Haiku Deck, Presentation Poetry

Haiku Deck presentation softward

One of the discussions that I’ve had with clients on a regular basis, is to take advantage of SlideShare. The power of SlideShare is in the visuals, how easy it is to share your ideas with others. The presentations can be shared via your social channels or embed into your blog efforts.  The concern most frequently expressed by clients, was the time it would take to find suitable images, build the presentation in PowerPoint and then upload it to SlideShare. In reality, it doesn’t take that long, but if you’re not familiar with the software, it can seem daunting. I’m excited to say that now, it’s even easier to build great looking presentations that you can share with your audiences and extend the life of your content, thanks to Haiku Deck and it’s partnership with SlideShare.

Not long ago I received an invite from SlideShare to take advantage of a new partnership they’d entered into with Haiku Deck. Curious I popped over and took a look. I built my first deck within SlideShare using Haiku Deck (the example is below). There are some really useful demonstrations and tips to help you navigate through the build. There are some limitations as well, such as, the number of images (you can upload your own), fonts and colour selections. But I enjoyed the process and have subsequently shared it with others.

One of the things I learned quickly was that once built and uploaded in SlideShare, you can not edit the presentation (I wanted to add a final slide with contact information). This is not a problem in the Haiku Deck sight itself, only if you’ve uploaded it to SlideShare. The other at the moment is that the mobile version of Haiku Deck is only available for the iPhone and as an Android user, currently not available to me. I understand that this will be corrected, but have not heard when. However, you can create your presentations on a laptop or desktop with ease.

Recently, I’ve read a lot of blog posts noting that to be successful with our online efforts going forward, we’ll need better visuals in our content and marketing efforts. Haiku Deck certainly gives you the tools to help you achieve that end. For the general user; as Canva has done for graphic design, Haiku Deck will do for presentations. It truly is the art of building poems with images.

Currently the site is free to use, but will eventually have a paid portion (premium design elements).

Haiku Deck Resources and Demonstrations:

My first foray with Haiku Deck:


Marketing Plan Template – Created with Haiku Deck, presentation software that inspires
 

10 Tips to Transform your Presentations by Haiku Staff:

A Stunningly Simple Path to Creative Business Presentations by Mark Schaefer {Grow} blog December 5, 2014

Note: this blog was revised after Mark Schaefer’s post came out. Mark does an excellent job of highlighting the pros and cons in his post (above) and I saw no need to duplicate them here.

Interacting with Slides by Jerry Weissman from Duarte.com Blog 2009

Smart Easy Content Creation

Creating content for social
Imagine what it was like.

In my talks with clients and future brand advocates, a central theme for the vast majority of them is their concern around their limited resources. Specifically, the time they will need to invest in creating content for their website, blog and social platforms. It is a somewhat valid concern, as content creation can be time consuming if you don’t plan ahead. However, once you’ve done your planning, you’ll have a clear idea of what you want to create (theme), where you want to share it (medium) and for who (which segment of your audience).

Lately, I’ve seen some exceptional examples of content creation that is full of useful information, easy to produce (no big elaborate budgets) and material that is easily consumed, then shared by the audience with their friends and followers. I’d like to highlight a few of my favorite resources and examples of content creation. A good example was demonstrated on this blog in our last post. Mark Schaefer’s re-purposing of a chapter from his latest book, into a powerful ebook that he shared on SlideShare and distributed through his various social channels. At the end, I’ll share more links of rich media (podcasts) from some of my favorite content creators.

Video Examples:

Social Media Today, provides excellent materials to browse on a multitude of topics about Social Media. Recently, they’ve added some powerful short videos with leading knowledge specialists. A great example of the power of these quick chats in “SMTShorts” are the two recent additions with Ted Rubin. As a passionate social media/business advocate, Ted brings insight, hands on experience and authenticity to his appeals for us to all be more human. The nice aspect of these is that they are under 2 minutes, have a clear focus and answer questions that a great many are likely asking.
The first video discusses the best platform for the consumer. Be sure to heed the advice at the end.

The second video, how do you get an audience to engage with you on Twitter. Again, listen to the end.

Both videos provide great insights and may not have taken all that long to shoot and edit.

For another example, Jay Baer (Convince and Convert) recently launched his “Jay Today” segments on his YouTube channel (in addition to iTunes, Stitcher and his own website). Jay is a generous sharer of content, the author of “Youtility“, and has a lot of great content on his YouTube channel already, but these quick videos deal with one topic and he’s promised to keep them to around 3 minutes. In this episode, Jay shares the key to being a successful blogger (and a tip on how this video was created).

These are some quick examples of what you can do to be of service to your audience and become their favorite content creator. To plan for these very useful snippets of information, talk to your client facing staff and find out what questions they are getting from your clients and prospects, then shoot a quick video to provide them with the answess.  Check out this resource from Wistia to set up your own “DIY Office Video Studio”. The keys to good video; a key message, good lighting, and good sound.

