Have you ever seen an opportunity in the marketplace and wondered what would have happened if you had taken the chance to actually go with a hunch and do something? What did you do then and what are you going to do in the future when opportunity presents itself?

In May 2008, I was presented with an idea with an uncertain future. But I seized the opportunity and a whole new world has opened up for me. As I write this post today, I am pleased to be able to share with you what I had been up to and the adventure it has been.

Key Take Away : One project that is well selected and executed in a timely fashion can change your life.

You own it. No one can take it away from you. And the lessons that you learn along the way are priceless.

The Project That Started With A Conversation

Over the past year I have been working on several projects some good some bad. But all of them taught me something.  As I have been watching the market, I have noticed that there is this idea that you only need one skill, one magic product or one super-secret technique to create a wonderful empire.

With Barack 2.0, we have spent over 12 months expanding the blog into a book, which then grew to a full-blown business and speaking career.  There was no one product or skill that we used to accomplish this.  It took a bunch of pieces to complete the puzzle. 

We incorporated:

• Offer Creation
• Salesmanship
• Traffic Generation
• Content Deployment
• Listbuilding
• Repackaging
• Leverage Management
• Taguchi Thinking
• Video
• Audio
• Blogging
• Copy Writing
• Online and Offline Networking
• Public Speaking
• Social Media
• SEO
• Pay-Per-Click
• Strategy
• Tactics
• Seminar and Webinar Presentation
• Building Credibility
• Social Proof
• Public Relations (Credibility Public Building)
• E-commerce
• Distribution
• etc…

As you can see, there many pieces that we fit together as part of the process. The whole thing as I look at it now has many moving parts.

Take A Look…

The evidence of this project are right here on the media page. Check it out. This is not a flash-in-the-pan project. We didn’t catch some fish yesterday and tell you where to find the great secret lake today. This was a methodical step-by-step process that grew over time. See the market. Package the idea. Keep moving. And learn along the way. Regardless of the changes in technology, there are some fundamental underlying principles that are a road map for how this works.

I wanted the road map not the highlights or the cliff notes.

This project has completely repositioned my business because the lessons learned have been so valuable.

Knowing what it takes to build a business, I can’t, in good conscience, tell you that any one of these things is all it takes.

It is time for me to share what I have learned.  I have decided to do short webinars every Monday. We’ll talk about one of these “pieces” each week.  You’ll see how they all integrate together to build a real business – not just online, but also offline.

Typically, I would record these alone and they would get locked up in a strong box and a few people would get them. Notice : the only other “course” that I have ever published was my Taguchi Marketing Course (taken off market). That was the result of 3 yrs of work. My students who took that course (and did the work) have had incredible increases with their businesses.

So…

Every Monday at 7 Central / 8 Eastern, we’ll discuss one of these topics and its real-world application so you learn how to integrate new and old media into your business. I will share tools and insights that I suspect with help you move forward quickly. These are interesting times and you need real information and thinking that you can use today.

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http://www1.gotomeeting.com/register/640505905
Webinar, Monday March 29 – “Creating Your Offer”
8PM EST– 9PM EST / 7 – 8 PM Central US
Go there now and register, as we have limited number of spaces available.

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DISCLAIMER : This stuff is not easy.  It takes time, effort, and expertise.  I’d like to share my experience so you can learn as you move along and build your own business. I don’t have to make income claims. This is all about you. And what you are willing to do to take ahold of your life and use the tools that you have available to you to move forward.

Please note : I have never done the same presentation twice if you miss it and don’t register you have missed that moment in time. Here’s an interview that I did last month with WordPress. Give a listen as I learned alot while doing this interview…

http://wordcast.bitwiremedia.com/2010/02/23/wordcast-conversations-6-david-bullock/

The webinars will be free to those on my mailing list.  We’ll send out invitations in advance of each webinar so that you can register, as space is limited.  We will have a recording available to registered attendees following each webinar. They are Free for all who wish to attend. And I will do them until I have captured the essence of this fantastic journey. Depending on the turnout and interest, will determine how many I do.

The first event will be held on March 29, and weekly thereafter.  Here is the registration link for the first webinar on March 29th.  The topic will be “Creating Your Offer.”

Format Of Calls : START Formula – This will be explained briefly at the beginning of the first call.

