast by looking at the most persistent visual aspect of it: ROTOMA’s ‘cover’ image. As a species, we’ve been judging books by their cover since…the invention of books. The LP album cover used to be the state of the art in content and marketing. But now it’s been relegated to a thumbnail-sized image on a screen.

All podcasters have to capture folks’ attention is that little square image. Not a lot of sales real estate for sure. So you’ve got to grab the viewer by the eyeballs and make your sale fast, all while in a very busy visual space. Think a challenge like this calls for a few design tricks? Yes, it does.

We have a book cover. Now we need to podcastize it.

The challenge? How to make it fit. The ROTOMA book cover is a freight train of information—and next to none of it can fit in the measly little space available in the square allotted to accompany the digital file. So where to start? Distillation.

I was fortunate to find the arresting photo we used for the cover at pexels.com, an outstanding free resource for content marketers seeking well above-average photographic imagery for their posts.

Those green eyes are evocative, mysterious and provocative.

I’d like to say I chose the photo for them, but I didn’t. 

I chose it for her vast tracts of forehead real estate.

The cover concept was pretty simple: to create a composite image that illustrated the concept of ‘top of mind.’ Tattooed on your forehead—a little to ‘on the nose/forehead?’ You decide. But the goal was to have a master image that would draw people from across the presentation room, the trade show aisle, or in this use case, the iTunes podcast page.

After creating a number of variations, I decided to take a page out of Neal Schaffer’s playbook and use social media as a focus group. Since ROTOMA is primarily a business book, I chose to post only to LinkedIn for input. Here’s a screenshot showing the four possible options:

The results were really interesting. Option D ‘won’ the vote by almost 6 to 1 over even the second highest vote getter. My intial favs were both C and D. In C. I loved the clean contrast between the graphic black & white elements and the photo. But I also liked the ‘as big as we can get them’ eyes and ROTOMA tattoo seen in Option D.

Apparently, black is the new black.

My standard operating procedure in such a case is simple: put them in situ. And guess what: black is really popular. Looking back at the original screenshot above, of the 16 options shown, six+ had significant black elements, and one other was such a dark blue that it might as well have been black. Hmmm.

I knew we were on to something when I tried this in situ exercise. I took the blue/green dominant A and D options, and just plugged them into the screenshot above. It’s pretty clear to me that D was not only the winner of the LinkedIn popularity contest, it’s also a visibility winner when compared to the other podcasts on the page.

And so this is the one we’re going with.

I juiced the color saturation to take advantage of the RGB color space she lives in online and on mobile. The ‘Top of Mind’ subtitle is literally top of the image. The ROTOMA tattoo and eye elements are just about as big in the frame as we can possibly make them.

The cover also has a great addition suggested by one of the LinkedIn voters, my friend John Kuehl, CEO of Hankr: “I like “A”, but with the mic replaced with your names. (Are most of the contexts in which the cover art appears contexts in which the consumer knows he or she is looking at a podcast? If so, is the mic necessary? Could that space be better used?)” Great idea, John. Done.

ROTOMA the Podcast goes live Monday, November 13th. Look for it then on iTunes, Stitcher, or SoundCloud. And please, let Spencer and me know what you think about the podcast by contacting me directly at dp@rotomathepodcast.com

– D.P. Knudten > Chief Collaborator > COLLABORATOR creative

©2017 D.P. Knudten / COLLABORATOR creative – all rights reserved

+++++

D.P. Knudten, the Chief Collaborator at COLLABORATOR creative, is a ~25-year veteran in advertising and marketing. Providing everything from highly personalized marketing consulting; custom copywriting; content marketing strategy, creation, execution; and his NonFiction Branding™ system, D.P. collaborates creatively to identify, craft, and communicate the true brand stories of complicated products, services, and companies, and shares his personal POV about all the above—and more—via speaking opportunities to groups throughout the U.S.

D.P. is also the co-author (with Spencer X Smith) of ROTOMA—The ROI of Social Media ‘Top of Mind’

This is an excerpt from ROTOMA—The ROI of Social Media ‘Top of Mind,’ a new book I just co-authored with Spencer X. Smith. ROTOMA is now available at Amazon.

The when, why, and how of social is everywhere. Hundreds of Top 5/10/50 lists of ‘Must dos’ to build your social presence. Millions of words (and pictures) telling when to post, where to post, and how to post. But there’s surprisingly little about the most important content question out there: What to Post?

That is probably the #1 friction point for people wanting to become active on social media. “What should I actually be blogging/tweeting/podcasting/YouTubing about?” is the question that stops too many from actually getting out there by going social. And you know what? It’s a really good question, and one the should be answered strategically before picking up a pencil or hitting the keyboard to craft your first piece of content.