Now as promised, the links to some of my favorite content:

Podcasts:

I generally listen to these over lunch, at the end of the evening before turning in for the night or when on the road. Most are under 1/2 hour and all have provided great information that I’ve used personally in my business or shared with my clients (listed alphabetically).

Fan-Dam-Tastic Marketing Show – Host Mack Collier, Author Think Like a Rock Star, Host of Twitter Chat #BlogChat

The Marketing Agents PodcastRich Brooks of Flyte Media. Focus on small business primarily.

The Marketing Companion Show – Hosts Tom Webster and Mark W. Schaefer – Been listening since inception.

The Marketing Smarts Podcast – Hosts Kerry O’Shea Gorgone. Full of great guests, topics, humor and usable tips.

Small Business Talent Podcast – Host Stephen H. Lahey. Focus on networking, sales and marketing for small biz.

There are many more entertaining and informative podcasts out there, what’s your favorite?

 

Social is hard, but not with these Resources

Content Marketing, social media posts

The crowd has spoken and once again the most popular social media posts were about leadership and resources. From a look at some “Free SEO” resources to a well written and timely review of what your agency should be doing for you with your social media efforts. Without any further delay; here are the five top social media stories that you might have missed last week.

Leadership:

It’s a popular topic with those in leadership roles and those aspiring to be effective leaders. This topic posted in the HBR Blog is getting a lot of attention recently. After all, who really wants to be the “pain in the A$$” boss that employees just don’t like. However, being too nice can have a major impact on your organization as well. I always appreciated seniors that would fall into the “hard but fair” category, how about you?

 

Resources:

Creating really effective visual content has never been easier (if you take a little bit of time to play and watch some very useful videos), but finding the right tool to help you with the smaller graphic tasks can be confusing with so many tools available. That’s why this post Social Media Examiner, like struck a cord with readers.

 

Facebook, the platform that everyone loves to hate but can’t help but continue to pay attention to. With all of the changes and their impact on the newsfeed and your ability to connect with your communities, it can be hard and frustrating. Yet,  finding useful resources can make the journey friendlier and more effective. This week I saw a very useful post on the MarketingProfs blog.

 

Search Engine Optimization is an ongoing and ever evolving requirement for any size business. It’s impossible to stay relevant with a “set it and forget it” mentality. I always encourage clients to do a SEO Audit at least annually, but the biggest concern is budget. If you feel you don’t have the cash, than it’s imperative that you exchange some time to gain more knowledge. These SEO resources that I came across on the Kissmetrics blog, may just be the ticket to resolve your concerns.

 

Community Management:

Let’s not confuse things, participating in an effective social media strategy can be hard work, time consuming and a little bit daunting. What to talk about, where to post and when are the stuff that can keep you awake at night. It might be easier to abdicate your responsibility to that agency/marketing consulting firm that said they’d just do it for you. The issue with that is simply that these are your current and future customers that you are trying to build and develop a lasting relationship with. The firm may curate and post on your behalf, but are they qualified to converse with your customers with the same level of understanding, empathy and commitment that you are. In my experience, the best results have always come from a collaborative approach to social and community management. That’s why it was so refreshing to see this post from the Arcompany.

 

I hope that you find the information compiled here of great value to you. If you have any questions, drop a note in the comment section or fire off an email, I’d be thrilled to hear from you.

Using Automation and Building Engagement

Automated Robot
Source: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robot

In our attempts to be more “social”, there seems to be an ongoing discussion / battle around automation and engagement. Is it okay to automate some, all or none of your social media activities? I’m aware of folks that have totally abdicated the responsibility of their social media efforts to either automation or a consultant/agency. Conversely, I’m aware of other folks that struggle mightily on a daily basis to create “original” content and manually post to all of their social platforms, in many instances becoming so overwhelmed they abandon their efforts. In both of these cases, the individual/team are operating without any real strategy as to why they are posting, to who, on which channel and when.

First, let’s examine what is meant by automation.

The dictionary (Random House) defines automation as: the technique or system of operating a mechanical process by highly automatic means, as by electronic devises, reducing human intervention to a minimum.

And therein lies a portion of the issue, in our efforts to reduce human intervention of repetitive tasks, some have approached social as a mechanical process (think, I must post five times a day or my boss will be all over me). The difficulty is that most relationship building endeavors, are anything but mechanical or routine. Each of our audiences are unique. Sure, we can categorize them into similar groups or buyer personas based on interests, needs or geographic location, but those are meant to be guidelines to determine what we need to communicate at the right time and place to solve a particular issue, not a sum total of any one person.

