This was my first 3XE Digital and it certainly lived up to it's reputation. Sadly I missed the first few speakers due to the awful traffic in town and by all accounts they were damn good speakers but I did get some decent takeaways too!
The first speaker I managed to get some time to listen too was Roz and she made a lot of sense. As she went through the channels she uses and how she uses then I have to say I agree with her interpretations:
She uses Snapchat to demonstrate her personality and as it is mostly unedited (apart from the odd filter) it's normally a great way to show the bones of who you are.With the Geo Filters you can also demonstrate some awareness of locations you're visiting too and some events you attend will get special filters for their event.
Instagram has its own unique editing tools and of course before you even put an image in there you can edit it. The branding aspect is also very useful, you also tend to get a slightly different audience on Instagram. It was the biggest growth area in social media for a long time but I think that maybe Snapchat is the cool kid on the block now, must check out some stats!
Roz said she used blog as her "Dear Diary", where she could put her honest thoughts on her life and show the progress in her business and put across what drives her. It's not always about proving your authority (although that does play a part) it's also a way of reaching everyone who reads it on a personal level.
Needless to say this was an obvious thing to get out of social media but it gives you the chance to build on SEO and reach your audience.
She gets people to come back to her blog on a regular basis and comment, over time the regulars get to know one another and they then meet up when she's at an event. Thus building a community.
Always helpful! Roz has books out and events that tickets are sold at and she needs to generate a revenue some how from this.
Roz encourages her audience to share her content by asking them to and by going to conferences like this one and speaking she is reaching a new group of people who may want to join her community.
A really important aspect of having an audience is to engage with them. She was quite firm on this, you must be responsive and make every effort to make a relationship with your audience. If you just spout out your opinions and don't generate conversation your audience will loose interest and look elsewhere.
It's a necessity! Fortunately we both do something we enjoy but making money is what we both need too. Like every business Roz will have a strategy for this, it could be a speaking tour or a book deal but making money with her engaged audience should be a simple matter.
As we all know video is the preferred method of reaching your audience these days as it is being organically pushed on many platforms but one suggestion Roz made I hadn't heard before.She suggested that we put our videos in our email signature. It makes a lot of sense if you think about it, the amount of emails we send relevant to our business. It may not always reach the right people but there is the chance it will and it exploits a whole new medium too. She also pointed out that if you put the word "video" in the title of the email the open rate is considerably higher too. I must try this out in the next week.
The man of the event Jeff Bullas had only traveled over a day or two before so was feeling a little zoned but gave us some amazing gems! Also some new words....
Jeff spent some considerable time reminding the room about SEO, it's a horribly neglected thing by so many businesses he offered. We create beautiful content and then don't put in the right SEO terms to be found online. "Search drives 300% more traffic to your website" and if you look in your Google Analytics he's right. It's not just your Facebook and Twitter accounts that bring people over.
This baffled me a little at first but then he gave us a few headlines that have worked for him, this being one of the most popular.
Why You Should Forget Facebook
Certainly made me read it! It never occurred to use a headline like this but it's worth considering now.
How many times do you actually read a whole article verbatim all the way through? Precisely, I do the same and so do a lot of people of your content. Make it relevant but punchy!
Yes I did initially wonder what Jeff said but this is just the happy marriage of Lists and Articles. This word came about because so many people skim, so making an article in a list format would suit a lot more of your audience. He also mentioned doing the list in odd numbers, for some reason they are more popular than ones with even numbers??
Homework for me and potentially for you is to look at Leadpages, SumoMe and Hubspot and use their tools accordingly. I unfortunately don't have a never ending budget so may need to pick one and hope for the best!
I hope you find these takeaways useful and please let me know what you think of them and if you currently do any of them!
Working with clients Nationwide from base in Mullingar.