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http://www1.gotomeeting.com/register/640505905
Webinar, Monday March 29 – “Creating Your Offer”
8PM EST– 9PM EST / 7 – 8 PM Central US
Go there now and register, as we have limited number of spaces available.

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I look forward to hearing from you and to your participation in this webinar series. And your questions are welcomed.

Best regards,
David Bullock

As we completed the Barack 2.0 project, we had the opportunity to speak with the professors at Wharton School of Business about the data exhaust that is created due to new media platforms and practices.

These are the questions that came out of that discussion:

• What data is required to produce a profit in business?
• What data is worth inspecting?
• You have the data… now what?
• Does it go into a nice report and sit on the shelf?
• Is all of this data collection and measurement meaningless?

It can be meaningless if the data is not useful and pragmatically applicable.

Let’s look at a few concepts that filter out a lot of the noise: 

Perfect Information Definition #1: Information that completely eliminates uncertainty in a situation (as opposed to imperfect information, which only reduces uncertainty). (www.businessdictionary.com)

Perfect Information Definition #2: Information that is accurate, precise and actionable.  (Technomics – H. Lee Martin)

Accurate and precise means that the data is picked up from a reliable source and is repeatable. But what caught my attention was the idea that the information has to be actionable.

What does that really mean? It means you have to be able to do something with the information besides just present it and think about it.

Information, to be truly valuable and meaningful, has to be actionable.

So if you are running your business by the numbers, the steps are as follows:

• Know what data to gather
• Get the right data
• Interpret the data
• Use the data to improve your business

This is especially true with social media, as so much data *seems to be coming out of the social media space.

*Just having a large volume of data does not mean that the data is valuable or meaningful.

Do you think that all of this expensive data and reporting is worth it if you push it against the idea of it being “actionable?”

Let’s look at a fundamental truth right from the dictionary.

This is the textbook definition.

mar·ket·ing (mär’ki-ting) n.  

1. The act or process of buying and selling in a market.

2. The commercial functions involved in transferring goods from producer to consumer.

Taking a page from politics, marketing is getting an idea into the marketplace and getting people to change their minds and behavior.

Let’s examine a pragmatic definition you can use today:

Marketing is the practice of getting your idea not only into the marketplace but also into the minds of those who are ready, willing and able to take action to consume your product.

As a business, the first thing that your business has to do is promote the idea that it can produce a consumable product. But more importantly, getting the idea to the right people is critical. Traffic is crucial. Actional (conversional) traffic is even more important.

For politics, the consumable product that you market is leadership.

As a business owner, you too are promoting leadership in your chosen market.

So how does this pertain to social media strategy?

Social media for most is a place for chatter. Making that idle chatter actionable is your goal.

So…

Getting an idea into the marketplace is one skillset.

Getting the idea to penetrate, stick and become an action is a totally different skillset that is often overlooked.

Most get concerned with the amount, such as:

• Number of Friends On Facebook
• Number of Twitter Followers
• Number of Connections on LinkedIn
• Traffic to your Website.

The questions that I have for you are:

• What are you saying in the marketplace?
• What is the response to your communications?
• Are you looking at the right numbers?

I contend that most are looking at the wrong numbers and don’t even know it.

Look for sales, transactions and valuable conversations as the measure for your success.

Til next time…

David Bullock

This is a continuation of Social Media Strategy Playbook Series. There is much to learn as we study politics and extract meaningful marketing lessons from the outcomes of the various campaigns. New media technologies are disrupting the landscape of both business and politics and the similarities are staggering. If you have the distinctions to see what is really happening, this is an excellent real-time ideation-to-transaction primer.

We have covered:

Rule 1:  Use All Available Media Channels from the Very Beginning

Rule 2:  Create a Short Meaningful Message, Speak It and Let It Work

New Media. A Virtual Party

Notice that most of the conversation that is going on within social media is chatter. When I say chatter, I am talking about conversation that leads nowhere. Your goal is to be meaningful, valuable and relevant to the people in your network.

The question becomes, “Why are you being meaningful, valuable and relevant?”  If you are in business, you are using social media because at some point down the line you are looking to connect with people to exchange value. “Social Media” is simply a place where you have an opportunity to connect and interact with more people at the same time.

