Don’t get me wrong, when it comes to creative visuals, I love a good photo on social media – we all do.

With the right framing, glitzy backdrop or an emotional pull, they’ll get the job done! But with today’s social media algorithms and brands pushing for clever and quick digestible content, video storytelling has taken center stage.

There has been a lot – A LOT – of hype around TikTok, and rightfully so.

While it’s been incredibly sensationalized, it’s not without reason. Download the app and you’ll see why. Videos fly past your screen like cars on a highway, a busy one at that. And here’s the thing, within minutes you’ll notice you like every car driving by. Tiktok figures you out. Fast.

Two of the biggest players in the social landscape, YouTube (Google) and Instagram (Facebook), have clearly taken notice of the rise in short form video’s popularity, and now seem to be playing the same game with their own versions of the video platform, “Shorts” and Reels respectively.

With the space changing this rapidly, it can be overwhelming as a brand to navigate. Year after year, it seems like brands are upping their commitment to the content-game. The pace is growing fast, and is even more overwhelming when you look at your social channels and discover the last video you posted was in 2019. You likely feel at a loss of where to start.

Here’s the reality, our customers expect video content. Big brands have dedicated their time and money to building video content, and that’s what your shared customers have grown to expect. Video content has become crucial in today’s world to anyone and any brand with a desire to stay relevant and maintain customer loyalty.

Don’t over complicate it, keep it simple, and stick to the basics. That’s why I rounded up these 3 classic video concepts to help elevate your brand on your social media platforms:

1. The Brand Explainer: Who the hell are we and why does anyone care?  -

Stop and think for a minute: Who is coming to your social media page? Who do you WANT to come to your page? Do they know who you are? Do they care? Do they want to know more?  A brand explainer puts your best foot forward, let’s people peek into your world, and squashes any potential misconceptions.

2. Eye Candy Docu Style (Six Labs | Fly On The Wall) - My team and I created a series of “fly on the wall” videos intended to pull back the curtain on something they otherwise may not see, in this case, a cannabis grow operation. Series like this one are intended to keep viewers coming back for more, with consistent and routine content, as well as give them a sneak peek into a day-to-day life they may have not encountered before, and may never otherwise.

3. Scroll Stopper - Think beyond the linear, traditional video. Scroll stoppers attract customers to new products by capturing their attention through unique movements and beautiful, brightly colored shots.

Don’t own a high quality camera? Check your pocket. We almost all have one on our smartphones, so get out there and document your brand. Video can capture the attention of a loyal audience or a new customer’s eye, extending your social reach far beyond simple static imagery. If you still don’t know where to start, consider a professional production team, it’s always a great way to extend your marketing efforts.

Forgive me for the hyperbolic title (and for the fact that it’s proven wrong simply by you reading this far). But what I mean by the title is that beyond the slightly deprecating title and the body of this post, no additional effort has been put into helping others discover this post. Or put another way, this post has not been search engine optimized, better referred to as the common three-letter buzzword “SEO”.

SEO is nothing new. It’s been around more or less since people discovered that they could influence search results (read people) based on what content they did, or didn’t, include on a webpage. And much like any industry that is profitable, tricks and techniques have been discovered and refined to create an entire industry. An industry ruled behind closed doors of large private companies, fraught with slimy gimmicks and genuinely useful improvements. But nonetheless, an almost mandatory part of the digital publishing world.

Without becoming quixotic about a world where one didn’t need to spend just as much time optimizing a post with keywords and alt tags as they did writing it, I’d like to share some easy, straightforward techniques to help bolster an article that would otherwise be lost in the digital typhoon of publications.

With any tutorial, a friendly “your mileage will vary” reminder is important, along with that there isn’t a silver bullet to SEO. Things can change fast, but my goal is to provide a few tricks that are easy and useful enough to help your post standout a little more than it would have otherwise. Let’s begin.

Content is King

If you take nothing else away from this post, take away this: good content is your best method for attracting visitors. And in that great content, you'll no doubt have some great keywords. Those keywords will be the ties to the queries your potential users will be searching with. Without putting too fine a point on things, that's how SEO works in a nutshell: using the same words someone is searching for.

There's a reason most recipes online start with a long story, typically about what that specific recipe means to the author. Although the stories are presumably heartwarming and charming (I wouldn't know as I've never read one), they double as an opportunity for each recipe page to boost their keyword count, therefore giving a larger footprint for search engines to match them to users. Which leads into the next important part.

Keywords

When you’ve decided on a potential topic to write about, there are some tricks you can perform to help yourself from the beginning. Picking out a few specific keywords is perhaps the best thing you can do in terms of the effort to results ratio.

The process is simple. Say you’re writing a blog post about leadership techniques in small groups. Using a few tools listed below (and there are plenty more available than just the ones here) you can see how many people are searching for keywords related to your topic.