In her excellent post “How to use Social Media Automation to Enhance (not hurt) your Social Media Strategy“, Kristi Hines covers the good and the bad of social media automation. Like Ms. Hines, I agree that a preferable tactic is to vet the posts that you are going to schedule for the day/week or beyond (I personally only post out about a week ). As she notes; “By automating (to an extent) the content that you share, you will keep your profiles up to date while opening up more time to do more personalized interactions (read engagement)”. You only have so much time to invest in your efforts (thus why it may make sense to outsource your community management, but that’s an entirely different conversation) and it’s important to be spending it where you’ll get the best return (measuring your success, yep, another post), that I’m sure you’ll agree will be in chatting to your future and current brand advocates. By using automation effectively, you should have more time to engage with those in your community (future clients, clients, influencers, vendors and as importantly employees).

Our goal in automating certain tasks should be to allocate more time to making those meaningful connections that can lead to both tangible and intangible returns (part of the measurement chat). I believe that by fully automating your social; “so it looks like your active” and not engaging with those that connect with you is a drain on the little financial and time resources you commit to it. In his book “Social Media Explained“, Mark Schaefer outlines three key elements behind every successful social media interaction that he studied or was informed of;  “Targeted Connections + Meaningful Content + Authentic Helpfulness = Business Benefits”. As he clearly illustrates in the book, building relationships, nurturing those relationships and being helpful, leads to returns – tangible (a speaking engagement) or intangible (an introduction to a new connection that leads to other indirect opportunities).

As noted by Schaefer and fellow marketing authors and leaders Bryan Kramer and Ted Rubin, we’ve moved away from the traditional Business to Business (B2B), Business to Consumer (B2C) to a more personal relationship of one to one, or as Kramer notes Human to Human (H2H – title of his new book). By fully automating your social efforts; especially automated replies on Twitter (DM and tweet), you are demonstrating, or at the very least implying that you are not truly interested in engaging with those that engage with your content. Find the right balance for yourself and build meaningful relationships.

As Ted Rubin noted in a recent Instagram/Facebook post and quoting Maya Angelou:

 

Ted Rubin Instagram post
Ted Rubin Instagram post

 Resources:

How to Use Social Media Automation to….” Kristi Hines post on iAquire blog, published June 5, 2014.

Ted Rubin Straight Talk – Blog

Rich Brooks interviews Ted about “Being Human in the Digital Age”

Is Social Automation the future of Social” Matthew Sweezey post on ClickZ published June 26, 2014.

“Be Relevant or Die: The New Nature of Nurture”. Will Spendlove post on Marketo Blog published June 26, 2014.

 

Top stories: Resources, Leadership and Motivation

Helping Hand Service.jpg

From all indications, followers of our social channels were most interested about resources, leadership and motivation (specifically what motivates someone to make a buying decision). With the push to create and use more content in our marketing efforts, it is understandable that you where looking for quality information around tools and resources to help you connect more meaningfully with your audiences, while easing the workload through the effective use of tools.

This is the first in an ongoing weekly series that will summarize the stories that you felt had the most interest and/or are of the greatest use to you in your day to day activities. The series will focus on original content from Diverse (if warranted by reader selection) as well as curated content from our favorite and proven resources.

As a small business ourselves, we understand the challenges (specifically the time challenges) that you face. For our own efforts, we are constantly on the lookout for materials that make the work lighter and the information more meaningful for our audience. Our goal for this segment is to give you a spot to find useful information on a weekly basis that time may have not allowed you to find on your own. After all, we can all use a hand up!

Resources:

Three of the top five posts can be categorized as resource oriented; posts that look to provide useful information. Two of the posts where information based; one about the top marketing acronyms that we should all be aware of and the second about common grammar errors noted on a lot of digital content. The third is about tools that can help you with your content marketing efforts.

1. 60 Marketing Acronyms Every Industry Pro Should Know @HubSpot

A comprehensive list of marketing terms from A – Z. Worth having at hand, especially if your agency folks like to roll them out in meetings and documents.

 

2. 6 Embarrassing Grammar Mistakes @TheWriteLife

The lesson of this post, “Even the most valuable content will be dismissed if it’s riddled with errors”.

3. 5 Free Content Tools to Enhance your Social Media Marketing  @smexaminer

You’ve likely heard of Storify, but have you discovered Thinglink and Qzzr. They look like very interesting tools to add to your kit, providing you with unique ways to stimulate engagement.

Motivation:

 

4. Why This And Not That   @bernadettejiwa

Bernadette is the author of “Difference” and a talented marketer. Her short and compelling posts always hit the mark. What motivates your buyers to make the decisions they do?

Leadership:

 

5. Manage a Difficult Conversation with Emotional Intelligence @HarvardBiz

We’ve all had to have them, difficult conversations. You’ve taken the time to craft your arguments based on logic. However, it may not go as well as you’d hope. This excellent post from Susan David, provides great tips to help you communicate clearly and with empathy.