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5 things you did not know about podcast and employee engagement (and Artificial Intelligence) #AI

Introduction

Podcasts are one of the most popular forms of audio content in today’s world. Podcasts are an excellent way to promote your brand, product, or service for free. They can also be used as a lead generation tool and a recruiting tool for your business. The good news is that there are many things you did not know about podcasts and employee engagement!

Podcasts are the modern way to motivate employees

Podcasts are a great way to keep employees informed.

Podcasts are a great way to keep employees engaged.

Podcasts can be used as an employee survey, but they can also be used in an employee engagement program or even as part of your annual review process!

Podcasts help your organization align around mission and values

Podcasts can be a great way to align around mission and values.

Mission: Podcasts are an excellent way of communicating the overall mission or purpose of your organization, as well as its vision for the future. This is especially important if you’re looking at a new product line or initiative, because it will allow everyone involved in bringing it about (employees, investors) to understand where they fit into the bigger picture.

Values: You’ll also want to make sure that everyone understands what makes your company special—and not just by sharing core values like “Our focus on customer service” or “We believe in giving back.” If there’s a more specific statement about how those things apply in real life (e.g., “We’re here for our customers 24/7”), then go ahead and write it down!

Podcasts hold leaders accountable for company culture

Podcasts are a great way to hold leaders accountable for company culture. They can be used for many things, including:

Showing leadership and the company’s values

Demonstrating your mission as well as how it relates to customers

Ensuring that everyone in the organization knows what’s expected of them

Podcasts let everyone feel like they’re in on something special.

You can use them to create an intimate experience with your employees, customers and fans. The best part about podcasts is that they’re easy to make—you just need some video equipment!

Podcast content takes many forms: tutorials, interviews with industry leaders in your field or topic area, and Q&A sessions where you answer questions from viewers who have submitted them via email or social media channels (like Twitter). It doesn’t matter what kind of content you create; all that matters is making something valuable for those who consume it.

Anyone can make a podcast with just a phone.

Podcasts are simple to make, and most people can easily listen to them on their phone or computer. If you have the right software, you can even make a podcast using your tablet!

You might be wondering how this works. Well, it’s actually pretty simple: just record yourself talking into your microphone (or headset) while holding up a piece of paper with your script written on it in big letters. Then save the file as an MP3 file and upload it to one of those services like SoundCloud where people share audio files online for others to listen too!

Your organization doesn’t need to be an expert at media production to make a great podcast.

Podcasts can be made with a phone and sharing them is easy, so you don’t have to be an expert in video editing or audio production.

Anyone can make a podcast because it doesn’t require special equipment or knowledge of any particular field like video editing does.

Podcasts are an excellent way for your organization or business to share expertise with the public and grow its reputation as an authority in its field by putting their best foot forward through podcasts!

Conclusion

Podcasts are a great way to keep your team engaged, informed and united behind a common mission. We hope this article has given you some inspiration for creating your own!

PS: This entire content for this article is created by @copy.ai. What an amazing tool. I just added a few keywords and wow! Here is what it is.
The associated images (2) - top and bottom are created by another AI tool https://creator.nightcafe.studio
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ZMOt.ly

12 Steps to Run a Social Media Contest That Converts like Crazy [Infographics]

Running a social media contest is a fantastic opportunity to amplify your brand, products, and services. With organic reach on the decline, social media contests are one of the few effective ways to boost your brand online with a minimal promotional budget.

Contests can consist of a simple giveaway from a small brand or full-blown campaigns that create an avalanche of media buzz.

  1. Decide on a contest owner
  2. Set your goals and budget
  3. Choose your prizes and an exciting hook
  4. Build your contest, define contest rules
  5. Determine jury, jury evaluation sheets
  6. Create a promotion and engagement plan
  7. Choose contest entry structure and social networks
  8. Determine the length and frequency of your contest
  9. Test and publish your contest
  10. Use e-mail autoresponders to contact, all entrants
  11. Convert
  12. Analyse, reflect, learn, repeat

When you target prospective participants and actively engage with your entrants, the real winner of the contest will be your brand.

