Many leaders are finding themselves developing a new skill set.
They’ve become magicians.
Like the movie “The Prestige”, they’ve become very good at making people disappear. In some cases, they don’t even know how they’re doing it and are confused when it happens.
Even though it’s against the strict “Magicians Code”, I’m going to let you in on the secret. Maybe you can learn something from it.
It’s really easy to make people disappear.
Just ignore them!
Clients getting annoying? Ignore their needs.
Talented team members monopolizing your schedule? Close your door and don’t return emails.
Friends or family taking up too much time? Stop talking to them.
Annoyed with pesky investors? Don’t share information with them.
It works for social media connections, mentors, and significant others too. Almost everything will disappear eventually if you ignore it long enough.
Here are 5 reasons you should check out StumbleUpon:
1. StumbleUpon sends more traffic than Facebook
Yep, you read that correctly.
With well over 1 Billion pages visited through their service each month, leaders can no longer afford to ignore it. If you’re producing great content on the internet, you’re missing out on a huge opportunity to have your work seen by people who have opted-in to see the very topic you just wrote about.
2. StumbleUpon now allows brands to have their own channel
This has huge potential.
In the past, it was frowned upon to open up an SU account just to share your own blog posts. Recently they’ve done a 180 and now encourage brands to share their content via integrated RSS feeds, Twitter, and Facebook. The only problem is that it’s not an easy process to set up a branded channel. In fact, there is absolutely no instruction on how to create a StumbleUpon channel, despite the fact that their blog clearly states that it’s open to everyone now.
It’s definitely not a passing fad. It’s been around since 2001 and is now seeing tremendous growth. More members means a larger community of people exposed to your content and sharing it through the Su.pr shortlink system or the StumbleUpon “Submit” buttons (see example on the left or bottom of this post).
Almost all top blogs have these “Submit” buttons and now services like Triberr have it built in too.
Ubiquity + 20,000,000 users = Success
4. StumbleUpon Paid Discovery
For as little as $0.05, you can have someone on your site without another click (beyond clicking the “Stumble” button). No banner ads. No miniature square Facebook ads or small text-based Adwords. An impression is an impression of your whole page, not just a small logo.
It’s also not too expensive either.
You can target it to interests, locations, or demographics and it integrates with Google Analytics so you can see what’s happening with your traffic.
5. New “Explore” Search Feature on StumbleUpon
StumbleUpon.com is not a full-blown search engine (yet), but it does allow you to search almost 500,000 topics and find pages at least one person found interesting. Yes, it takes some of the serendipity out of finding a cool site randomly, but it allows for a more customizable feed of stuff that is more likely to please. A big win for users.
The “Explore” feature looks like this:
Any leader, marketing pro, producer, or blogger needs to be aware of the positive impact that StumbleUpon can have on your business if you use it correctly. In the Attention Era, there’s nothing as valuable as free attention.
If you’ve never heard of it before, check out the 45 second video below and learn how the new site works:
If you’re already on StumbleUpon, let’s connect. Here’s the link. I always follow back my fellow 8pm Warriors.
YouTube is more than cute animal videos, funny stuff, and stupid stunts. It grew up today.
Ignore at your own risk.
Any 8pm Warrior trying to get their message out or sell a remarkable service should be using YouTube. Video cameras are built into nearly every smart phone and nothing captures the personality of a business like video. Nothing.
I’m sharing from experience as a producer of several online shows and video productions that were created to build community and sell a product in a social savvy way. Video changes the game.
Here’s why YouTube matters:
YouTube is the #2 search engine in the world (think SEO)
It is the largest video-based social network
Google+ is now integrated even closer with YouTube for additional community building (more on the way)
YouTube is simple to use and even offers a free video editing feature
YouTube made widespread changes to their channel formats today and I think it changes everything. In the past it was millions of chaotic channels with long lists of video uploads that were hard to understand or group together. Email subscription was the best way to keep up. It was barely social.
