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Big Data Analysis Invades Amazon TV

11/05/2013 By Jayme Soulati

Deutsch: Logo von Amazon.com (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

Amazon continues to surprise. Its latest segue from online shopping and shipping megalopolis is a venture into streaming video via Amazon Studios. The team is attempting to predict the next hit TV series from pilots featured on Amazon’s website in April.

Rather than use internal creative professionals from studios and production houses to select TV pilots for long-term runs, Amazon put 13 pilots on its website and allowed visitors to vote.

Here’s what’s amazingly basic about this whole story. The metrics Amazon used to determine its pilot selection were:

Likes
Shares
Votes
Surveys
Comments

This fascinates me because of its simplicity. There is so much emphasis being placed on big data analysis and how data drive strategy. While Amazon is certainly using big data (in this case a lot of people placing votes, right?) to influence video streaming program selection, it didn’t indicate it used in-depth software and programming to analyze which show will become a hit.

According to the Wall Street Journal, “Amazon Mines User Data in Search of TV Hits,” on Nov. 2-3, 2013, Amazon Studios has selected three of the top-ranked vote getters and put them into production. The pilots are slated to be made available to Amazon Prime members in November.

What does this imply for your own big data analysis? Could we perhaps be putting too much emphasis in data when the simpler metrics of likes, shares, votes, and comments are sufficient?

How are you using big data in your business? Is its analysis truly driving strategy, lead generation, and sales?

Coming from a public relations background where data used to be the bailiwick of marketing, the numbers were rarely my favorite. It’s hard to crack that barrier to entry, but it’s stupid not to. Numbers do tell stories especially when you’re smart enough to interpret them.

Who’s Monetizing Online?

09/23/2013 By Jayme Soulati

Every day another someone from a really cool company, blog, blogging community, organization, or other network asks me to write for them, speak to them, brainstorm about the exchange of content, consider paying a fee to join a network, or hawk a product pitched from the far reaches of Russia and India.

And, I rarely say no because who knows what doors may open as a result of that opportunity?

What’s happening is my stretch is thinning dangerously. The offers are ubiquitous, and as a starter, I’m jazzed about what’s new and next. They say a sucker is born every minute; perhaps you’re reading one right now.

But, I can’t think like that. What I’m doing by accommodating most everyone’s requests is building a brand that appears to be #RockHot solid, so I’m told. It feels that way to me, as well. And, here’s the elusive question:

Who’s Monetizing?

The answer is…few.

My friend Tim Bonner, a UK stay-at-home dad, informed me recently he made $300 on his niche site. Not sure what he’s hawking, but I informed him in a tweet I was envious. I’ve also watched his meteoric rise from being a sometime daddy blogger to a snappy smart tech geek blogger who experiments with Google do-not-follow links and writes about it. Awesome.

I know my friend Jon Buscall, CEO of Jontus Media in Sweden, is an extraordinarily busy podcaster and dad to a gazillion Basset hounds. He has earned cash recommending podcasting equipment and selling it via an Amazon affiliate program.

In that same program, I made about $10 once, and I also was pitched to run a blog post on another blog for $75. My first book, Writing with Verve on the Blogging Journey (you can buy it on Kindle for $3.95), is a collection of blog posts about my favorite topic of blogging brought in $85 from the publisher (who took a cut after Amazon took a cut). That’s truly the extent of my monetization.

I know that SpinSucks Pro requires membership, and really good content is sold to folks on SpinSucks. People can register or buy into a webinar for $50 to hear professional speakers on professional topics. Good on them.

But, I want to know who’s truly monetizing huge?

All of the peeps above come from the content/traditional marketing and PR realm. The ability to monetize takes knowledge of API and back ends, building and programming of websites, addition of shopping carts and management of digital marketing calls to action, forms and landing pages.

Do you have all that knowledge under your hat?

Nope, didn’t think so.

The Conundrum of Monetization

That’s the conundrum of late. We who can develop the substance and slap a price tag on it need the techies to join the team and figure out the platform on which to sell the products. Recall I said Tim Bonner earned money on his “niche” site.

What that means is Tim found a specialty topic or product, developed a new site oriented to that product and began to sell. His earning potential is in its earliest stages; however, he’s found the methodology and hopefully the product to keep on with residual income.

Digital Marketing Is An Answer

I see many of these passive income bloggers who started way early building an email list. Their lists are massive of trusting individuals who came to their site for some reason or another. When another product is hawked, that list of trustworthy and hopefully loyal community members are more inclined to make a second purchase. All of a sudden, that network of thousands is buying everything hawked by that trusted figurehead.

To make this happen, you need knowledge of digital marketing; inbound marketing as HubSpot calls it. I’ve been in HubSpot school all year. As a solopreneur, the ability to do it all is daunting; the time and knowledge and effort it takes to learn new things is terribly exciting, however extremely fatal to making a living the traditional way – with a handshake and results-driven pure work on behalf of a client.