Strategic is a word that delights people like me—but terrifies or mystifies others. I love it because it gives me, the content creator, parameters. In the Creative world, if anything is possible, nothing is. Too many options and possibilities can lead to analysis paralysis. But if Twitter only allows 140 characters, that’s not so hard, right?

It’s about the cereal, not the box.

The fact is, the vast majority of social media conversation is about ‘the box.’ What I’m talking about here is the cereal that goes in it: The actual content of your content marketing. Listicles are a form. Blog posts are a venue. Slideshows are a visual style.

Yes, each of these forms are legitimate, and should be optimized for SEO, friction-less clickthrough, and maximum reader engagement, but for crying out loud, don’t live your Creative life like you’re just waiting to be replaced by Artificial Intelligence (AI). I, for one, don’t welcome our robot overlords.

As a writer, I hate the word ‘content.’ It’s a word non-writers use as a catchall for ‘stuff to fill the box’ (and in many cases they really mean ‘box,’ as in text box, database fields, or wireframe copy blocks).

To call it ‘content’ diminishes the role stories play in transmitting information, attracting attention, and causing engagement strategies to actually engage readers/viewers, and further devalues the role of the writer in identifying, crafting, and optimizing the story to do all the above.

But it’s also shorthand for all those things SEO-optimizers, clickthrough fetishists and customer-journey shamans can’t do yet, but desperately need. The boxes they build need a constant supply of killer cereal.

So what’s your cereal? Your true story.

What’s your true story? That’s a topic for another book, and the basis for my NonFiction Branding™ approach. It stipulates that your personal brand is inextricably based to your true story—and that the essence of that story should align perfectly with who you are, what you do, and the unique way you do it.

Think of a brand that you love. Any brand. Could be a product, service—or professional football team. Why do you love it? Not buy it, but love it. Answer that question about yourself/your company, and you’ve identified a story worth telling and showing via social media. 

Social is about showing.

Every person, product, service, and company has a story to tell, and the very best marketers never, ever stop telling some version of it. That story: their own, distinct truth.

Carex Consulting is a career matchmaking firm that relies on a steady stream of top performing ‘graduates’ from a specific local company (Company X), then finds the right fit for not only those candidates, but also their corporate clients who want such battle-tested performers for their organizations.

In the old days of strictly traditional media, Carex may have placed a billboard in close proximity to that high-turnover company in order to get their message out to potential candidates.

But these are the brave new days of social. How could Carex work to become ‘top of mind’ for any soon-to-be or already ex-Company X employee? How could they possibly use social media to get their message out to potential candidates before, during, and after their transition out of said company? By taking a page out of @katiecosplays playbook:

44,000 followers and counting— that’s massive ROTOMA for herself—and Workfront.

This is how social media works. Katie gets a new job, and she’s naturally excited about it, so she shares her joy with her friends and followers on Instagram. Yea, Katie! But also a big ‘Yea’ for Workfront.

Katie is already proving her value to her brand-new employer in a single photo. Count the number of references (direct and indirect) to Workfront.

     1. Workfront logo on building (Wow, they are established enough to own a building.)

     2. Workfront logo on lanyard (Casually embracing their newest employee.)

     3. Katie tags @workfront in her post, closely associated with an assortment of love-oriented emojis.

     4. Katie raves about her excitement for Workfront

     5. Note the comment from her follower ‘eraru.’ He quietly endorses not only Katie’s employment decision, but Workfront’s service platform.

And in terms of engagement? 601 Likes in just one day? Nice. Add in all the lurkers, and Workfront’s got some really great ROTOMA for a single post that cost them absolutely nothing.

Buried lede: Katie’s Instagram follower count (at time of writing): nearly of 44,000. Cosplaying as major ROTOMA technique? I guess so.

Wow. Workfront, Katie already deserves a raise.

As a company, what it you could multiply this ROTOMA-generating technique times the number of people you employ. Sure, some will do it better than others (and some should probably not be doing it at all), but just imagine the amount of authentic ROTOMA you’d build to your brand.

I’ll say it again: that’s the way social works. Is it working like that for you?

This is Ninja level technique.

Back to Carex Consulting. They have an entire marketing plan filled with the regular blocking and tackling necessary to get their message to their audiences, but when it comes to infiltrating the vast community of ex-Company Xers, a technique like this is totally ninja.

Here’s how I recommended it could work for them:

     1. Place a candidate at a new job.

     2. Ask them to grab a selfie in front of a distinct landmark associated with their new company (logoed building, exterior sign, conference room, etc.).

     3. Ask that new employee to post the selfie to their feeds with the following hashtags: #1stDayNewGig #thxCarex.

And that’s it. The post will instantly enter that person’s social network, which undoubtedly includes many current or recent Company X employees. Now when such employees are ready to leave, or get churned out, guess what placement company is ‘top of mind’ with them? That’s right, Carex Consulting. Get in, leave your calling card, and exit without leaving a trace. Brilliant social tactic? Hai!

