Business and Marketing Changes in 2017
Hey guys! It’s almost the end of the year and while being on vacation I’m slowly concluding the year and thinking about 2018.
But the end of 2017 was very interesting for me because people are slowly starting to see all changes that are happening all around us and asking questions on how they can get on that train of the digital revolution.
We are living in the world where there’s plenty of everything, where there are more options than ever before. To be relevant, to be heard and to be able to achieve anything, you need to get attention. It’s very hard and almost impossible. We all need to start thinking as if we are a media, ourselves and our companies, no matter which business we’re in. We are all on a journey and we should tell our stories, share our journey with a world. That doesn’t mean that we can suddenly become experts in any topic, no. That means that we should decide what are we going to do, start learning about it, start building, and share our journey with the world. Not only good things, but also bad ones. This will give us the opportunity to score at the end, but not before that.
Building yourself and your personal brand is becoming essential, no matter what you do. If you apply for a job, I won’t look at your CV. I’ll Google you, see your online presence, see the skills you have, how much of those knowledge are you sharing and more, instead of just analyzing your CV. It’s more honest approach, in my opinion.
As I mention, we have plenty of information everywhere, and plenty of knowledge. This gives us the opportunity to learn, but also gives us the freedom — the absolute freedom which is very scary for majority of people. It all comes down to you, your will and your actions! And in this world full of information, people think that, if they know a theory, they know how to execute, too. People think that if they have read case studies, articles, examples how somebody did something, they are able to apply that to what they do with the same great results. No, it won’t work. That means being fancy, and not going into dirt.
If you don’t go deep into Social Media, conversations, comments, share, engage, you won’t be able to provide results and to be ahead of competition. Going into dirt gives you an advantage, besides the ability to score, to predict what’s coming, what’s next. In the world where everything’s changing faster and faster, this is huge and can be essential. If you want to learn more tips and trick for using Social Media, I wrote 60 of them, Check this LINK.
Remember, in the beginning of 2017, we thought Instagram, who is now huge, was in trouble. Everyone was talking about the Snapchat. Facebook was doing good, Snapchat had the teenagers, and Instagram? Instagram copied what Snapchat had, they traded attention and took the attention over from Snapchat. Now we’re talking about Instagram as the huge platform, and about Snapchat as something that was big in the past. Hey, but it only past 9 months from that time! Gary Vaynerchuk was talking about this, too, and you can find the full speech HERE.
Content is all around us, in every aspect of our lives. We consume more content than ever, from text, video to voice. And according to that, we have more creators than ever. Just think about it.. And you are still doing things you dislike? Just stop. Stop now!
I always remember the example about Michelin, since they have a factory in my city. As a tire producing company, they needed people to drive. At the time, all fancy restaurants and hotels were placed in cities, so people didn’t have the reason to drive long distances. So Michelin came up with a magazine which was reviewing restaurants and giving more credits to those outside of the cities so people can go there, visit gas stations, buy tires, drive more, get new tires and so on and on. They were thinking creatively!
Now, you all have seen that Instagram is big, but you’re not using it as much as you should. Use DM (direct messages) on Instagram to connect to people with whom you can cooperate, but don’t ask for favors right away. First give them value, then you will have a chance to take something from them. Just posting selfies won’t give you anything, I’d unfollow you, honestly.
Also, use Facebook Ads while you can. I know everyone are saying that, but it’s just true. ROI is still the biggest on Facebook. I mean, where else can you invest, for example, 7$ and have 74 relevant people click to the link you send them to click? Nowhere! And if you say your audience is not on Facebook, you’re wrong. Maybe they are not there as the engineer Peter, but they are there as Peter Finder.
Besides Facebook and Instagram, for me Linkedin is also huge. Since Microsoft bought them, they made changes which made the platform more interactive and informative when it comes to business.
If you are running a local business, or you are doing marketing for any of them, you will have to learn how to use Google My Business to position yourself on Google Maps. Posting regularly on Google My Business give you the huge exposure to people searching for your services. What kind of content you need to post there? Special offers, news, all with great pictures, and I’d emphasize mentioning things you easily forget to say — like free WiFi, free coffee and similar things.
How does it work? Well, as soon as you post it, it becomes visible on Google, and if you are in top 10 (to be honest it’s more like top 4) results on Google Maps, you will get all the calls from customers interested in your services.
You can also improve and measure other thing, like the number of people visiting your website from Google, number of people calling you from Google and number of people asking for directions to your business. Check out the screenshot to see the increase in numbers in just one month even without using the Google AdWords. It’s pure treasure!
As I mentioned before, everyone should write blogs and create content, and many people do, which makes it difficult to be discovered. One thing that can help is writing long and deep, insightful articles.
Being fast is maybe the most important thing today. Don’t wait for that perfect video, perfect post, perfect article, create more, document, and when you produce more, you have the bigger chance to go big. If you are always waiting for that perfect time and perfect piece of content, it may never come.
It’s not only the world that’s changing. We are changing, too. Few months ago we had a paid software development basics course, with around 15 people involved. All of them were informed that it’s gonna take much more than just one course to make them developers. In that past, people paid so they feel responsibility to finish what they started. Now, things changed. People don’t care about the money that much. What do I mean? If they can get the knowledge fast, they will pay. But if it takes more time than they thought it would, they will quit without caring about the money they gave for the course.
We’re living the chaos, complete chaos, and if we don’t make it a controlled chaos, we’ll be finished. Please have that in mind whatever you do.
p.s. What are your wishes for 2018? Share with me in comments!
