Wesley Chapman » Blogging

The Willow Tree

Wesley Chapman — Wed, 01 Sep 2010 03:42:49 +0000

The other day I had the privilege to golf with a colleague who is fast becoming a great supporter and friend. He and I adventured to a course that was full of gorgeous and majestic trees. Some that reached nearly one hundred feet into the morning sky and others that spread their leaves as if to cover the horizon.

It was a magnificent course full of all the good Lord placed here on this earth. It was also a decent morning of golfing. My colleague was on his game and seemed to hit shot after shot with a consistent perfection. Then he hit a shot that would teach me not only about golf, but give me a lesson for life and business. He hit a shot that sailed for days, landing right behind a formidable enemy. His shot landed him face to face with a mighty willow tree. There were two options; shoot back on to the fairway and lose a stroke or attempt to shoot over the willow tree and hope to land on the unseeable green.

We took several minutes to survey the issue and I pushed him to take the risk and to pull out the club and make the willow bow to him. The willow stood nearly seventy feet tall and stretched just as wide. He could not see the green from where the balled lay, but he knew the green was there and knew that a good shot over the willow could land him safely on the green. I whipped out my video camera as he prepared his shot and I waited with excitement to see just what was going to happen. I thought to myself, “what if he hits this and it rolls into the hole; we are looking at a spot on ESPN for sure!”.

The course silenced as he set up his shot and swung. His ball sailed up and over the willow only lightly grazing the willow’s massive frame. As I watched the ball land safely on the green just feet from the pin I was amazed and inspired. I had just watched, ‘one of those shots’ and had seen a man I respect, risk his game and chance failure in a sport that gives no second chances.

So why do I tell you all this story? Think of the willow tree as your hurdle in your daily business ventures. That willow tree is your cash flow, it is getting to your next ‘big deal‘, it is your marketing dilemmas and if you can just get over it you know that the ‘green‘ is just on the other side. You can’t fully see it, but you know it is there. Pull out the right tools from your bag, set up all you can and then just swing. Take the chance to get your shot and impress those around you.

Success is nothing more then trying to achieve what others dare not to do. Not everyone will hit over the willow tree and you may hit a few more leafs along the way, but set it up and swing away. Business is more then brains and money, it is about guts and risks. Those with guts will take the risks and those risks could lead you safely to the green. But you will never know if you don’t stand back, step up and swing.

Technorati Tags: Blogging, LIME, Motivation, Personal, Website

Where have I been?

Wesley Chapman — Wed, 25 Aug 2010 02:08:56 +0000

For those that have been following my blog you have noticed that for the past 30+ days I have not been updating my website. There is a reason for my absence; it is a two parter.

1. I have never been busier then what we have been in the last two months. Thanks to my awesome team at LIME we have been slammed. As a side note we are hiring!

2. I have been working with a good friend in Hollywood on a national book deal. Now it is not done, nor will it be done in the next few months, but the wheels are in motion and I have begun the process. Thanks to all of your emails and your support. The readers of my blog and my story have been amazing!

Time will only tell where things go from here. I had advice to stop writing for a bit till we got a few things in line. Now those things are in line and my writing will again begin.

I wrote a few months ago about your reach and how it may surprise you–tonight I pulled up my blog’s stats from while I was “away” and I am truly surprised. The readership and reach of my blog has been amazing again thank you to everyone, let the adventure begin!

These are where the readers have come from in the last 7 days.

Technorati Tags: Blogging, Content, Personal

The 7 Link Challenge

Wesley Chapman — Thu, 15 Jul 2010 16:50:01 +0000

Darren Rowse from ProBlogger.com had a great idea and challenge. He is calling it the “7 Link Challenge”. The idea is to highlight a few of the blog posts a blogger has made and bring them ‘back from the dead’ if you would. Giving new readers a way to quickly see the blogs history, potential and vision.

I thought I would take this challenge. Now being that this blog is new and I used a poor blog service before that didn’t allow me to archive or export my blog posts I can’t take you too far back, but we will give it a shot.