Best way to begin? Start at the end.

What is it about your product, service, or self that you’d like your social audience to not only understand but believe? What’s the takeaway you hoping to leave firmly entrenched in the mind of every reader/viewer? Here are a few for your consideration:

     • That’s a really smart/interesting/novel take.

     • The creator of this post has great taste and a far-seeing radar.

     • This person sorts through the crap and always delivers gold.

     • What a great summary of a complicated topic.

“What do I want my audience to takeaway from this?” Answering that question before starting is a great way to focus the post while putting yourself into an audience-relevance mindset. What may have been an ‘I’ idea (as in “I want to say this”) suddenly becomes a far more audience relevant ‘You’ takeaway (as in “Here’s what you can do today”). 

If you’ve ever clicked on a link entitled something like “5 fast ways you can improve your site in 5 minutes,” you have experienced this “Not I, You” orientation in action. It focuses the post on ‘You’ user benefit, all the while demonstrating ‘I’ expertise. You provide value. You demonstrate mastery of the post topic. You raise your profile, not by “look at me,” but with “here’s my gift to you.”

Good things. Small packages. Big ROTOMA.

And the crazy thing is just how small that gift can be. Prime example: a simple Facebook Like. While Spencer goes deeper on this subject (see ROTOMA’s Free Like, page 145), my point is pretty simple: a nanosecond of activity on your part has the potential to generate an outsized response from its recipient. Ever get a Like on any social channel from a long, lost high school buddy, and then reconnect in some way? That’s ROTOMA, baby.

– D.P. Knudten > Chief Collaborator > COLLABORATOR creative

©2017 D.P. Knudten / COLLABORATOR creative – all rights reserved

+++++

D.P. Knudten, the Chief Collaborator at COLLABORATOR creative, is a ~25-year veteran in advertising and marketing. Providing everything from highly personalized marketing consulting; custom copywriting; content marketing strategy, creation, execution; and his NonFiction Branding™ system, D.P. collaborates creatively to identify, craft, and communicate the true brand stories of complicated products, services, and companies, and shares his personal POV about all the above—and more—via speaking opportunities to groups throughout the U.S.

D.P. is also the co-author (with Spencer X Smith)
of ROTOMA—The ROI of Social Media ‘Top of Mind’

As I have often said (maybe too often?), American Family Insurance’s DreamBank is one of the best things going in Madison’s business community.

This past Tuesday’s event with Neal Schaffer was just the latest example of the kind of quality programming that’s available to anyone interested—totally free of charge.
 

If you don’t know of Neal, you should. Hailing out of southern California, he’s a master sensei of social media who serves clients and companies all over the world. The dude is also a huge sharer, too, and dropped so much valuable intel during his recent DreamBank presentation that it’s taken me a couple of days to even begin to digest it all.

Here are several of my top takeaways:

1. Use social media audiences as a worldwide, always on-call focus group.

As a longtime ad guy myself, I have a deep, abiding love/hate relationship with focus groups. But I’ve learned to value them as incredible ways to build buzz about a brand, product or service with very little cost or effort. Neal’s advice: Learn to love focus groups and use them via the powerful tools of social media. 

That great advice reminded me of something I had just seen in my (surprise!) social media feed. Take a look at this very recent social post from the folks getting ready to publish a new book by Shark Tank’s Daymond John.

My friend Heather Heuman of Sweet Tea Social Marketing is a social media marketing powerhouse out of South Carolina, shared this screenshot via LinkedIn and I think the tactic is brilliant. Ostensibly, it’s about voting for your favorite cover version for the new book. In reality, it’s all about PRE-selling the book which doesn’t even come out until January 23, 2018. And yes, it is available for pre-sale as I write.

And if one cover emerges as the big winner? It just might become THE cover. My bet is on them coming out with a couple of versions. Personally, I’d go with C and D. Just imagine a shelf of copies with that profile/to camera/profile/to camera alternating combo—that would be eye-catching from a mile away. Social media as focus group? Neal, you couldn’t ask for a better illustration.

2. Two ways of thinking: Buy influence / Build influence

This is the fundamental divide of social media, and one that Neal addressed in detail. The old model (think Don Draper old) was to buy eyeballs. The new model (that’s operating at light speed today) is all about earning eyeballs. Yes, it’s harder—but worth it in so many ways (that Neal richly detailed). Whether you call it ‘permission, ‘inbound,’ or ‘pull’ marketing, it all comes down to the same thing: sharing valuable content makes you valuable to your audience—and they will reward you for that shared value over time.