When “social media” was first explained to me, it was done with a party analogy. “Everyone is in the room and talking and you have to find the conversations and the people that you want to be around.” Then came the distinction. “All parties and conversations are different. You can go to a dinner party with friends. A seminar. A networking event. They are all types of parties (or gatherings) where people are getting together and talking. The key is to know why you are there and who you are looking to connect with.” It all starts with a meaningful conversation.

Moving on Rule #3…

Rule 3: Create a Transactional Situation.  Tell your listener or viewer what you are going to do if they engage with you. This is the transactional part forgotten by most people using social media. They are just chatting and there is no meaningful transactional content.

You actually have to have a transactional situation. Have a time and place where folks are going to take action. In the political world, this is obvious. That transactional situation is election day. In business, the transactional situation getting the lead, having a conversation and closing the sale.

So the Social Media Strategy question is:

What is the transactional situation that is at the end of your social media activity?

Please bear in mind that it is ok to not have a transactional situation in mind as you move in social media. But if that is the case, know that you may have a difficult time seeing the ROI of your social media efforts.

The Superbowl is over. Lasted for one day. Done.

Congratulations to the New Orleans Saints on the win.

Congratulations to the advertisers that debuted their new commercials.

But let’s look beyond the Superbowl to the Pepsi Refresh Project.

For those of you who have not followed the story… In a nutshell, Pepsi decided not to advertise during the Superbowl. They decided to use the money that they would spend on “traditional advertising” on a social media project.

Here’s the background story (Dec 17, 2009) : Pepsi to end 23-year run of Super Bowl ads Company to focus on new campaign that will mostly appear online

This move changes everything.

A major traditional long time advertiser is making a move away from a traditional media channel.

• Advertising on television is a make-or-break, one-time shot. Money is spent. Media channel wins. Advertiser? Maybe, maybe not.
• Advertising online with a persistent presence is not a one-time shot because you can become a permanent part of the online landscape.

Hmm…

This is very similar to the way the social media technologies were used in the 2008 Presidential Campaign (Barack 2.0 Project). Obviously, I am very keen to this seismic shift in the marketplace. But even more importantly, we can learn from these moves and apply them to our businesses now.

Point 1:  Look at your actions and see if they align with your goals

Pepsi is redirecting their advertising dollars because they looked at the Superbowl advertising media as a channel. That media channel, they assessed, did not align with their goals. I speculate that they made this assessment based on the dynamics of the communication technology marketplace. Television as a media is being supplanted by online consumption of video content.

In other words, you can advertise once, but online you can create a presence that allows for people to consume your content over and over again.

** The ads that were shown on the superbowl are available online right now. So consumption, reach and exposure are no longer the only valid attributes to measure the effectiveness of advertising.

Point 2: Create an offer and environment where your audience can engage

Pepsi has created a community that fully engages the audience and “empowers” the audience to participate in a social improvement project that they support with hard dollars. This creates an everlasting ripple effect of good will and community support. This is priceless.

The new standard for effective advertising is engagement and ongoing participation with the audience. The audience is now in action for Pepsi.

• Are they becoming engaged with you and your offer?
• Are your dollars producing the returns that you are expecting?
• Are you doing what you have always done, expecting the same results?
• Are you still getting the returns from your actions?
• Is it time to think and act differently in the marketplace?

Point 3:  News Begets News Begets News

Run this search on Google: “Pepsi not advertising”. Here is the search link. At the time of this writing there are over 3.7 million listings on Google.

Major media has been covering this story for months.  Thus, the broad audience is well aware of Pepsi not spending money on advertising in lieu of spending money in the community.

Since Pepsi now has public support and media support, they have the advantage of good PR working for them.

Point 4: Supporting Marketplace Ideas

Social media is all about sharing of data and information. The most precious and most valuable commodity is a good idea. But a good idea is only the beginning. A good idea needs shaping and support to grow into anything that is valuable.

Good ideas are everywhere. But when you evaluate, activate and then support an idea with cold hard cash, you have the possibility of real success. 

Sharing ideas is just a “social and human” thing to do. Pouring money back into the community makes Pepsi a wonderful corporate citizen. They are using social media communication technologies to contain the messages from the marketplace, in the most cost-effective environment to let ideas flow, report progress and let the people continue to engage.

