Social Media & Digital Marketing in Singapore

Gary Vaynerchuk – Crush It! – Book Review

Gary Vaynerchuk - Crush It!

I remember the first time I watched a Gary Vee video – his website had been hacked and he was explaining what happened and how he was resolving it and his character and passion just jumped off the screen (you can watch the video at the end of this post).

That same character comes through right off the page in Crush It! as well. This book is not for those who are afraid of change. What Gary presents is a roadmap to understanding yourself, tapping in on your passion and building a brand around yourself to get the job done.

While the book is aimed at the entrepreneur, there’s a lot of takeaway for big and small businesses alike. The 13 step plan he highlights in the book can be applicable to anyone but one thing he emphasises is that while monetary cost may be low, this is going to require a heck of a lot of hours. “Just Do It” isn’t a strategy that’s going to work here unless you’re prepared to put in those hours.

Crush It! is as much about knowing yourself as knowing your audience. Gary Vee makes you think hard about what you think your “passion” is, whether you’re an audio, visual or text person and what medium is best for you and if you’re really going to make it work.

At the end of the day, what Gary Vee encourages is building your personal brand first (not pushing your product in front of people’s face!) and letting that passion energise your audience, grab their attention which then you can monetise later. If you’re willing to do this, for free – it can pay back big time later.

Who should read this book?

If I had to pass this book to someone, I’d pass it to someone still in school or a fresh grad. Never before has having a personal brand and standing for something been so important. Maybe it’ll work against you in some cases – but when you connect with the people who are genuinely interested in you for who you are and what you stand for, you’ll be Crushing It.

Tags: 13 step plan, audio, big businesses, book review, brand building, building a brand, crush it, entrepreneur, gary vaynerchuk, gary vee, just do it, medium, monetise, passion, personal brand, roadmap, small businesses, tapping your passion, text, visual

Posted in Books, online identity, social media | 1 Comment »

“Just Do It” Isn’t A Social Media Strategy

So you hear the good news that your boss/client wants to get started with a social media strategy. Before you start jumping for joy, does the conversation sound anything like this?

Boss: Let’s get on social media – let’s start with Twitter
You: Why? What’s the objective?
Boss: We’ll think about that later, just do it

If that’s what it sounds like, I can almost guarantee in 6 to 12 months that very person is going to be asking you “so how have we done on Twitter?” and you’re going to say “err but we didn’t specify any goals” and it’s going to be a one way ticket to hell. And you know what? In all likelihood if you’re doing it for the sake of “just doing it”, it’s probably not going to be work you’re going to be proud of anyway.

Instead, the conversation should go something like this:

Boss: Let’s get on social media – let’s start with Twitter
You: Why? What’s the objective?
Boss: I want to use it to improve customer service
You: So we’re going to monitor all mentions of our brand and respond to complaints and rectify them?
Boss: Yes

Replace “Twitter” with “Facebook” or “blog”, replace “improve customer service” with “increase lead generation” or “decrease costs’ and you get the gist.

Ideally it should go even further than this to identify whose time will be allocated to this, how much time and how the initiative will be measured.

You need to do this from the get go. Set the expectation early that social media efforts – while free/cheap – take time. Don’t let your desire to do some social media work/please your boss/please your client get in the way of this. It’ll save you a world of hurt later.

How do you deal with “just do it” requests? I’d love to hear from you in the comments.

[image credits: themachobox]

Tags: blog, brand mentions, customer service, decrease costs, facebook, increase lead generation, just do it, leadgen, social media, social media goal, social media objective, social media strategy, themachobox, ticket to hell, twitter

Posted in Poor Practices, social media, social media business | 5 Comments »