3. The days of 100% organic success are over.

This point stings a little, especially to a content guy who stills harbors a bit of ‘if you write it, they will come.’

But he’s right.

The years of ‘we’ll just provide this valuable platform for free’ are over. It’s been said, for years, that if you aren’t paying for it, then you are the product. How’d you get decades of free TV programming? By being sold in the form of cost per thousand impressions. Well, now it’s even more true of social. And the platforms that didn’t really know how to monetize their incredibly popular FREE services? They’ve now got that monetization nailed, and are further optimizing it daily.

Shakespeare, if blogging today, would have to find a deep-pocketed royal patron just to pay to boost his posts. And unfortunately, now individuals and brands big and small do too. It’s like we’re back in the steroids era of baseball, only this time the steroids aren’t going away; they are actually being foisted on the players by the league itself. Truth can hurt. This truth kills.

Big ideas requiring some big time cogitation? Definitely.

Those are just three of the many think bombs Neal dropped on those of us lucky enough to have caught his presentation last Tuesday (9.12.2017) at DreamBank. If he’s ever in your neck of the woods, I highly recommend you seek him out. Bottom line: Neal’s the real deal.

– D.P. Knudten > Chief Collaborator > COLLABORATOR creative

©2017 D.P. Knudten / COLLABORATOR creative – all rights reserved

+++++

D.P. Knudten, the Chief Collaborator at COLLABORATOR creative, is a ~25-year veteran in advertising and marketing. Providing everything from highly personalized marketing consulting; custom copywriting; content marketing strategy, creation, execution; and his NonFiction Branding™ system, D.P. collaborates creatively to identify, craft, and tell the true brand stories of complicated products, services, and companies, and shares his personal POV about all the above—and more—via speaking opportunities to groups throughout the U.S.

D.P. is also the co-author (with Spencer X Smith) of ROTOMA—The ROI of Social Media ‘Top of Mind’

This is the first in a series of excerpts from ROTOMA—The ROI of Social Media ‘Top of Mind,’ a brand-new book I just co-authored with Spencer X. Smith. The book is now available at Amazon.

The excerpt:

Unselfish Selfies.

I continue to learn a lot about how to work the levers of social media simply by watching the master at work. Spencer’s the man when it comes to all this stuff, and understanding and implementing the many techniques and posting styles he uses to fill his feeds is imperative to max out your ROTOMA potential.

Seriously, the dude does not quit—and hasn’t met a name he couldn’t drop. This simple picture says a heck of a lot more than the few accompanying words attached to it.

It’s not just self-promotion when you’re sharing and promoting others. Really smart point, Spencer. And yes, I know it’s not technically a selfie.

Here’s how I break it down:

A. Here I am, Spencer, at a major ‘thought leaderish’ event. Since I’m attending, that makes me a ‘thought leader’.

B. I legitimately praise the speaker, mentioning that I am a longtime reader of one of the world’s leading publications for startups and agility-oriented companies. Once again, that implies that I am a citizen of the Fast Company startup and agility-oriented business universe.

C. I’m happily promoting the multi-day conference on day one, thereby making this a valuable promotional shoutout for the conference #WITreps.

D. The name pile-on at the end? That’s a bunch of folks I met at the conference who might like (literally) any number of things about this photos, such as:

A. I liked because I attended the same event;

B. I liked the keynote;

C. I like Alan Webber;

D. I like Fast Company magazine;

E. I am a citizen of the FC business universe;

F. I like that Spencer gave me/people I recognize or follow a shoutout for being a ‘thought leader;’

G. I like seeing myself (and others I recognize or follow) recognized for any reason;

H. Spencer always likes my posts, and I reciprocate right back.

And the list could go on for a lot longer. 21 people (including Spencer) are mentioned in that post, and it already received 23 likes within the first three hours—and while the conference was still in session.

Now that’s not Kim Kardashian-level liking, but then Spencer’s no KK (sorry dude, truth hurts). But it’s pretty good for under 3 hours on LinkedIn, especially given the subject matter.

Minimal effort. Maximal effect.

So how much time did it take Spencer to get, process and post this to LinkedIn? I’m guessing minutes—maybe 10 at most. And yet the networking and personal-brand promoting effect of those ten minutes is surely worth far more.

Spencer effectively promoted:

1. The speaker;

2. The conference and its organizers;

3. All the conference’s sponsors;

4. The attendees;

5. The topic;

6. The city of Madison as a top-tier innovation center;

7. And only after all that, himself.

That is what I call an ‘unselfish selfie,’ and as Spencer points out in Make Conferences Count on page 183, it’s one of the easiest ways to fill your feeds with sharing, value, and laser-focused, relevant personal and professional promotion. If you ask me, that’s doing social—smart.