Comment away and let me know your favorites or if I missed something! Here are the questions to the challenge:

1. Your first post -

My first post was Chapter One and Two of my story. I will go with Chapter Two: Here is the link

2. A post you enjoyed writing the most -

This was a tough one because there are a lot of posts I enjoyed writing. I am going to give you two. One from my story and the other was a business post. Chapter Three and The Digital Door is Wide Open

3. A post which had a great discussion -

As many of you know I have both a FaceBook and a Twitter page that I am very active on. This means that often after I write a blog post I get several tweets, DM’s or FaceBook messages about my post. There is one post however that has not only gotten me an overwhelming amount of digital comments, but also ‘real world’ comments. Not to mention I was even asked to speak on the topic at a local business function. It is a two part post, enjoy! The Myths About Marketing

4. A post on someone else’s blog that you wish you’d written -

I get a lot of inspiration and ideas from other bloggers. Many times I will see a blog post and it will get me thinking. Those thoughts usually end up on my blog with a different ( or my ) spin on the topic. I wouldn’t say I have seen a post that I wish I would of written, but being that this is a challenge I will say—I wish I came up with this ”7 Link Challenge”!

5. Your most helpful post -

This is an open ended one. Most helpful for me or the audience? Well this has been the most helpful for me: Time for a Time Out and through feedback I have learned that this post has been the most helpful to readers: Killing the Mosquitos

6. A post with a title that you are proud of -

I love titles! In fact I truly believe that the Title will make or break your post. I have so many favorites, but truly the one that got a HUGE amount of traffic in just minutes was: Do You Have a Beethoven or a Hasselhoff?

7. A post that you wish more people had read -

I had to laugh at this question what blog post doesn’t a blogger wish more people had read? With that in mind however this is a blog post that I feel got decent traffic, but more would of been nice: The Dinosaurs are not extinct yet!

Well there you go enjoy!

Technorati Tags: Blog, Blogging, Marketing, Personal, Updates, Website

Comments, who needs them?

Wesley Chapman — Thu, 01 Jul 2010 03:38:22 +0000

Ever heard the saying, “If you have nothing nice to say, say nothing at all!”? If you have, you are part of the minority when it comes to web users and blog readers. It is funny how many of my clients, friends or like mined individuals will dive into the world of online publishing only to find out that people are quite or plain mean!

The online world of content delivery is hands down the best invention since the light bulb, but it is still very misunderstood. One of the big mysteries is commenting. Each time I have a client post a blog or a social media status I field the phone calls and questions about the comments. The phone call either goes one of two ways. It is either, “I have posted 3 articles and NO ONE is commenting on my posts, why and what am I doing wrong?” “Lets take a step back,” is my reply. I continue by stating that facts are facts. Your blog is new, people are still getting to know you. They are learning to trust you and learning your style of opinions or information.

Blogging and social media connections are much like starting a new friendship in the physical world. You aren’t going to jump into a room full of people you don’t know and have everyone tell you how amazing your shirt looks or how smart you look. It takes time, it takes getting to know people and yes some people have an easier time with this and some bloggers do as well.

Just because people are not commenting or replying doesn’t mean they are not reading. I have been to many functions where someone will comment to me directly how they enjoyed a post I wrote or saw a status update on my FaceBook wall. Some people just feel more comfortable telling you to your face, rather then to a comment box on a website.

I also remind my clients that if they or their company have different portals of online communication, say a twitter account, a FaceBook account and a blog, their customers may find it easier to tweet them a comment about their latest blog rather then comment directly to the blog. The number of comments on your blog is in no way a direct reflection on the blog’s or article’s impact.

Continuing to post is the key and then when you do get that comment reaching out to your opinion or information it is critical that you reply. Develop an open line of communication with your readers and show them that yes you do care about what they have to say.