Decide on a contest owner Set your goals and budget Choose your prizes and an exciting hook Build your contest, define contest rules Determine jury, jury evaluation sheets Create a promotion and engagement plan Choose contest entry structure and social networks Determine the length and frequency of your contest Test and publish your contest Use e-mail autoresponders to contact, all entrants Convert Analyse, reflect, learn, repeat
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Futureshift ZMOt.ly

2020 Marketing – This or That

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ZMOt.ly

Part 2 – Marketing in the times of Corona [Thought Leadership and PR]

PR and Thought Leadership_CoronaTimes

What #Marketing, #Sales, #BusinessDevelopment and #ChannelManagement teams can do in the times of #Corona #Lockout #Quarantine
(Part 2 of n – This is the first in the multi-part series on how business can thrive in these times)

In my earlier post on LinkedIn and ZMOTly, – Carpe Diem – Marketing in the times of Corona – I had shared how these times provide an extraordinary opportunity for marketing to lead the industry. Only the innovators with innovative marketing organisations will survive. The rest will perish and fall by; I spoke about 3 points earlier.

[1] Reset and recalibrate the internal marketing
[2] Reach out to currently engaged prospects
[3] CRM, Database clean up, and customer segmentation.
Here are the next three –

[4] Engage Senior Leadership Team in Marketing

As is usually the case in many organisations, there is an acute misalignment between the marketing team and various business units about the understanding of marketing and expectations from it.

  1. Alignment with Marketing: If you are a Senior Leadership Team member (SLT) or a CMO, this is an ideal time for you to rally the resources and brainpower within the company towards marketing. Your SLT will be, in all probability, be not ‘travelling’ though they are OOF 😊. They will, in all likelihood, be locked up at home with abundant energy and less busy than their usual selves. You use this opportunity to brief your SLT about the company’s marketing objectives and strategies. You can seek participative inputs from the leadership and seek specific feedback or buy-in. Your marketing team can gain insights into various business units and their challenges. That can help you to craft better marketing strategies. What more, you may even crawl some budget from different business units if you provide value.
  2. Management Team as Ambassadors: You can leverage SLT as social media influencers. You may educate some of them on the powers of Social Media and have a streamlined approach to social media. Your SLT is one of the best brand ambassadors inside and outside the company. Leverage them and their networks for writing blogs, social posts on LinkedIn, Instagram or Facebook. That will amplify your company’s brand presence.

[5] Extend your online education for Free–

The magnitude and pace of disruption because of this pandemic is “unparalleled.” It has also opened immense possibilities for students (adults and children alike) to adopt remote learning. The physical classrooms have closed. There is massive adoption of online education through zoom sessions and the likes.

As a savvy marketer, you should seize the moment. You must ‘be there as this massive tectonic shift in learning paradigms are happening across the world. If you have online courses (non-confidential and value-led) built internally, they can be excellent ammunition today. You can use them and make a loyal following for your solution, product or industry; Some examples may be – Artificial Intelligence, Effective Delegation, Crucial Conversations, Financial Management, or Building Operational Excellence.

High-quality training content is of tremendous value to the receiver. As a marketer, you may not want to miss the opportunity to add value to society by enriching your lives. Marketing plays a vital role in building an emotional connection with the audience – your future customers, partners, vendors, influencers, or employees.

My suggestion would be to open it up to the audience for FREE and take the lead in your industry; Digital learning improves access and reduces the cost of continued education, and you would have been an innovator on that front in your industry and your customers and prospects.

[6] Organise Community Outreach and Seek and share personal stories

Your organisation or some individuals in your organisation are probably doing commendable work and community outreach.