From ROTOMA—The ROI of Social Media ‘Top of Mind’ by Spencer X. Smith and D.P. Knudten. Now available on Amazon.

The extra:

Click here to download a FREE companion worksheet full of additional tips for using this top technique for filling your social feeds with relevant content, but with a minimum of fuss.

Get the shot, go online, and get it posted; That’s the way to make your ROTOMA (return on top of mind awareness) rise. And check out ROTOMA the book on Amazon.

– D.P. Knudten • Chief Collaborator • COLLABORATOR creative

+++++

D.P. Knudten, the Chief Collaborator at COLLABORATOR creative, is a ~25-year veteran in advertising and marketing. Providing everything from highly personalized marketing consulting; custom copywriting; content marketing strategy, creation, execution; and his NonFiction Branding™ system, D.P. collaborates creatively to identify, craft, and tell the true brand stories of complicated products, services, and companies, and share his personal POV about all the above—and more—via speaking opportunities to groups throughout the U.S. He is also the co-author (with Spencer X Smith) of ROTOMA—The ROI of Social Media ‘Top of Mind.’

The most powerful words in marketing?

It’s time to add two more: Verified Purchase.

Here’s a quick note to talk about something that’s happened so slowly you may not have noticed: the rise in the undeniable promotional power of Amazon Verified Reviews. 

Back in the day, my dad was a rabid Consumer Reports guy. I think I learned my propensity to over-analyze any purchase based on his ‘no such thing as over-thinking’ model for even the smallest of purchases. While a great Consumer Report’s review was not the final word that ensured the purchase, it was certainly one of a handful of deciding factors.

Sad thing is, I can’t remember the last time I sought out Consumer Report’s thinking about even the biggest of purchases. But Amazon Verified Purchase reviews? I’m on those like hummingbirds on honeysuckle.

A powerful force came slowly in the night—and took over everything.

I only really consciously noticed this phenomenon now that I have a product on Amazon. As a long-time Amazon customer, I never really noticed how quickly those two words—Verified Purchase—became primary guideposts on my personal journey to any Amazon purchase. 

I recently bought this DinoFire presentation clicker on Amazon. Why? Verified Purchasers told me to.

Same for Rachael O’Meara’s (@romeara) book Pause and Sandra Long’s (@longsandra) book LinkedIn: The Ultimate Guide for Personal Branding, and a whole boatload of other products in part due to their stellar Verified Purchase reviews. And where can you find these valuable reviews? The same place you can buy the product, often with One-Click and FREE shipping: Amazon.

User Generated Content of the very best kind.

Amazon pays nothing for these freely given reviews. An entire cottage industry has developed around the entertainment value of certain products. The sheer, feral power of three wolves on a single T-shirt? I am so in.

But it’s not all about entertainment. It’s about getting, for the first time in human history, a thing for every buyer to cheer, and every manufacturer to fear: an always-on, completely global forum for consumer feedback—to other consumers.

There’s an old advertising maxim that states ‘nothing kills a bad product faster than good advertising.’ It’s time to update that for the Amazon Age. Maybe something like ‘nothing kills a bad product faster than letting pissed-off, Verified Purchasers savage it on Amazon.’

Peer Review is critical to science—and now, Amazon purchasing.

It doesn’t take long to short the wheat from the chaff in those Amazon reviews either. I personally LOVE it when I find someone with my exact situation reviewing their experience with the product.

Why did I buy this?

Because there was a Verified Purchase review from a guy with the very same problem I had: a broken handle on a beloved ceramic coffee mug. It worked well enough for him to write about it? Well, then it will undoubtedly work for me. Thanks Amazon, for connecting me to someone who’s already bought the product, and willing to share that it actually worked.

Disclaimer: I have a book to sell. On Amazon.

To all y’all that have already ordered your copy of my new book ROTOMA: The ROI of Social Media ’Top of Mind’ (co-authored with the ubiquitous Spencer X. Smith), a huge THANK YOU—and a shameless ask.

Please read the book, then consider giving us the ultimate Amazon gift—that keeps on giving—a Verified Purchase review.

They really have become the gold standard for many prospective purchasers on Amazon. It’s fast and even easier when you use this cheat sheet (below) to do so (get a PDF version here).

Is this a blatant request for reviews? Absolutely. We even talk about why I’m asking when and where I’m asking in the book (see The secret to GREAT customer reviews, page 105).

The primary insight of that secret? Don’t be afraid, actually ASK for them.

But am I trying to earn that review by surfacing a concept that you may have seen in action but may not be really cognizant of? Yes, that too. After all, one of my cardinal rules of social media is to provide value by Sharing, Not Shilling. BTW: that’s in the book too (page 39). 😉

If you’ve got some Amazon-centric products out there, feel free to rip off the copy in this cheat sheet PDF to promote your products. AND DON’T BE AFRAID TO ASK FOR REVIEWS AND RECOMMENDATIONS.