Next the client will tell me about some hateful and spamming comments their blog is getting. In some cases the comments can be hurtful and damaging to a blogger’s morale. I can’t tell you how many comments and painful statements I have gotten in my blogging and social media endeavors and that is exactly what I tell my clients. Everyone will get the negative comments and hate mail. Every blog will be spammed by Viagra ads, you simply have to ignore them. People will hide behind their computers and there is just nothing you can do about it.

Now in some cases the comments need to be addressed. They may be negative, but true. It could be about your companies poor service or a bad experience a client has had with your firm. You need to address them in an open and professional way and good things can happen. Here is a live example of this from a project I am running:

The customer was upset and was quite open in his statements. We worked with him, not against him and in the end we have a fan of not just our one app, but our company as a whole.

Comments are a tricky thing in the online world of blogging and social media. Not everything you write or ‘status update’ will get replies, but that doesn’t mean people aren’t reading. Give it time, let it mature and ignore the online garbage.

Technorati Tags: Blog, Blogging, Content, Customers, LIME, Social Media, Social Space

Killing the Mosquitos

Wesley Chapman — Tue, 22 Jun 2010 17:26:02 +0000

Have you every tried to please everyone in a day? How about for 12 hours? Better yet have you ever tried to please everyone around you for an hour? I will go out on a limb and say yes, you have tired, “tried” being the key word there. The crazy thing is tomorrow you will wake up and try it all over again. My advance—don’t. Stop right now and know that you can not nor will you ever please everyone.

Trying to please everyone will only lead to disappointment and in your business endeavors it will handicap you. You will quickly be throwing good money after bad efforts. When you get ready to share your product/service don’t think that your message needs to hit everyone, have it hit a targeted group. How do you find this group? Marketing. Before you even prepare a message take a step back and identify the type of person you want to talk to.

Think in specifics, not generalities. The more specific the group, the better the results. Now that you have them identified, listen to them. Find out what they want or need. Now you are ready to tailor your message. No longer will you get frustrated in creating that message as now you can ‘keep it simple’ and direct. Your days of pleasing everyone must end if you want your advertising messages to succeed.

They got it right when they said, “don’t use a shot gun to kill a mosquito”.

Image credit: http://bruceglider.files.wordpress.com/2008/08/mosquito-researcher-insect-photo-cartoon.jpg

Technorati Tags: Advertising, Blogging, LIME, Marketing

Is honesty over rated? Really we are advertising here.

Wesley Chapman — Wed, 09 Jun 2010 14:00:37 +0000

A few days ago I read a blog post from AdAge and Bob Garfield on the topic of KFC and their recent ad campaign and yet again KFC got me thinking.

The blog post dives into some of the ‘issues’ with KFC and I encourage you to read it, but I want to take this in a different direction. I want to discuss a principle that seems to be leaving the world as a whole and more noticeably leaving the world of advertising. It all started decades ago and has been growing year over year. What is that principle? Honesty. Or should I say the lack there of.

Lets take cigarette ads in the the 1960‘s. Cigarettes were made to be glamorous and would magically turn anyone into a hollywood icon. Was it a lie? Did those marketing and advertising cigarettes lie to the world? Now lets move up a few years and talk about super diets. In the 1980’s the Atkins’ diet promised that anyone could lose massive amounts of weight by just eating. By 2003 the Atkins’ diet was no where to be found, so was it a lie?

Now here we are in 2010 and as business owners we are trying to share our products and services with the masses and in doing so, are we being honest? Are we upfront with our target audience? If not why are we scared to be? Why are we so hell bent on glorifying our products/services? One word; fear.

Yes fear is what drives us all in business. Fear of failure, fear that we won’t be liked. Fear that we will lose everything and so on. Sadly we are losing everything by not facing these and other fears head on.

As a marketing and advertising consultant I battle daily with clients to ‘tell it like it is’. I push them to open up to their target base and to push the real un-edited version of what they have to offer. Why? Because they will stand out. How sad is that? By being honest they will stand out to the public and will be able to use honesty as a marketing and advertising angle.

