Second summary of the first day at #SMMW13 to tell you the most important things that Guy Kawasaki had to say. I’ve decided to write a whole post on this review because it’s really worth it.
Guy Kawasaki: how to build a platform
This was one of the speeches I wanted to attend the most. It was definitely worth it and way better than I expected. Guy Kawasaki shattered everyone’s preconceptions and exceeded their expectations. He knew what he was there for and what he needed to do to get us thinking. He started irreverently, elegantly correcting what the presenter had said about him. He also said he wasn’t here to talk about Google+ or his book but about how to create a successful online platform, possibly by using social platforms such as Google+. This is what I extracted in essence from Guy Kawasaki’s talk:
- I don’t want friends, I’m here to do business. There are two types of people on the social web: those who want followers and those who lie.
- Start tomorrow: in order to promote a product, service or book launch you need at least 9 months before you even get started on that product or book.
Segment your services: this is how Guy Kawasaki uses the Social Media
- Facebook: for the people.
- Twitter: perceptions.
- Google+: sharing passions.
- Pinterest: publishing and pinning.
- LinkedIn: promotion.
Create a great profile:
- Original.
- With a great avatar, showing your face at the centre, not with your dog or car.
- Attractive.
- Your profile should work like on a dating site: “hot or not”. Someone visiting your profile should think: “hot”
- Enticing others to connect with you.
Retrain yourself:
- Share and help out, always and a lot.
- Spend 5% of your time promoting yourself.
- Add value in your own environment, share other people’s stories.
Add something special:
- Pictures.
- Videos.
- Consider your answers and answer the questions made.
- Cheat: seek out what is trending and become an ally with it.
- Stay positive or go home. We need optimism, not doubt.
Negativity in the social media is like a boxing match:
- Round 1 – publish.
- Round 2 – react.
- Round 3 – react to the reaction, fight.
- Round 4 – comment again.
- … and so on …
Repeat tweets:
- Not everyone reading your tweets is your target.
- Repeat 4 times a day: the return from 4 tweets is better than only one.
- Out of one million fans, it’s usually 5/6 who complain: if no one complains about what you’re doing, there’s something you’re not doing right!
- Don’t publish when Asia is awake, you’ll only get spam in return.
Google+
- Create a private community to use as a “to-do” list for posts that you’re interested in sharing.
- Use a clipboard tool to store content: Multiple Level Clipboard.
- Tell stories that your community are interested in listening to: Alltop, Smartbrief or TEDxtalks on Youtube are ideal resources.
- Communities: 1. create communities that refer to specific passions; 2. create internal communities with workflows in companies, teams in resources sites, editors, etc.
Tools:
- “Do Share” – programme posts anywhere, including Google+.
- Buffer – programme tweets.
- “Nuke Comments” – this allows you to delete comments, block users and eliminate them all at once.
- “Replies and more” – answer comments on Google+ directly to the user who mentioned you.
- “Shareholic” – social sharing button that can be integrated in any website.
Guy Kawasaki’s strategy:
If you share content continuously, that content will reach people and it may add value. That could happen with your first content or your thousandth content. So, when you add value, someone or more than one will share. Every time someone shares, new people get to know you. The more people know you, more people will start finding interesting content among what you publish. And they’ll start following you; increasingly so. It is then that you’ll be able to use that 5% self-promotion to sell your book or product or service.
Final note
The following statement summarises Guy’s essence: “Curation is as valuable as creation.” Straightforward, fun, simple, smart, valuable and irreverent. It was, by far, the best talk on Day 1 and practically the whole event, only surpassed by Chris Brogan’s intervention on Day 2.