The most powerful words in marketing: Free, New, On Sale, and now, Verified Purchase.

The next time you’re navigating the Amazon, play attention to the number of times you seek out the advice of previous explorers about which products are great, good—or fall apart after the first week of purchase. Such ‘been there, bought that’ intel is priceless, and another reason Amazon is dominating the world of sales (both online, and off).

– D.P. Knudten • Chief Collaborator • COLLABORATOR creative

PS: Did I make it clear that ROTOMA—The ROI of Social Media ‘Top of Mind’ is available right now on Amazon? Thought so. – dp

©2017 D.P. Knudten / COLLABORATOR creative – all rights reserved

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D.P. Knudten, the Chief Collaborator at COLLABORATOR creative, is a ~25-year veteran in advertising and marketing. Providing everything from custom copywriting; content marketing strategy, creation, execution; and his NonFiction Branding™ system, D.P. collaborates creatively to identify, craft, and tell the true brand stories of complicated products, services, and companies, and share his personal POV about all the above—and more—via speaking opportunities to groups throughout the U.S. He is also the co-author (with Spencer X Smith) of ROTOMA—The ROI of Social Media ‘Top of Mind’

Oh wow. I just looked up the date of my last Getting Cre8tive blog post. It was a full month and two days ago.

That lapse violates every single thing I preach about social media. You can’t be a ‘thought leader’ if you aren’t consistently sharing your thoughts.

But there’s a good reason for this. Not only has it been a heck of an August with a family reunion vacation and the dropping off of my eldest daughter at college (sob!); it’s also the month that Spencer X. Smith and I are wrapping up the book we’ve been writing called…can’t quite say yet ;). Suffice it to say I’ll be trumpeting the title and its subject here, there, and everywhere on or about September 1st (2017.)

It’s been a labor of…labor. Anyone who’s ever written a book length work knows exactly what I mean. And that’s the real point of this post.

Sometimes going deep means you have to run silent too.

Fans of historical WWII fiction will recognize the literary allusion of this post’s title. It’s the same as a book by Edward L. Beach Jr. about two opinionated pros battling each other as they take on a much larger foe. I’m happy to say the collaboration between Spencer and I was far more amenable, but the foe (the book) was just as challenging—if less deadly.

Here’s a poster from the 1958 movie adaptation:

I guess that makes me Clark Gable. Spencer, I hope you’re ok with Burt Lancaster. And seriously, if you haven’t seen this classic of the submarine flick genre, check it out. It’s rated 100% on Rotten Tomatoes for a reason. 

We live in an age of the hot take, the snapshot, and the two-second shoutout. Everybody’s got a par-baked opinion about everything. There are several words that describe that kind of person; Opiner, Pundit, Gadfly. But what if you’d rather be recognized as a Thinker, Thought Leader, and Expert?

My advice: Run Silent. Run Deep.

– D.P. Knudten > Chief Collaborator > COLLABORATOR creative

PS: About the book. That wonderful curmudgeon Professor Scott Galloway of NYU’s Stern School of Business calls it “A book that starches the fluff from ….”

You didn’t think I’d spill the beans, did you? BWAHAHAHAHAHA! BUT…it’s so cool that the book’s not even out yet, and we got our first order for 60! Thanks @jimtubbs @darintessier @statebankofcp!

©2017 D.P. Knudten / COLLABORATOR creative – all rights reserved

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D.P. Knudten, the Chief Collaborator at COLLABORATOR creative, is a ~25-year veteran in advertising and marketing. Providing everything from custom copywriting; content marketing strategy, creation, execution; and his NonFiction Branding™ system, D.P. collaborates creatively to identify, craft, and tell the true brand stories of complicated products, services, and companies, and share his personal POV about all the above—and more—in speaking presentations to groups throughout the U.S.

Anybody who knows me at all will tell you that I’m a bit of a DreamBank booster. I’ve posted about this ‘best-kept secret’ several times, and continue to attend as many of their free presentations as I can.

Why? Because they are just so valuable.

Covering everything from introductory social media to advanced sales and marketing concepts, American Family’s Business Accelerator program, curated by Program Director Chris Rudolph, is packed with great speakers presenting excellent content—and thanks to Madison’s own American Family Insurance, DreamBank’s creator and sponsor, every single one of those sessions is FREE.

So imagine my delight in getting the call from Chris regarding a speaking slot opportunity. It’s like getting called up to the big leagues—and I was ready. Tuesday, July 11 was the day, and my NonFiction Branding™ approach was the topic. And it went really well, as you can see for yourself below.

It was a bit of a challenge to take an hour’s worth of content and condense it into a highlight video of just over six minutes, but it gives you a Cliff’s Notes dehydrated version that captures the gist of the presentation pretty well.