So have I come full circle? Am I consulting businesses to be honest with the intent to sell and is that deemed ‘frauding the masses’? I will leave that for you to answer, but I will say this; there is nothing more enlightening then to have an honest and open dialog with an other member of the human race.

There is something about honesty that in the long run, just makes life—easier. I consult each of you to take a step back and look at your ad campaigns. Open up to the public and get real with them. Cut the fluff, cut the junk and just tell it how it is. Show your face—just make it an honest one—with that I promise positive results.

Q7JCN5KHRSST

Technorati Tags: Advertising, Blogging, Content, Customers, Marketing, Social Space, Website

Mark today on your calendars…today is a day of change

Wesley Chapman — Wed, 09 Jun 2010 00:21:50 +0000

So after 17 years of business I can truly say that what I am about to share with you, is the most exciting project I have ever worked on.

After months and months of work I would like to present to you Media Lemur. For the first time in the world’s history print can truly become digital and not just a PDF, website or screen shot of print editions. This won’t be a ‘flip book’ or a flash plug in, Media Lemur is a full feature digital creator.

The secret? No software to install, no need to change the culture or processes of print production and best of all it won’t cost hundreds of thousands of dollars to produce. Magazines, newspapers or any type of print publication will be able to use Media Lemur.

Media Lemur was built on the three principles to create digital success: Rich Media Content, Track-ability of User Interaction and Social Integration.

Media Lemur gives any publisher the ability to create interactive, rich digital content. We have begun launching Media Lemur in Utah and have already fully penetrated the market place.

How big is Media Lemur? Time for some boldness; Media Lemur will be the key player in creating and generating profits for the struggling print world. Don’t believe me, stay tuned.

More information to come on Media Lemur

Q7JCN5KHRSST

Technorati Tags: Advertising, Apple, Blogging, Content, Digital Media, Geolocation, iPad, Marketing, Media Lemur, SEO, Social Media, Website

There is just too much static…so just ignore it.

Wesley Chapman — Thu, 27 May 2010 07:11:35 +0000

In the world of marketing and advertising there always seems to be something new, something better and something you just HAVE to use. After 17 years of watching, living and experiencing this, I have come to a solid conclusion—no.

No I don’t have to use the newest, latest or most revolutionary thing out there to be successful. In fact it is just the opposite. The most successful marketing and advertising campaigns use the oldest techniques.

I have developed a term for all the overnight newbies, MSTI or Marketing Static To Ignore. Running a business is hard enough without worrying about all the static that surrounds it. Focus on your core and listen to your gut. You are in business for a reason and that reason isn’t to get lost in the black and white fuzz, it is to succeed and provide for your family.

Listening to your gut will 9 times out of 10 put you right where YOU need to be.

Example; three years ago FaceBook and business became the buzz. For many it was a new way to reach people. Article after article was written about how you MUST be on FaceBook if you owned a business. Well many business owners had no idea what to do on FaceBook and I can guarantee that ‘guts’ were telling them not to even get on—yet.

Some listened and some didn’t. Those that first went online with FaceBook spent energy ( and a lot of it ) learning how to use it, learning what to do and how to make it effective. This energy took them away from their core and cost hundreds or thousands. Not even the ‘professionals’ knew what to really do with FaceBook. So now three years later FaceBook has changed, nearly 500 million people use it and starting last year ( end of last year ) we learned just how to use FaceBook with Business.

FaceBook proved it could stand the test of time. It proved that it ‘could’ work. So now it is no longer static. It is a proven method of communication and now it will not take you away from your core, it will enhance it. What about those that adopted it early, do they have a leg up? No they don’t. Why? They just learned how to use it and now you just have to follow, perfect and succeed. This is only one example; an honest one that will get a lot of flack.

So my point? My point is that things will come and go and as a business owner you need to stay focused and let things mature. Right now there are so many ‘start up’ social projects, FourSquare, DeHood, Yelp, Ning and the list goes on and on. Notice these, but don’t focus on them. Remember all the technology in the world will never replace a warm hand shake and a smiling face. When it does, this professional will retire and plant some trees.