Idea, thinking, execution and community support are the cornerstones of human existence. The more that I see technology move forward, the more I see us as “just people” moving back to our core activities without restraint.

Bravo, Pepsi, for thinking differently and moving differently in the marketplace.

The question now becomes:

What can you learn from this Big Corporate example and how can this apply to your business?

By David Bullock

Howie Jacobson is a good friend of mine. Howie is the author of the “AdWords for Dummies” book.

I was looking on my hard drives and I found a folder full of interviews and conversations that I have had over the years. These are pure gold nuggets of information that I am so glad that I captured.

Howie is featured in the interview below.  There is so much in this 7–minute clip:

• PPC
• Salesmanship
• System Setup
• SEO
• Social Media
• Passion For Work
• Media Repurposing

Markets are changing rapidly. Hope that you enjoy it. More to come.

By David Bullock

Is social media an effective tool for driving targeted traffic to a brand new website that is starting from a complete standstill?

Based on what we are seeing - yes. I am learning a lot with this project, as it is in a market with which I am not at all familiar.

Getting traffic is only the first part of the equation. Motivating that traffic to take action is the part where most social media deployments break down.

More to come in a few days…

Be well…

By David Bullock

Apparently, the social media marketing playbook got lost within a year. Folks, we outlined the blueprint as it was happening in 2008 in www.barack20.com.

1. We did not go with a major publisher.
2. We did not spend a fortune on advertising.
3. We used social media just like the typical small to mid-sized business to prove the point that any business could use these new media effectively. 

Guess what?  The methodology worked and continues to work. Now it seems that the political world is waking up to the fact the social media is powerful if it is used correctly.

Presidential, Senate and Local Elections: A Different, Closer Look

Doing the same things will yield the same results. The tools are available for use for those who have the foresight to use social media correctly.

Both the Democrat party and the Republican party have recently seen clear victories with social media as the apparent point of leverage. Is that really the case? Or are there other factors beneath the surface that we can uncover with a cross-discipline inspection? Let’s take a look.

2008 Presidential – National Race (Global Reach)

2010 Gubernatorial – Statewide Race (National Reach)

2008 County Election – County Race (Statewide Reach)

The major media and pundits have weighed in with very superficial analysis about the effectiveness of social media.

In the January 19, 2010 Wall Street Journal Article you can read about the large disparity in the number of:

• Twitter followers
• Facebook friends
• YouTube views

Let’s take a real look at what happened beneath the surface, away from the social media story that is dominating the landscape. 

What elements are critical as any business looks to deploy social media? These political events are most telling because politics is the highest level of conceptual marketing.

Definition: Leadership is an idea that has no form until someone executes an order or creates policy.

Now follow me…

Selling an idea is the first crucial step for any business venture. Selling the idea is the bedrock of sales and persuasion. If you can sell the idea of the product or service, then selling a product or service can naturally follow. The critical path for selling an idea is to make it relevant to your listener.

Listener Relevance Axiom: No one has the time or the energy to deal with or listen to ideas that are not relevant, important and meaningful to one’s own life. We live in a world of information overload. If you are not relevant you will be filtered out and marginalized.

I spent several hours analyzing the messaging and positional setup of the Massachusetts state senate campaign between Brown and Coakley, and a few things became very clear.

Rule 1:  Use All Available Media Channels from the Very Beginning. Should the other opponent not use social media at all, the social media savvy challenger will win. It is therefore not so much that social media “won” the election for the candidate. Social media was used to disseminate the message to a space beyond the market boundaries. This was a statewide race that was promoted to a national market, with complete saturation of the target market and pressure on the local market to pay attention, mobilize and act.

• In 2008, the Obama Presidential Campaign embraced Social Media from the very beginning – not as an afterthought.

Rule 2:  Create a Short Meaningful Message, Speak It and Let It Work. Having a clear message and establishing a clear position in the marketplace is key to communication (Marketing 101).

• In 2010, Brown’s message was “This is the people’s seat.”  This powerful language cuts through the clutter of the marketplace and penetrates the mind of the listener. Take note that the Democratic Party had to use this same langauge to rebutt Brown. To make matters worse the message of “this is the people’s seat” came from this video.  Watch it here with Brown first at the 38 second mark.  He uses very powerful language and then pushes forward with data to support his position.