If you are not, it is an excellent time to encourage doing such work by your teams and individuals. As a marketer, it is right down your sleeve to give wings to such an effort and gain internal and external recognition for such work. Share such work via your social media channels with pictures and videos. Do branding around such work. Get your PR engines to go full steam. Don’t worry – you can do this shamelessly. After all, that is the industry norm for successful companies and ‘philanthropists.’ All this would help you score better on your glass door raking and boost your brand significantly.

Let me know your thoughts, and I shall continue to build on these on my next posts in the series. You can also reach out to zmotly@futureshift.com.sg, and I will be glad if I can be of help

/Rajesh

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ZMOt.ly

Marketing in the times of Corona

CarpeDiemMarketing_1

Carpe Diem!

What #Marketing, #Sales, #BusinessDevelopment and #ChannelManagement teams can do in the times of #Corona

(Part 1 of n – This is the first in the multi-part series on how business can thrive in these times)

With COVID-19, the world is passing through extraordinary times. Companies require super-extraordinary approaches to survive and thrive in such situations. In this multi-part series, I will address what an organisation can do to lead the industry and leave the competition far behind.

Businesses will be restored to normalcy in due course; only the innovators with innovative marketing organisations will survive. The rest will perish and fall by the end of this pandemic. What remains hence is the impact that you have created in the coming weeks and months. Towards that goal, we will see and share a few tips in marketing and business development.

With the partial to a near-total shutdown of businesses worldwide, the domestic and global companies are facing a watershed moment. Their inbound marketing leads and enquiries have dried up. The social distancing norms constrain the sales team and outbound team. Many businesses are working from home. Revenues are barely trickling in.

Yet, this provides one of the perfect opportunities for a savvy marketer. Here are a few things that you can do –

[1] Reset and recalibrate the internal marketing

Lockouts and quarantine times, such as this is an ideal time to set the internal house to order. The marketing team can now experiment with things that you always wanted to do but never found adequate time. Some of the areas could be

  • Create ‘stock’ content like blogs, white paper, case studies
  • Revisit the calendar for ‘flow’ content like posting blogs and social media.

[2] Reach out to currently engaged prospects

Today is an excellent opportunity to reach out to prospects and customers that are engaged with you presently. The trick is reaching out to them, ‘not with a sales pitch but with ‘hacks’ or ‘tips and tricks. Such a sharing of high-value content that truly eases their lives can add tremendous value to their businesses and organisations. Your customers have all the time in the world now, and you can even reach out to them with web sessions like Zoom or Facebook / Instagram Live. Here are some examples of topics that you can use –

  • Everything you need to know about X.
  • Why most Y strategies today are destined to fail.
  • Three steps by that Y can do to stop Z
  • COVID-19 – How X can change the future of Y.

[3] CRM, Database clean up, and customer segmentation.

One of the vital things a sales team (and the marketing organisation) must have is a well-segmented target audience. It would be best if you used this time to look at the database of current opportunities in your CRM system. If you have not updated the customer database/ CRM, use this time to reach out to sales teams to update the CRM. You can then segment / re-segment the prospect and customer data. You may want to customer lists into categories or based on the sales cycle or with tags that your company is comfortable with. You would need to have a specific plan of engagement for each type.

Let me know your thoughts, and I shall continue to build on these on my next posts in the series. You can also reach out to zmotly@futureshift.com.sg, and I will be glad if I can be of help /Rajesh

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What a simple pencil sharpener can teach you about big ‘I’ Innovation vs. small ‘i’ Innovation

What a simple pencil sharpener can teach you about big ‘I’ Innovation vs. small ‘i’ Innovation
What a simple pencil sharpener can teach you about big ‘I’ Innovation vs. small ‘i’ Innovation

As a parent, with young children, while I go around doing routine stuff, I usually keep a watch on how small and subtle changes are happening in the world of stationery – of pencils, erasers, pencil sharpeners, rulers, glue sticks, and such mundane stuff. I am childlike when getting hold of these things and often stumped with subtle innovations that are happening in the industry.

