Live streaming is ALL the rage these days thanks to the heavy hitters of 2015 like Meerkat, Periscope, and now, Blab.

But live streaming is just getting started. The pathways of possibilities with these tools has only begun for marketers and business owners alike, and the best part is that anyone can be successful with it.

I started dabbling in live streaming on Social Media Day of 2015. Although I watched Meerkats and Periscopes, I hadn’t waded into the water. I remember the shock by the first Meerkat I watched – it was someone singing in their car, and when it went live, my initial reaction was to cover the camera on my phone. I felt like he could see me! Thankfully he couldn’t. But it seemed like I was privy to a very private moment.

However, the marketer in me started geeking out over with all the branding opportunities this medium presented for personal and professional brands.

This year I traveled to NYC and Minneapolis to work for clients to live stream events, and help to create an experience for the folks unable to join. The first conference was the PhotoPlus Expo in NYC. This event is the largest photography conference in the US, and it was impressive to say the least. Over 30,000 flocked to the Javits Center to enjoy the gorgeous displays of Canon, Nikon, and many more. And my job was to make that available to the folks unable to attend the conference, and amplify the brand I represented. I Periscoped photography classes, conference attendees, and keynotes like Jimmy Chin, who I could have listened to all day.

The second project was a tech conference called MobCon hosted annually by MentorMate, a leading Android/iOS mobile app development company that’s paving the way for mobile tech. This project was very different in that I was covering an event for the host, not as an attendee, and it made an enormous difference in how much control we had and what we were able to accomplish.

This knowledge is what I want to share with you because live streaming an event can be very lucrative for any brand. It will produce a LOT of content to be repurposed and used for social networks, it will extend the reach of your brand during the event, and will create experiences for those unable to join who may choose to do so in the future.

I could easily write several posts on all I learned during these projects, but for this purpose of this article, we’ll stick to the how-to’s. I’ll write follow-ups in the future.

So roll up your sleeves and start taking notes because if you want to do it right, it will take a lot more than flipping the switch on a Periscope channel.

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This post isn’t going to be the funnest thing you’ve read all week or probably all year, but it covers a very important topic that should be considered sooner than later.

It’s about preparing your business and social media accounts for the inevitable – your sickness or death. While we’d all love to pretend that immortality beams its way through Facebook or possibly the newest facial mask at the local spa, it’s not the way life is. And that’s okay, life is real and the more we understand its fragility, the more we’ll appreciate it. And plan ahead for it.

This week, my phone rang and it was my father asking me to come help him because he’d fallen off the roof. He said he was okay, but needed my help. I had no idea what to expect as I drove over, but nothing could have prepared me for the scene when I arrived. It’s one of those surreal moments that I won’t ever forget. My father was severely injured, and although he was mentally in a great place, his body was not. [Read more…]

Due to the incredible nature of my work, I’m able to work from home or on the road. And I planned it that way.

I still remember my first airplane ride – looking down and realizing that I wanted to have the freedom to travel as an adult.

But unless I was prepared to become an airline stewardess (not such a bad idea) or a travel writer (life reserves special places for those people), there were limited ways for me to make my dream of travel come true.

Enter social media in 2009. Much love and thanks to a professor who told us the first day of class to “get a Twitter,” which I did that very evening!

By the time I graduated from UNC Chapel Hill’s School of Mass Communication and Journalism, I had landed two excellent (one paid) internships managing social media and was addicted.

All of a sudden, I saw the heavens open and the path to working from anywhere IF I could create a successful social media business. Within 6 months of graduating, I had launched my business.

That was over three years ago, and I’m still going strong. [Read more…]

I spend a lot of time auditing websites for clients, and geeking out in curious website research. Lately, I’ve noticed how many website make it VERY difficult to share their content or to simply locate where they are on social media networks. What’s even more concerning is that the websites offering the most native content are the biggest culprits!

They’re missing out!

Unless you’ve been hiding under a rock, you know that native content is king these days. And what does that mean? Any content that comes directly from a brand – content made by a brand, i.e. blogs, videos, photos, etc. Content that can ONLY be aligned with your business.

As the proliferation of marketing continues to work its way through all our favorite social networks, we’ve become numb to marketing messages, and that’s important to take into account. Because what sets your brand apart is the native content it’s producing, and how it’s utilizing that content to tell stories and share the brand values.

But you can make the best, coolest, most beautiful content on the web, and if it’s tough to share from your website OR it’s tough to find your social channels on your website – you’ll completely miss the mark. And all the content you’ve spent money or time on creating won’t benefit you in anyway.

That. is. tragic. (READ MORE)

When I started my business back in 2012, I included the “3 Core Strategies” as an explanation for successful social media marketing.

What’s crazy is that over 3 years later, they’re still the same!

Almost everyday, I’m asked to explain how to be successful with social media, but the answer is not a short one. That’s because there’s unlimited ways to build an audience, engage, develop relationships, and ultimately sell your product/service.

But there is one foundational recipe that stands true and has stood the test of time – a singular magical way to find social media success that can be stretched and pulled to fit your industry, business goals, or ideals. [Read more…]

We’ve all dealt with upset customers – those who had a legitimate complaint and those who just want to rant.

But I urge you to consider the two as one. Because regardless of which situation it is, both should be handled exactly the same way.

Why? Because I’m a big believer that if we have the right mindset towards these situations from the onset, it will be much easier to handle them when they arise.

Let’s be honest – we all have different perspectives, tastes, definitions for how we want to be treated, and definitions of what a good product or service means to us. So when someone gets upset, the best thing we can do is acknowledge it, even if it doesn’t make sense to us. Because it could make total sense to them.

Basically, I stand with the motto I heard growing up in my parent’s businesses, “the customer is always right.” We’ve all heard it before, and while you may disagree, I encourage you to see the bigger picture.

We don’t live in a society where we can keep negative situations quiet anymore. The person who walks into our business or buys something online and isn’t pleased could end up being our worst nightmare by spreading that negativity everywhere.

But it doesn’t have to end that way. [Read more…]