Monetization Requires A Team

I’ve come to realize I don’t have what it takes to monetize alone. I need to build a team with a tech pro who can help program a site (a simple WordPress site is all we need), a digital marketer who can manage and nurture the list, design the calls to action and add them as widgets in the sidebar of the site, write the landing pages, and consult on that back-end of the site.

The most critical part of the team is one who builds the products and content to bring in the cash. That’s me. If I could free myself up to truly concentrate on product development and trust my team was standing by to facilitate their ends of the triangle, we’d be golden.

So, who’s on board?

11 Inspired Nudges to Fuel Your Business Book

08/01/2013 By Jayme Soulati

Photo Credit: Jayme Soulati via iPhone 4S on AA flight to LA

Ever thought of writing a book? Don’t tell me you haven’t! Everyone is writing a book, and that either makes you feel left out or jazzed up.

If you have a bucket list, writing a book may be one of your yet-to-achieve items. Because self-publishing is the latest trend to hit the book world, there’s no better time than the present to jump on board and self-publish already.

Self-publish? How did that word hit you?

Some have a negative reaction to we who self-publish our first tome. My first business book has been out a few weeks, Writing with Verve on the Blogging Journey. The concern is that bloggers who write books are not legitimate authors. (I know this to be true, as I heard it from someone directly.)

Bah-humbug!

When you have an archive full of content hardly seeing the light of day, then why not compile these posts into a collection of insights?

Bloggers have keen opinions and are usually remarkable teachers. They offer vibrant thought, lead perspective and showcase talent from years of writing and perusing others’ writings. Check into your archives and see if a book is ready to pop from under the covers. Maybe you need a nudge of inspiration to help push your book into reality?

11 Book-Writing Tips and Nudges

1. Showcase Confidence. Overcome what’s challenging you about writing a business book. Business development, building your list, power for the brand, and achievement for the soul are significant reasons why authorship works. Understand that a book builds your cred; it’s an opportunity you’ll never regret.
2. Got topic? As mentioned above, start with your blog. Comb your archives and see what strikes you. There are topics you’ve tackled more frequently than others, and these posts become book fodder.
3. A blog is owned media! You own your blog and you write your posts. Owning all this content means you can re-purpose it into a business book easy enough. Add them to a document, sort, update, tweak, and off you go!
4. Do self-publish the first title. There’s nothing wrong with self-publishing; it enables a faster go-to-market strategy. It eliminates time on the front end and provides more time to market the title. Now that budding authors have the opportunity to self-publish, carpe diem! Did you know that Mark W. Schaefer self-published The Tao of Twitter?
5. Is an e-Book a book? If you prefer to launch a book online only, stop worrying that people won’t consider your e-book legit. It’s a common emotion, but guess what? You are writing the book for YOU. If people read and like it, that’s another discussion.
6. Invest in you. Write for you, write to achieve, write to invest in your future and your credibility. Printing a book on your own will require a financial investment; however, plan for it. Money is required to publish a book; but, it won’t break the bank.
7. Time is of the essence. As a professional blogger, you are familiar with time commitment. Your growth is along an ever-steepening path. Add your book project into the blogging queue. Instead of posting four times weekly, then only post two for awhile and use that writing time for your book. You learn to manage time better when it’s time spent building your brand.
8. What will peers and critics say? Ignore the naysayers. There will be people who don’t regard your work with value; others will say you’re not a “true” author. Put on the ear buds and listen to happy music! Perhaps you’re a blogger who wrote a book (like me), or you’re a bona fide writer who wrote a book…pray tell…what’s the difference?
9. Writing a book is necessary. Are you trying to monetize and earn money online? A book provides so many opportunities to help monetize from building a list, earning authority, speaking engagements, and business development.
10. Will anyone buy it? An investment in time, talent and thought to craft your first title is NOT about making a profit. You are writing a business book to accomplish so much more for your growth professionally. If people buy it, then that’s a bonus. Lower your expectation about selling hundreds of books. You can be surprised later.
11. After the first title, more follow. Mark Schaefer does not recall this email to me about three years ago. I asked him where his book was, and he said, “Why should I write a book, everyone is!” Now look at him with three highly successful business books under his belt. Once you sit down to write the first, there’s a second title just beneath the surface. I know this from experience. My first title is just published, and my second is being written in my head right now.

The experience of the experience is the biggest reward you’ll have when you allow these inspirational nudges to push you into authorship. My bookshelf and Kindle always have room for one more title, and I bet yours do, too!

This post originally appeared on Mark W. Schaefer’s blog, Businesses Grow, on July 3, 2013.

Please Buy Jayme’s Book!

The e-book and soft cover are available via Amazon, right here!