That all changed today.
In what was probably the biggest upgrade since Google bought YouTube, channels can be restructured to display videos in the form of a series, much like a television network groups their shows together for DVR or On Demand. It even tracks which episodes you’ve already watched in a series.
Each YouTube account also has a news feed feature, much like other social networks. To make it more social, the new YouTube is even more integrated with Google+, Facebook, and Twitter. This makes it much easier for interested viewers to subscribe and interact with brands or personalities that they enjoy. It keeps each channel fresh, even when no new videos are posted.
It’s a lot more like TV now. It’s how it should be.
You can see screenshots of the new upgrades below:
New YouTube Channel Design
New YouTube News Feed with Google+ Integration
If you have any questions about the new YouTube upgrade, feel free to post the questions below, on the 8pm Warriors Facebook discussion forum, or on twitter @Biebert. I’ll do my best to answer or point you in the right direction.
Something big is happening and it requires your attention. Literally.
We’re in the Attention Era now and we’ve got a million things coming at us. Actually, it’s more like a trillion.
Each year the world wades through:
90 trillion emails sent
1 trillion ads displayed on Facebook
1.1 trillion videos watched on YouTube
1 trillion websites indexed by Google
Wow, that’s a lot of stuff coming at us! There’s no way to keep up.
Luckily, websites like Facebook, YouTube, Google+, Gmail, StumbleUpon, and others are helping you sort through these messages to find what you want or need to see. Other sites are learning quickly.
They need your help.
On Facebook, you have to click “Like” or comment on things you actually care about for the sorting to work well. On Google+, you have to click +1. All of these systems require something from you if they’re going to pull you from the overwhelming ocean of information we’re drowning in.
The next time you see something or someone great, do yourself a favor and click “Like”.
You are reading this right now and wondering what the heck I’ll say. The title wasn’t very descriptive and I didn’t begin with anything significant. I still haven’t said much…
For every writer, there is a you.
Writers and leaders sometimes forget about who’s on the other side of their emails, text messages, blog posts or reports.
It’s you. It’s me.
We’re sitting on our laptop, iPad or phone reading what you send us. You don’t see us, but we’re privately reacting and thinking about what you just wrote.
The moment we lose focus on the reader, our emails turn into barking, our blog posts turn into mumbles, our reports lose their soul and our written words fails to mean anything.
Write to someone. Write for someone.
No matter how fatigued, distracted or busy you are, find your voice and speak to us like I’m speaking to you. We’re here.
I always get a kick out of comments like these in response to failure:
“I didn’t know that people don’t use phone books anymore.”
“I didn’t know that direct mail was a waste of money.”
“I didn’t know that spammers get 1 response to every 12 million emails they send.”
In the Post-Information Age (Attention Age), I am convinced that the “I didn’t know” excuse is obsolete. With all the information out there, it’s hard for me to accept it anymore. If you don’t know something, search it on Bing, ask on Quora, or poll your social network.
So why do so many still use that excuse?
Because they don’t care enough. They may care, but not enough to spend their evenings reading, learning, and getting with the times.
During my years of leadership and consulting, I can’t believe how many times I had to beg people to follow the advice they paid me for. I would provide reports, research, 3rd party support, and on and on and on and on….all to motivate them to make a change for the better.
You’ve probably had similar experiences.
The funny thing is that most of what I know anymore I learned from people like you, online, for free. I don’t generally preach things that aren’t backed up. I’m just not smart enough to be the first one to think of anything.
So why do people ignore good advice and then claim they “didn’t know” it was wrong?
In some cases, I think it’s easier to “not know” than it is to face the reality of an ever changing world. It’s a lot of work to be the best. However, instead of saying “I didn’t know”, they should just say “I didn’t care”.
It’s much more accurate these days.
If you’re reading this blog (or any blog), I doubt you’re one of the “don’t knowers” I’m referring to. If you have any ideas for the group on helping people “know”, please leave your thoughts below.
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