#Innovation happens at multiple levels. There are the big ‘I’ innovations that happen once in a while that make headlines and get some multi-million-dollar funding, and the world talks about them to no end. Then there are millions of small ‘i’ innovations that go under the radar, many of which we use and yet one talks about them.

Unlike big Innovations, small innovations happen daily and impact life significantly and make life easier its own small little ways. We seldom discuss them, and in many situations, we do not even observe that innovation, let alone acknowledge or amplify that innovation. Small innovations are under the radar, but I believe, when put together daily, they impact the quality of life and save us time and money significantly.

Here is one such innovation – on a pencil sharpener. As a child and over the last 40 years, we have experienced this is the situation, thousands of times, yes, thousands of times While sharpening a pencil the lead gets stuck at the far end of the sharpener. I have personally spent, and I am sure if you are someone like me who is a millennial generation, we have spent countless minutes,  time trying to use a sharp instrument to pull out the stick lead. If it happens to be a color pencil, the lead is so soft that it gets stuck far more and it is much more difficult to retrieve.

Now, imagine this innovation (in the picture attached). There is a small opening at the far end for the broken lead fall away. A circular design, a little ide than the size of the lead that lets the broken lead automatically fall off. This, I believe, is a phenomenal small ‘I’ innovation.

There is a small opening at the far end for the broken lead fall away. A circular design, a little ide than the size of the lead that lets the broken lead automatically fall off. This, I believe, is a phenomenal small ‘I’ innovation.
There is a small opening at the far end for the broken lead fall away. A circular design, a little ide than the size of the lead that lets the broken lead automatically fall off. This, I believe, is a phenomenal small ‘I’ innovation.

Now about the business value and thus money that could be made by the innovator – Even if the innovator or the product marketer charges ₹2 (or 20c) extra per sharpener vs. ₹5 (or 50c) otherwise, the innovator would be amply rewarded. This does not happen in real life. That small innovator is not able to market that innovation, let alone price it at a premium. The user, on the other end, is unable to comprehend the significant value that innovation brings to them. Imagine, in this case, that extra minute the user has in trying to remove the stuck lead and that would have at least happened 100 times a month. That is a good 2 hour extra for just ₹2 (or 20c).

What are your thoughts?

What do you think about small innovations versus big innovations?

Is there merit in small innovations? How can they be monetized?

Are there any small innovations that you think have gone unnoticed?

Please share in the comments section. I would like to hear from you.

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Futureshift ZMOt.ly

How To Make Your Employees Share Content?


How To Make Your Employees Double Up As Content Marketing Warriors?

What can you do about it to have them more engaged in your social media activities?

Do your employees want to share your corporate content on a social network? If so, what would they want to share? Also, why do they think that it is valuable to share this info in their social networks?

Every marketing team would want to have their tens, hundreds or thousands of non-C level employees to share the corporate posts and content on their personal social networks and build the brand. The question is how?

Not long ago, Trapit, a company that enables social network content sharing by employees, commissioned what it calls the first survey of rank and file employees about their thoughts on sharing company info on a social network. Takeaways from the study and what the results mean for companies looking to improve their staff advocacy on social suggest that employees see great value in sharing via a social network. Many companies must catch up to do to take benefit sentiment.

The Observation

When study asked about the benefits their company would receive from social sharing, a three in four respondents perceive an advantage, while ten per cent see no value. Notably, 43% say it would increase brand consciousness, 21% believe it would aid brand credibility, while only 11% say it would boost sales. – Employees are supportive of social network and acting on a social network on behalf of their companies.

Another observation is that 55% of employees think it best to share 3rd party content in addition to their company’s content advertising. Moreover, 34% say that they are more than likely to share news articles about their company via a social network. This study suggests that employees are calling for help on the content front. They want the content from the creator, so that they can be active on social, and still help build their individual brand while promoting the company. Your employees do not want to spend their whole day farming for content on their very own. Corporate white papers and promotional materials are not enough. Your employees want an expansive mix of content.