I hope you’ll take a look, and please forward it on to anyone who might like to host the full version live. Have a speaking slot to fill? Let’s talk.

Yeah, the whole video is over 6:30, but the presentation part is about 5:02, so I happily claim victory!

– D.P. Knudten > Chief Collaborator > COLLABORATOR creative

  ©2017 D.P. Knudten / COLLABORATOR creative – all rights reserved

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D.P. Knudten, the Chief Collaborator at COLLABORATOR creative, is a ~25-year veteran in advertising and marketing. Providing everything from freelance copywriting; content marketing strategy, creation, execution; and his NonFiction Branding™ system, D.P. collaborates creatively to identify, craft, and tell the true brand stories of complicated products, services, and companies throughout the United States.

D.P.’s presentations are filled with real world case studies, interesting anecdotes, and provocative insights—and make for an entertaining and informative session for any conference or meeting.

Available presentations include:

• NonFiction Branding™ —Know who you are, so you can be it.

• I AM NOT A COMMODITY —Branding for the highly accredited, and unfortunately commoditized, professional.

• Right Start your Start-up —Discovering the Right Messages to Build your Budding Brand.

• Culture Chicken/Brand Egg —Which comes first?

In the world of social media, the term ‘clickbait’ has become a go-to descriptor for that is designed to grab your eye, garner your click, and deliver you elsewhere. It’s also got a bit of an aroma associated with it related to it’s propensity to over-promise, and under-deliver.

Clickbait can be a headline:

Amazing but true! Supermodel uses all-butter diet to make weight melt away!

A listicle:

What happened to them! 15 gorgeous stars who look terrible now!

Or a bait and switch come on:

I made six million with just one blog post! Find out how NOW!

Working in marketing and adverting, my professional Twitter feed is filled with clickbait. Every once and a while I go on a tear and unfollow the most egregious abusers (yeah, that’s why I unfollowed you), but they still find a way back in. But this is not about them. It’s about Scott Galloway, one of the very best sushi-masters in the marketing industry.

The Professor doesn’t make sushi. But he tweets it. If you don’t know Scott Galloway, founder of digital intel group L2 and clinical professor of marketing at NYU’s Stern School of Business, go to YouTube right now and search ‘scott galloway winners and losers’ and watch any of the videos there. The dude is a riot of information and deeply considered opinion, and IMHO, his ‘Winners & Losers’ video series is must-see social TV.

Run, don’t walk, to YouTube for Scott Galloway’s ‘Winners & Losers’ webseries. But it’s his Twitter feed I want to focus on. When I call Professor Galloway a sushi-master what I mean is that his 140-character tweets, which often link directly to his content elsewhere, are like bite-sized pieces of magnificently curated fish flesh. And if you’re like me, you can’t eat just one, and you’re in for the full meal.

Take a look at this tweet series re: the 2017 Cannes Lion Festival—

I’m not saying you’re going to bite on any of the above—but I certainly did. Why? Because the topic, the tone, and even the tiny bit of substance offered is perfectly tuned to my taste. And the fact that I’m squarely in his target of marketing pros, let’s just say he knows his audience.

After years of watching, listening and learning from Professor Galloway’s work online, I know his personality and perspicuity. He’s got data I find enlightening, and an attitude I find entertaining. He serves me the sushi I love, so every time one of his creations shows up in feed, I bite

Clickbait = sizzle – steak.
Sushi = sizzle + steak…err…spicy tuna.

One man’s clickbait may be another man’s dinner, but my larger point is about the person in the kitchen. While I’m sure, based on volume produced alone, the Professor has some T.A.s working under his direction, the quality of the content and its tone and voice is clearly his. Watch just two ‘Winners & Losers’ videos and you’ll see, hear, and completely understand what I mean.

Sushi packs high quality content, curation, talent and expertise into a bite-sized delight. Clickbait is like cotton candy, more fluff and flash than food. The #1 way to keeping feeding your followers’ feeds? Serve ‘em sushi.

– D.P. Knudten > Chief Collaborator > COLLABORATOR creative
©2017 D.P. Knudten / COLLABORATOR creative – all rights reserved

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D.P. Knudten, the Chief Collaborator at COLLABORATOR creative, is a ~25-year veteran in advertising and marketing. Providing everything from freelance copywriting; content marketing strategy, creation, execution; and his NonFiction Branding™ system, D.P. collaborates creatively to identify, craft, and tell the true brand stories of complicated products, services, and companies throughout the United States.

You know you’re supposed to be social, but…

For too many people, even those who know they could reap real benefits by losing their online ‘lurker’ status, just getting going in social media is the hardest part. With all the channel options, and too little time available in the day, how can you get maximal social lift with a minimal commitment of time and effort? Read on.