Triberr Is Blogger Treasure

06/20/2013 By Jayme Soulati

Since the earliest days of Triberr, I have been on board. Triberr is one of the best and most-needed blog sharing tools around; in fact, there isn’t any other.

Bloggers can elect to join a tribe of nine bloggers or join multiples of tribes as I have. What happens to the tweet stream, though, when you’re in more than 25 tribes, like me, is chaos. Some of those tribes consist of 100+ members that connect me with 5 million folks? (Don’t think that’s really true, but OK.)

121217- Digging Into Triberr (Photo credit: Rogier Noort)

Sound stupid? I agree, of course, but there is a method to my madness and insatiable thirst for knowledge and curiosity.

I have received several direct communications via Twitter and someone even filled out my WuFoo contact form that my tweet stream is too full of retweets. It has become annoying because of the quantity of content loading into my stream. I was asked to set up another Twitter account for retweets of Triberr content (which is totally impossible due to the RSS feed, branding and outreach). Others have said how boring it is to see the same tweet from a variety of bloggers (they’re obviously in the same tribe).

I understand all of the concerns from the folks who are not professional bloggers and who don’t realize the merits of Triberr. I’m going to share why I continue to accept tribe invites and why I pay $10 monthly to Triberr so I can share more blog content faster. Besides, for any platform the likes of Triberr, they deserve my $120 annually to continue to innovate at the speed they have for the last three years.

Reasons Why Triberr Matters

Founders. As I’ve joked with Dino Dogan, founder and front man of Triberr, the fledgling company is like Two Men and a Truck. They fly by the seat of their pants, but anytime you speak with Dino or Dan Cristo, the energy to innovate is palpable. I’m including a link here for my Soulati Media On The Street chat with Dino Dogan at Social Slam in April. Energy? Uh-huh.

Innovation. In the three years since the launch of Triberr, back when Dino and Danny Brown were gaming Klout with sheep (yes, that really happened), Triberr has launched about a dozen new tools to help bloggers automate shares. And, that word “automate?” In this case it’s not cuss.

Tribes. Being in multiple tribes means you comb for the cream of the crop. You can mute bloggers not in your genre, and you can meet new bloggers publishing leading content. You can also launch and join an atomic tribe; one blogger with unlimited followers. I have learned so much from my peers on the ‘sphere, and the only way I can reasonably do that is via Triberr. I save productivity time being on one platform with ~500 bloggers at my fingertips on a given day.

Reader. Triberr has become my new reader. You see folks on the quest to find the next best Reader after the demise of Google’s and the migration to Feedly. Triberr works wonders for me; not sure I’m going to find any other blogger not already in a tribe I belong to. In fact, if I do, they get an invite to join my tribe.

Content. A newer feature called reblogging allows bloggers to republish content from another’s blog with the original author featured. This is one aspect of Triberr I don’t yet care for; when I read peoples’ blogs, I want to read their content primarily. If I see only reblogs happening 90% of the time, I’m discouraged visiting. For bloggers who want to post more frequently and don’t have time to post consistently, then re-blogging works; just not for me. I reserve the right to change my mind.

Reading. I love being able to read blogs from Triberr without going anywhere. I can quickly scan and see if the content is worthy of going to the blog and leaving deeper tracks. This has helped me be more share aware; there are so many who still say, “don’t share unless you read first.” That’s one issue for me being in so many tribes; I can’t read everything and have to trust the authors’ credibility which I’ve vetted already once they’re in my stream the first time.

Commenting. The new Triberr dashboard now allows easier reading of blog posts right on Triberr without having to go to a blog. What this means is not good for bloggers (because traffic isn’t recorded on the blog), but it is convenient for readers and tribe mates. An email comes alerting me that someone commented on my blog on Triberr. Comments are up 50% since the guys fixed all the glitches. I have seen some bloggers using the Triberr comment system along with another system like Google. Interesting.

Content Marketing. The best reason to use Triberr is to review the content and topics others are writing about and with what angle. It helps to know what’s new and trending and it also provides fodder for your own writing. Topics can get pretty boring quickly when you see all the bloggers writing on Facebook hashtags and photos in comments, for example. That’s when I have to select one only and ignore the rest. It becomes an echo chamber and I know my Twitter followers don’t want that.

Shares. Shares are down with Triberr. Even with the ridiculous numbers of tribes I’m in, I have fewer shares of my blog content. Regardless, without Triberr (when it was down for an extended period), traffic is nearly zilch.

When you add up all of the above, bloggers need Triberr. For those on the receiving end of the tweet stream for bloggers in massive numbers of tribes, patience is the virtue. It’s my responsibility to share my tribe mates content; in fact, if I don’t, they don’t share mine. So, I apologize to all of you not blogging and invite you into my tribe so you can experience what I’ve just shared.