So, what should a company do?

Your employees are not charmed in just being a corporate volunteer on their social network. They would like to be intriguing and engaging in their network and be reliable. These are the six things that you should do.

  1. Provide them with a good selection of content that includes ‘promotional’ corporate assets, as well as high value-assets like, industry news analysis, research, thought leadership
  2. Help them round out their personal profiles and their personas on social.
  3. Help them get some authentic engagement going versus just relaying more advertorial
  4. Additionally, content created for sharing, give them insights or a dashboard on their social sharing activities.
  5. Help them see some personal Return on investment for their efforts, just as you would for your business.

It is simple – Businesses must help measure the impact of social sharing – be it for your marketing team or your employee.

If employee-led social selling and employee engagement are not essential initiatives for the sales and marketing teams but the entire company including Human Resources and Senior Management teams.

This article first appeared on April 12, 2019 in a Times of India Blog titled How to make your employees double up as content marketing warriors?

#ContentMarketing #DigitalMarketing #EmployeeEngagement #Marketing #SocialMedia #SocialMarketng #ContentWarriors #EmployeeLeverage #SmartMarketing

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Infographic – Digital Marketing in 2018

Digital Marketing in 2018. Be prepared with good infographic from @MDGAvertising

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BetterBhavishya Futrlabs Futureshift ZMOt.ly

A #BetterFuture with #BetterBhavishya

Better Bhavishya
Better Bhavishya

While this forum is usually used for talking about innovative approaches of ZMOTly, we will share in this post about one of the exciting things we do at Futureshift in the area of social impact.

At Futureshift, we work on creating impact at the intersection of technology and strategy.

This translates into frameworks, innovative products and solutions that solve real issues in the business and social sector. The outcome is about creating a sustainable and lasting impact.

In business scenarios, ZMOTly provides the frameworks for success and Futrlabs offers solutions and products to achieve the delivered outcome.

In the social sector space, a segment that we are passionate about, we have a pillar called Better Bhavishya (better future). We leverage the skills in consulting and global experiences to be a change-maker in our little way.

At #BetterBhavishya, we work in the social sector space leading with ZMOTly impact framework and with products from Futrlabs that can help them achieve their goals faster. They are either continuous long-term partnerships or one-time engagements.

Better Bhavishya’ s works on these four areas – education, healthcare, environment and human rights.

  • As technology partners with an International Human Rights NGO, we helped them on some of their very key projects.
    • An Indian healthcare authority worked on a prototype and delivery mechanism for vaccination alerts that would help them prevent one million deaths and over 950,000 preventable disability each year.
    • Together with the NGO and a government ministry, worked on the prevention of bullying in schools.
    • Together with the human rights organisation, worked on jail reforms to reduce the number of undertrials held illegally in prisons.
  • Engaged with an NGO, funded by one of India’s reputed philanthropic foundation, for improving literacy and numerous is amongst children with low-income parents.
  • With another substantial philanthropic foundation, we developed a project impact assessment framework and helped in some other charitable initiatives.
  • For a not-for-profit working on building a community for parents of autistic children, worked on developing a strategy and reach.
  • At an NGO in Hyderabad, worked on developing a content and delivery framework and roll-out for long-term education for underprivileged children in the Andhra Pradesh and Telangana region.
  • In a village in Tamilnadu, have taken an initiative to convert 500,000 sft of barren land with an agroforest with over 15,000 trees.

Our founder’s prior experience in driving the Unlimited Potential initiative for Microsoft Asia Pacific plays an essential role in recommendations for our clients. The Unlimited Potential initiative was the outcome of Bill Gates vision to enable sustained social and economic opportunity for the following 5 billion people. The strategy was to reach incremental 1 billion people by 2015 by expanding deeper down the economic pyramid in a sustainable fashion by building non-traditional partnerships, breakthrough technologies and business models. The focus was on education, fostering innovation and creating jobs and opportunities through relevance, access and affordability. Bring one of the first employees in Asia-Pacific, driving that initiative has helped significantly in structure and systematising our approach better bhavishya projects at Futureshift.