Then you can play around with more specific keywords to help narrow down your post to your ideal audience. “Leadership” is pretty broad and encompasses a lot, but “Leadership techniques for small agencies” obviously would be better if targeting that demographic. Using some of these tools, you can quickly find the best balance of not too broad and not so specific that no one is searching for that phrase. Put yourself in your target audience’s shoes and imagine what you would search for if looking for whatever you’re writing about. Then bingo, you have your keywords.

To figure out who is searching for what, paid tools like Keywords Everywhere are commonly recommended, but I typically just use the free Google Trends. These will help you narrow down some terms that will bring in traffic, but not be too broad.

Once you have some keywords, you can compare which ones are less competitive (i.e. who else is using the same keywords, making it harder for yours to be found) using a tool such as KeySearch. Or simply wing it and romanticize about time before faceless algorithms had such an impact on our lives. Overall, it helps to avoid broad subjects, and focus down into niche aspects, as those tend to naturally have less competition and therefore rank higher in their respective areas.

Monica Lent has a really excellent 7 day email course around SEO that is easy to digest and isn't too overwhelming. It's designed with developers in mind, but the techniques can easily be applied to any industry. I highly recommend checking her course out, especially since it's free: https://bloggingfordevs.com.

She also has a really good video walking through the techniques I touched on above:

Quality Over Quantity, and Don’t Be Afraid to Share

Another aspect is how often to post. My opinion is to A) only post something that you feel is genuinely useful and something you would want to read, and B) write once and post multiple places (depending on the content).

If you are writing about something in your industry or a hobby, find places online where those topics are being discussed and share your piece. Don’t be spammy, but don’t be afraid to share. Some useful advice I received early on is that if you’re worried about being spammy, you’re probably not being spammy. It’s the people who aren’t conscious of it being a potential problem that are usually the culprits. This can also apply to many other aspects of your life in general.

Comments

Comments are one of those nice to have things to help promote discussion around your articles. I’m indifferent, but some feel very strongly on the matter, even to go as far as to state it shouldn’t even be called a blog unless it has comments. But in the world of SEO, there’s a common consensus that they are beneficial by helping to improve your page rankings.

I believe the thought is search engines tend to favor newer content, so having comments improves the longevity of your post. I’m not sure how much “Great article!” really helps your rankings, but it probably doesn’t hurt. And most platforms provide some method of enabling comments.

One alternative technique I’ve seen is to simply post a link to your article on social media (e.g. Twitter) or a forum (e.g. Reddit or Hacker News) and tell people to leave comments there. It doubles as both an easy comment solution for yourself and a simple way to promote your piece online.

Bonus Tip: Headline Capitalizer

One tool I use frequently is a headline capitalization tool. A friend showed it to me, and I wind up using it all the time. It’s a small tool that solves an even smaller issue of properly capitalizing headlines. You may find it useful as well.

I use this one, but there are dozens online for free if you just search for them (hey, SEO!).

Wrap Up

SEO is an ever changing beast. People build whole careers out of optimizing for search engines (and make good money at that). My suggestion is that writing can be difficult enough, and just finishing an article can feel like a herculean task in and of itself. So don’t let SEO optimization hold you back from publishing your thoughts and opinions. Focus on writing and publishing, and over time SEO techniques will creep into your process. I’ve provided a few easy tricks above to help that don’t take too long, but there are many, many more things you can do in the world of SEO, so don’t get too hung up on any one aspect of it.

If you do happen to be one of those individuals who really enjoys polishing content, feel free to reach out to us at careers@idea-booth.com as we can always use your help. And if you have any questions, simply email us at hello@idea-booth.com.

Happy writing.

Read more of Matthew's work on his personal website at https://www.matthewhoelter.com

Photo by Paolo Nicolello on Unsplash

I’m damn proud of the team I’ve created, but it took a lot of trial — and error — to get here. Twenty years of being in the game has given me the chance to be a part of every kind of team imaginable. The fact is, anyone can have a great resume or give great referrals, but you aren’t hiring a piece of paper — you’re hiring a team member. And to do that, you need to find the right personalities. You have to look for unique individuals that complement each other and share the same DNA. Having a strong team top to bottom should be your goal. These six personality types are essential building blocks for a strong team.

The Swiss Army Knife

Jack of all trades, master of none, Swiss Army Knives are the true team players. Their job title means nothing. Extremely versatile and flexible, Swiss Army Knives do whatever needs to be done for the company to succeed. If the trash needs to be taken out, they take out the trash. If a fire needs to be put out, they put out the fire. You can count on the Swiss Army Knife to try to use their tools in every situation.

