About Last Night… What We Learned At Big Ooga
We opened the meeting with some real-time analytics, asking new faces to introduce themselves and tell us how they found us. 90% said word of mouth. It was either a friend, a direct experience, direct invite or event listing – in that order.
In other words, it was personal.
Just like the writing of this post.
I am writing from me to you. To your eyes. As Avery Cohen explained, the digital part is the delivery. It could have been a phone call, a letter, but instead this is a blog.
Key point 1. I am sharing relevant information
Key point 2. It is written with a personal and authentic tone
Key point 3. You may or may not choose to keep reading – since you have many other options.
Key point 4. If you do continue, we have connected. And you have deemed this of value. (phewww)
Our panel discussion focused on Leveraging Digital Media – “getting it” and using it
The sequence of the information was as important as the material presented. We know we need virtual media skills but in what order of priority do we need to learn them and can we really do it? Here’s how we stacked the information:
1. Be niche - Get your real story, real conversations, wins and expertise on the page. Give people a reason to find you and return. Once you are found, care, bond and respond. Reach through the page to another person – to an emotional or intellectual response. Give people an “ah ha”. Digital media carries the conversation, but it’s up to you to start, join and carry the flag through fresh content. (lots of it)
2. SEO – now optimize it. Create and continue to create and share your experience. SEO is like body building. One lift does not get you into shape. Measure, adjust and keep generating content. Google distributes content. Give them something to work with!
3. WordPress – Use/Create a digital platform to manage your own content. This has to be as flexible as you are. You evolve. Your business evolves. Knowledge and experience evolve. WordPress is easy to use and easy to learn. As Steven Stern said last night, “Prepare yourself to always be in Beta.”
Now I’m going to turn this over to you and the experts to continue to embellish this.
PS. Thank you so much for coming last night. It was remarkable! It’s great to be able to share what took place and we’re going to keep sharing every month.
Welcome to the Big Ooga™ We are a quickly evolving community of accomplished entrepreneurs and professionals dedicated to keeping each other working, mastering new skills, building prosperous relationships and promoting our member companies.
I deem this & your events valuable, indeed.
I also heard use technology (in the cloud, if you can) to be more efficient from Derek @ Apogee Strategies.
Lennie, nicely captured. And for those who aren’t as comfortable producing the written word, there are a plethora of resources within the Big Ooga to support them.
Lennie the idea about the workshops is great for BigOoga. Sounds like you already have a person in the group with a facility. Go for it. Looking forward to February 1, 2011!
Cheers and Happy New Year!
Dante
Thanks for the recap, Lennie. I was tweeting part of the panel discussion so I missed some of it (problem with tweeting!).
I’m gonna add Goal Setting since that was the topic that JoAnn Becker talked about in the breakout group a few of us sat in on (while the rest of the group ran off to the bar to play). JoAnn talked about the importance of breaking the “to do’s” into small chunks to make it easier and less overwhelming. She also compared it to MapQuest, which I found interesting (could be applied to any mapping system). The point is that you identify your goal first and then have a list of steps (turns, etc) to get there. I loved that analogy cause you don’t get to a destination immediately. You have turns, and sometimes roadblocks, along the way.
I LOVE the Big OOga events. I’ve met some terrific people. Everyone is super nice and very professional. And it’s always fun!
Very impressed with the networking event — not only was I able to network with very friendly & interesting folks, but, also learn something that will help grow my business. I especially liked the information about being authentic when selling our services — letting our (my business partner’s & my) personalities shine through, so we can be recognized as great people to do business with.
Thank you to everyone! It was a great evening.
Autumn Franger / CoOffice Connect / Rogers Park
Lennie – For the record, I found you and Big Ooga using Google!
Neale Williams / MYLP – ManageYourLaserPrinters.com
Neale, and we’re so glad you did find us! What was the searhc term you used?