Currently, we are working on a big idea that can transform hundreds of millions of rural lives by increasing local entrepreneurship opportunities and agriculture productivity. The core philosophy is to create local micro-innovations and income that would bubble up to have access to better education and healthcare opportunities.

This would more almost double the farm output and will dramatically transform the lives of rural India, where 70% of the Indian populations reside. We expect this to be a $1 billion+ social entrepreneurship business by 2022, creating an ecosystem with 10x more economic activity.

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9 PR rules shattered (2017)

 

#PR #Advertising #Marketing #CMO #PRO #Business #Entrepreneur
#PR #Advertising #Marketing #CMO #PRO #Business #Entrepreneur

If you are a professional, a businessman or an entrepreneur, ,you need PR to get visibility for your brand, product or service. The traditional rules of PR that helped well till a decade ago are is dead. The Web 2.0 has brought down the walls and unless you have adapted to the new world your PR strategy will not work in 2017.

#PR #Advertising #Marketing #CMO #PRO #Business #Entrepreneur

The 9 cardinal rules, shattered.

  1. Formal Media: The only way to get noticed was through formal media. The internet has changed all that. Today, you control your media. Your twitter, Facebook, Instagram or LinkedIn – each of them with access to billions of users provide you a platform to get noticed. In fact, the so-called formal media has ended up picking news from these social platforms.
  2. Press Releases: Companies communicated to journalists through press releases. Press Releases are a passé. It is time to keep communicating as conversations with the public. You can share your idea, launch details, plans and seek feedback from your users directly.
  3. Exclusivity: Nobody other than a handful of reporters and editors Would see the Press Release. In fact, many demanded exclusivities. In today’s context – exclusivity is suicidal. The strategy should be rot reach your buyers through as many channels as you can. In fact, being accessible to your buyers at their point of interaction is the key.
  4. Significant News: Companies needed significant news before they could write a press release. Today, the rules are changed. The audience is looking for being engaged with you through your evolution. While significant news can still be leveraged to do some burst PR, the social media helps you to teach out to share the developments as they happen.
  5. Jargon: Jargon was okay because those specific journalists understood. Jargon is not okay. You audience needs to understand you and it must be simple. The lower your denominator for comprehension and understanding you higher are the changes of connecting with you and have meaningful engagement and conversations.
  6. Third party Quotes: Your press release included quotes from customers, analysts and experts to be complete. While all these would help, it is no more mandatory. Once your piece of blog or post hits the online media there will be a 360-degree feedback and that is more authentic. Today, users are looking at authenticity more than spin.
  7. Media as Gatekeeper: The only way buyers learnt about your product was when media wrote about it. Today, the barriers of media as a gate keeper are broken. In fact, organizations have started to completely bypass the formal media d have started engaging directly with the audience. So, you see artists launching anthem album via you tube or governments declaring their plans through tweets and media losing its gatekeeper status.
  8. Press Clips: The only way you measured 3effectiveness of press release was through ‘press clips’ that was maintained painstakingly each time media reported it. Today is measure being far simpler, it all measures what is the virality and click rate for your article. The more relevant and useful the content, the it is shared sand more is the visibility. In fact, main stream media has started writing articles from those 140-character tweets.
  9. Silos with Marketing: PR and marketing were separate silos and ruin by separate goals, strategies, measurements. Marketing is PR and PR is marketing. The walls are shattered. Both works in tandem to ensure maximum reach and engagement.

These were some of the things I have shared. There can be a few more. Please feel free to share your views.

The author is an entrepreneur with two decades of senior leadership experience in India and Asia-Pacific and now runs Futureshift, a boutique consulting outfit that helps businesses chart their digital marketing strategy with the @ZMOTly framework to achieve impactful outcomes. He is available at rajesh@futureshift.com.sg