Start with the basics.

For the sake of this discussion, let’s assume you have the bare minimum social footprint: pages on LinkedIn and Facebook. Experts battle it out daily on which is more important, but the fact is, both are equally critical keystones to have it place before starting anything else. Why? Because one, the other, or both are the ‘where’ to which your social strategy will be directing any generated interest (assuming you don’t also have a website or blog).

For many people, these two sites are the first search stop before any engagement, and if you’re not there, you’re missing a great opportunity to make a first impression.

1st steps don’t get a whole lot easier than this.

Seriously. If only all All-Star awards were this easy.

Do you have a LinkedIn All-Star Profile? Why not?

One of the nefarious techniques LinkedIn uses to get users to completely fill out their profiles is to award ‘soft’ achievements for section completion. It’s a gamification technique—that works. That illusive ‘All-Star Profile’ rating is worth achieving too. Why? LinkedIn, like it or not, has become a daily intel resource for just about everybody in business.

LinkedIn is way more than a résumé because it can also be a venue for you to demonstrate your expertise. It’s a minimally invasive matchmaker, too, as it’s always suggesting others you might be interested in ‘Linking’ to. And it is, without a doubt, one of the most powerful tools for sales prospecting, job hunting, ‘just checking them out before we meet’ 411 and more. No wonder Spencer X. Smith predicts that it will become the #1 source for business intelligence in the future. From my point-of-view, that future is NOW.

So if LinkedIn is such a powerful tool for business, is there any reason you shouldn’t have an ‘All-Star’ profile. Well, Federal Witness Protection program participants probably shouldn’t. But for everybody else, it’s a no-brainer, and an easy, yet critical first step in any effective social strategy. Need help? Check out these easy tips.

Pick a channel—and master it.

Some recommend blogging first. But me, I recommend dessert first. If blogging is fun and you love writing deep, meaningful takes on the things that interest you about your industry sector, by all means, start a blog. But if you hate writing an email, I’d start some place more amenable, like a social media channel that aligns with your interests. Here are some examples:

Love photography? Instagram.
Opinionated, but hate writing? Twitter.
Deep thinker / Thought Leader? Start a blog.

By aligning your social media activity with an interest you enjoy, you’re far more likely to keep doing it. This persistence is absolutely fundamental to keeping your face, ideas, and brand (personal or otherwise) on top of your audiences’ minds. This primary channel becomes your de facto Flagship, serving as the strategic hub for everything else you do in social media

One of the primary rules of social: quantity is quality. Just be sure it’s quality, relevant content. And remember: spammy, overtly salesy or poorly considered content is rarely appreciated, and can negatively affect your image online and in real life.

Cross-post where possible.

There was a time when cross-posting was frowned upon. Some still claim it’s a version of spam, redundantly polluting the web with identical content. To that, I ask “Why are there so many libraries? They all have the same books. Why isn’t there just one?”

Ridiculous, right?

Rather than create content that accrues value only to the semi- or completely walled gardens of LinkedIn, Facebook, Medium, et al, a smart social media strategy rightly demands that you seek to create content that accrues value to you. I can’t assume that a post to my blog will be seen by site-centric audiences. Therefore, I post them, sometimes in minimally modified versions, to all of them, and from within the LinkedIn / Facebook / Medium site itself (to ensure maximum exposure). Why? Because I can’t possibly be ‘top of mind’ unless I am. A blog snippet, with image, goes to Instagram, Twitter, and other short-form channels. But full versions of the post that originated at my blog are also posted wherever I can amplify the message.

There may be legitimate SEO reasons for not cross-posting if you’re an institution like the New York Times, but if you’re working to maximize your social impact, there’s no reason not to cross-post like crazy. Wouldn’t you like your book to be in every library there is? Well, the Internet is not, despite the wishes of many, a single library that everyone can access anytime, anywhere. You need to be where your audience is—and your audience is everywhere. Facebook-oriented people may spend the vast majority of their social activity within Facebook. Same with LinkedIn-oriented folks. Meet them where they live. Cross-posting makes it easy.

If you spent as much time as you should to create that social profile-enhancing blog post, shouldn’t it be conveniently accessible to those site-centric folks? Yes, it should.

– D.P. Knudten > Chief Collaborator > COLLABORATOR creative

  ©2017 D.P. Knudten / COLLABORATOR creative – all rights reserved

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D.P. Knudten, the Chief Collaborator at COLLABORATOR creative, is a ~25-year veteran in advertising and marketing. Providing everything from freelance copywriting; content marketing strategy, creation, execution; and his NonFiction Branding™ system, D.P. collaborates creatively to identify, craft, and tell the true brand stories of complicated products, services, and companies throughout the United States.