The opponent then had to use the very same language later:

• Do you see how you can surround your target market by using new media tools?
• Do you see the powerful use of language and messaging here?

These are the first of many lessons that can be derived from this campaign.  

More coming…

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We are dusting off the social media playbook that we documented in the 2008 Presidential Campaign in www.Barack20.com. Yep, we have the playbook and we have used our own playbook over the past year.

Here are the media and positional results based on using the strategies mapped out in the “Barack Obama: Social Media Lessons for Business” workbook.

The rules have not changed. The only thing that has changed is the players and the technological environment that continues to exhibit interesting dynamics.

This year will prove to be interesting.  This time we can refer back to over two years of real world experience as we read between the lines and extract the new media lessons for business.

By David Bullock

Watching the market as I have over the last year has been very interesting. Reporting on the market and what the “social media” market is doing has become a big business over the last several years. Heck, just trying to keep up with the new tools is hard enough. So, as we look at a dynamic market, what is the first thing that we have to do?

Find an anchor point.

That’s right. As this market continues to change and flow, it is not required that you learn everything that is new in the marketplace. It is required that you find your place in the marketplace and then find the proper tools to support your position and place.

For the last several months, I have gotten very busy working on executing many ideas that are supposedly “new” in the marketplace. What I find in these ideas is that the very fundamentals of thinking, decision-making and execution are lacking.

It is “throwing mud against the wall” at a very high level. What is called strategy is hand waving to an audience the does not know what they are observing. Even when you show them something, there is no criteria in place to measure progress, success or failure.

To be fair, I have a different perspective. I view this space from the position of having been a:

• Manufacturing operative
• Engineer
• Project manager
• Marketer
• Salesperson
• Blogger
• Self-published author
• Public speaker
• Promoter
• SEO
• PPC practitioner
• Content creator
• Video editor
• Audio editor
• Consultant
• Tracking and testing specialist
• Affiliate marketer
• Webmaster
• Inventor

In other words, in the worlds I inhabit, we look at a new idea and see it all the way through from inception, to creating value in the market, to successful transaction.

I have had my sights set beyond simply watching the markets. In the last year, we have successfully launched a book and completely repositioned my business in the marketplace. This process of repositioning has created a complete shift in my thinking and how I will be moving in the future. I look forward to sharing with you how we are moving within the marketplace and adjusting thought and action accordingly.

Social media is part of the getting ideas into the marketplace.

Ideas are cheap. Ideas are everywhere. You just had another idea.  In fact, as you are reading this you will get a few new ones.

You can be inspired by anything. The key is what you do with the ideas that you or others have.  Innovation is the buzzword these days… but to truly innovate, someone has to build it and make it work.

In short, an idea that is not executed is nothing but a fleeting flash of brilliance.

However, doing something with an idea is the work of giants. This is what creates wealth and moves economies.

• Getting an idea to market.
• Following through with an idea.
• Executing an idea.
• Moving an idea into the physical universe.
• Making an idea tangible.

I was in a brainstorming session a few days ago that gave me a headache.

Why?  Because all of the ideas had inherent structural problems. In layman’s terms, the ideas that were being generated lacked the clarity of execution.

My background is in manufacturing. I build stuff.  Big earth moving machines.  Boilers.  Spinning machines.  Cars.  Huge metal presses. Robots.  Mile-long plants.  Warehousing.  Trucks.  Forklifts.  Hard hats.  Ear plugs. Steel-toed shoes.

This is the world I come from. Now I find myself in the digital world, which I consider to be close to the perfect machine.

Perfect Machine:

• No weight
• No space requirement
• No power consumption.
• Runs automatically
• Self-regulating
• Self-servicing

This morning I am awake to the fact that the world that I come from is still extremely valuable.

Why?

I am seeing a lot of people talk about what should be done and what should work.  After the fact, they tell you why it works. But only a few people can really build things from the ground up, meaning:

• See the idea.
• Build the structure.
• Pull the resources together.
• Design the systems.
• Create something.
• Keep working with it until it is producing something meaningful.

What are you not only willing to think, but willing to do to really make something happen and show up in the real world?