Technorati Tags: Advertising, Blogging, Content, Customers, Design, Digital Media, Geolocation, iPad, iPhone, LIME, Marketing, SEO, Social Media, Social Space, Website

Your reach might surprise you

Wesley Chapman — Wed, 26 May 2010 14:01:17 +0000

For the last week I have been fighting a nasty flu bug and have not had the opportunity to post. While I am not at 100% I wanted to get back to the writing world, so here we go.

During my ‘rest’ I thought about a lot of different topics to write about, but one that kept coming out on top was ‘reach’. In advertising your services or products, this is one of the most critical pieces to success. Understanding your reach is something that takes time, data and patience.

Let me take a step back and define ‘reach’. Reach is the distance, influence and penetration of your sent marketing/advertising message. How far geographically is your message shared? How do you influence your audience and what is your audience number? Reach is the cornerstone of data gathered by both your online and offline efforts.

So how do you measure your reach? This is where planning, patience and persistence, or the three P’s come in. The first step is to plan. Yes you must plan to measure and set the tools needed in-order to measure your reach. Second you will need patience. Gathering useful data takes time. It will not happen overnight. Third you have to be persistent. This means you will need to send the message out at different times, in different ways and be able to adapt. Once you have set up the three P’s you will be able to truly measure your reach.

Why is reach and understanding your’s so important? As a business owner or as a marketer you can only sale to those that will listen and react. You don’t use a shotgun to kill a mosquito. Reach is a powerful tool and an unprecedented ally once you understand and use it.

Here is one piece of my reach; Geographical Location and Data. These are the points from around the world where people came to this blog last week:

Technorati Tags: Advertising, Blog, Blogging, Content, Geolocation, LIME, Marketing, SEO, Social Media, Social Space, Website

Write it, type it, post it, tweet it, status it…what is it all?

Wesley Chapman — Mon, 17 May 2010 14:48:08 +0000

Another buzz word to really catching on fire in 2010 is ‘Content Marketing’, well what is it?

Funny how we use these words in hopes to identify a process in an industry ( whether that is the medical world, auto industry or anything really ) and then we have to write blogs and articles just to explain it. This is one said blog, an explaining blog.

‘Content Marketing’ is advertising or marketing with content. Simple right? Implementation of Content Marketing—not so simple. It is a way for businesses to utilize the ever expanding search market for consumers to find their products and or services. The problem with ‘Content Marketing’ is too many people don’t know what to do or how to truly take advantage of what it can offer. This leads to a lot of ‘junk’ on the internet and in the advertising world. It leads to a lot of businesses overloading their consumers with different messages. For example I just starting working with a client on a large marketing and advertising campaign and found out that they had 3 different FaceBook pages all run by different managers in the company. Oops. Yeah not the way to run your ‘Content Marketing’.

What counts as ‘Content Marketing’? There are all forms of Content Marketing. It can be ‘big’ or ‘small’. It can be a press release to a Twitter post. Content Marketing is not just limited to the web world. Your newspaper, magazine, billboards, radio ads are all part of your Content Marketing. Your employees personal blogs can also effect your Content Marketing as well. It is hard to tell your employees what to do in their personal time, but if they understand and buy into your mission for online media, they tend to ‘get it’.

The critical thing to remember in Content Marketing is to have a solid, concise and fluid message across ALL media/web outlets. It is imperative that you have strict Content Marketing Management system or CMM. See we just love to name things.

So today is the beginning of a new week and a great time for you to refocus your efforts. Spend some time with your team today and plan out how you are going to change your ‘Content Marketing’. How are you going to collectively spread the message? What medias are you going to use? How often are you going to use them? Make ‘Content Marketing your friend, not your enemy: Fired over my blog

The image credit used in this post goes to a talented art student: http://typophile.com/node/62809

Technorati Tags: Advertising, Blog, Blogging, Buzz Words, Content, SEO, Social Media, Social Space, Updates, Website