The Nurturer

Most people aren’t willing to change, or are too afraid to. That’s what makes the Nurturer so important. The support system of your team, the Nurturer will encourage everyone on the team to reach their potential and realize that change is good. When you have a shit idea, which we all do, the Nurturer won’t put you down. They are there to set you back on the right path and help you figure out how to avoid making the same mistakes. Everyone is more productive and adaptive when the Nurturer is around.

The Driven

The Driven will paint a bullseye on your back and shoot arrows at you all day long. Don’t be afraid; I was just like them when I first got into the game and so were you. The Driven want your job and make no effort to hide it. In their minds, if they aren’t sitting where you are now, then it’ll be a huge disappointment. Welcome this character type with open arms. These are your constant learners, your team bulldog. Fueled by absolute self-confidence, no task is too great for them and no stage is too bright.

The Light Switch

First one in turns on the lights and last one out turns them off. The Light Switch does both. Your input has to equal your output, and nobody proves that more than the Light Switch. Whether or not they are blessed with incredible natural talent, the Light Switch brings a non-stop work ethic. They love their work and won’t stop until they are damn good at it. To be successful, you have to cultivate a workplace culture of excellence. The Light Switch is a great example of this.

The Spark Plug

When they go, your team goes. This person is magnetic; people are drawn towards them. Their hard work makes others want to work harder. The natural leadership and command they possess is electric. Spark Plugs rally the rest of the team around your vision and goals, and make the path for others to follow.

The Floor General

Think of your classic point guard in basketball. Floor Generals are never their team’s leading scorer, but the leading scorer wouldn’t be able to do what they do without the floor general. Simply put, they are facilitators and managers. They make sure everyone has what they need to succeed and always looks at the bigger picture. Does the Floor General sound familiar? It should. Most likely, as the leader of your team, you are the floor general. The buck starts and stops with you, so don’t suck.

In spite of their differences, there are several things that all of these people possess. First, they understand there is no ‘I’ in team. Egos and personal problems are left at the door. They know their roles and are fully committed to them. Success of the team is their biggest goal. They all have side hustles and hobbies, but work for them isn’t done when they walk out of the office at 5pm. They’re slaves to their craft and each has a strong desire to be great at what they do. Their strive for greatness rubs off on everyone, making the team successful and strong.

Story originally posted on LinkedIn

Learn more about Idea Booth, or contact us directly at hello@idea-booth.com

First-time entrepreneurs are always wide-eyed with ambition (as they should and need to be). They believe that their idea is the idea — and it very well might be. They think, know, are beyond convinced, that everyone in the world will want what they are hawking.

Great. So how do you plan to get there?

When you ask new entrepreneurs this question, they jump to things like Marketing and Ad Budgets and things that, in all honesty, are more often a waste of time. Sure, you’ll get some traction (in some sense of the word), but are your efforts really moving you in the direction you want to go?

Better yet, what exactly are you building? Are your efforts actually helpful in achieving your goal? If your idea is to become the largest distributor of X, are Facebook ads really going to be the thing that gets you there? Probably not.

It takes a few laps around the race track to learn the importance of networking. And it sometimes takes years to learn that partnering with people can improve what you’re already doing.
Case in point: Would you rather own 100 percent of a $100,000 company, or 50 percent of a $1,000,000 company, or 10 percent of a $50,000,000 startup? Lots of entrepreneurs I know got caught up in the percentage owned part, not realizing that they get so much more by partnering with other valuable people.

It comes down to is this misleading notion that you’ve lost the startup game if you give up too much equity. Well, what is your definition of “winning?” If it’s more money, you can see above that less equity in a bigger pie equals more money. If that’s not it, then what is “winning” to you? Maybe it’s creative control. Whatever it is, it’s your job to define it for yourself — and then make decisions based on that.

A common problem among the young entrepreneurs I know is thinking of selling equity as “giving something away” instead of “adding to what you already have.” You need to think of equity as a resource, not a trophy. If you have 51 percent equity in your company, an extra 49 percent will benefit you nothing if you can’t make your company grow. In the largest companies, the majority holders rarely have more than 20 percent equity. Why? Because they realize the value of other people, their experience and ideas, far outweigh a couple thousand dollars of equity.

There is an overwhelming feeling in the startup world that “this is my idea.” Please, be protective. Fight for your idea. But don’t shut yourself out from opportunities. If you have a working idea and someone comes along with the resources and knowledge to make it better, don’t just say “no” for the sake of keeping your idea to yourself. If you keep doing that, you’ll protect your idea all the way into bankruptcy.

Don’t be afraid to let go.

I have managed my own digital marketing agency for the past ten years. When I first started the company at which I currently work, I thought I could do everything myself. In fact, I thought I had to. While most people wanted to help, and could do a lot of things better than me, I was overly protective. I was unwilling to share my ideas with non-paying clients, I was reluctant to share my best ideas with employees, all because I believed only I was capable of bringing them to life.

That was a quick road to burnout, and the company didn’t grow because it had to be centered around me, my schedule, and my production. There are only so many hours in the day for me to be involved with every decision for every client.
I finally learned, after ten years of doing everything myself, that letting go, and sharing ideas, production, and management actually compounds my creative ability.

Instead of spending my time on doing everything I can do well, I allow others to do them better. I focus on what I do best (ideas) and the work of everyone around me helps magnify their impact.
I don’t doubt that you’re a good manager. I think I am as well. But there are better managers out there, but managing is not what made you successful. I learned to surround myself with the best-in-class, let them do their jobs, while I focus on what made me who I am.

Remove your ego and make the best decision for your company.
The simple truth is that networking and investment are priceless and necessary for any entrepreneur. Whether or not it means giving away equity, having consignments for your idea from influential thought leaders is crucial. A page in a local publication or being highlighted on a high-traffic site because you know the editor is a quick route to growth and success.
As much as you spend time working on and refining your idea, don’t forget to nurture the relationships of the people around you. Nobody climbs to the top by themselves, somebody had to build the ladder.

This article originally appeared in Inc Magazine.

Recently, I went to my usual barbershop. I was chatting with my barber as he gave me the usual cut. Then, the conversation flowed to the topic of cryptocurrencies.

He explained to me, as he tidied my sides, his insights on Bitcoin and why he was getting into some altcoins. I don't know if he notices but this gave me goosebumps. It had dawned on me that I was reliving an old cautionary parable of the business world.

The Story of Joe Kennedy and the Shoeshine Boy

What I was eerily reminded of is a Wall Street urban legend involving a shoeshine boy and Joseph Kennedy Sr. Yes, of that Kennedy family. This Kennedy is the father of our 35th President; he's the patriarch of Camelot. As a young man in the early 20th Century, he began building his family fortune in the stock market and in commodities trading. He also went on to make a killing during and after the prohibition by securing distribution rights for Scotch and other British spirits. Clearly, he was a man of foresight.

As the story goes, one day in 1929, Joe Kennedy is getting his shoes shined. The boy began to give stock tips as he polished Kennedy's oxfords. In that moment, it struck Joe that he needed to leave the market. He reasoned, famously, if shoeshine boys have an opinion on stocks, the market is clearly, dangerously popular. Supposedly, he pulled out not long before the stock market crash, which led to what we know today as the Great Depression.

I mention the legend of Joe Kennedy and the shoeshine boy not to be a blanket dismissal of barbers. It's a great lesson--or at least a good rule of thumb--on recognizing monstrous levels of hype and instability. The reality is that people are jumping recklessly into promising markets for things they don't (or won't bother to) understand. They misjudge value and are often chasing short-term gains on a highly volatile market.

Dot Com Deja Vu

What my barber signals are that cryptocurrencies have become a speculative frenzy. We've seen this sort of hyped race to the bottom before with internet stocks in the 90s. At its height, companies with little more than a ".com" at the end of their name went immediately public and traded instantly for exorbitant prices. Hence, the nickname, "Dot Com Bubble." Alan Greenspan immortalized it as "irrational exuberance." There was a ton of bad investing with short-sighted goals. It spanned everyone--entrepreneurs, VCs, big banks, day traders.

As evidenced by the 90s, supposed business pros get short-sighted, too. But those like my barber or the prodigal shoeshine are indicative of hype seeping deep into the public consciousness. My barber, like most of the general public, is far downstream in the flow of information. Most likely, he only learned of cryptocurrency in the last few months and joined in the craziness very recently.

Meanwhile, people who keep up with technology or financial issues first started really catching wind of Bitcoin and blockchain in 2011. As Wired outlines in one of its earliest features on cryptocurrencies, Bitcoin had its first major peak and collapse in 2011 following a Forbes profile and a Gawker story on Silk Road, a major online black market at the time. Amusingly, the title of this story was "The Rise and Fall of Bitcoin."

The Other Side of the (Bit)Coin

While there was some misplaced hype, the potential of the internet and the digital was real. We've seen enormous changes and disruptions in the very fabric of the world economy in the past two decades. Much like then, if you cut through all the quick-money clutter, the potential in cryptocurrencies is very real. Imagine investing in Amazon in the 90s or Google in the early 2000s.

I decided to buy cryptocurrencies for three reasons. First, I sought to support the potential it had to realize free, open markets--which I deeply believe in. Second, the more I learned about the technology, I realized how much promise it had in bringing massive waves of change. Finally, I wanted to keep learning more and I knew the best way to do so would be to have some skin in it.

In other words, I'm not in it to make a quick buck. My investment is not in trading and flipping assets. It is in the future that is digital, transparent, unregulated, secure, and accountable.

If you're thinking about jumping into the cryptocurrency game, be my guest. Just remember Joe Kennedy and consider if you are more like me or my barber.

This article originally appeared in Inc Magazine