Derek Flanzraich

".@Buster: The great thing about 1,000 steps is that there are so many of them and so many things..."

Sat, 04 May 2013 13:41:34 -0400

“.@Buster: The great thing about 1,000 steps is that there are so many of them and so many things count. Since I’m training for an identity change (be a healthier person) not a specific goal (run a marathon), there is a lot of flexibility. Ultimately I am trying to train for an identity change rather than a behavior change”

- A compelling conversation on “behavior change” from the very smart @tonystubblne & @buster. To me the most important is the idea of identity change rather than behavior change. Typically see people become healthier usually by way of “becoming a runner,” “going paleo,” or “starting yoga.” That’s why our communities on Greatist are built around identities and why our hashtag is #imagreatist, not #greatistchoice or anything else. Think that’s a sneaky, powerful idea— and one we don’t hear about enough.

"Great companies are vibrant, they can hardly contain themselves. It’s because they’re made by..."

Mon, 29 Apr 2013 13:53:12 -0400

“Great companies are vibrant, they can hardly contain themselves. It’s because they’re made by believers who want to find other believers and convert the rest.”

- (via zachklein)

"As Walt [Disney] used to say, sometimes it’s the details you don’t notice that are the..."

Mon, 29 Apr 2013 08:58:43 -0400

“As Walt [Disney] used to say, sometimes it’s the details you don’t notice that are the most important. As a guest, you may not know why you’re feeling what you’re feeling, but you’re definitely feeling it.”

- - Chris Beatty, Walt Disney Imagineering Creative Director

An extraordinarily important lesson I’ve really taken to heart. You may not explicitly notice every fact is cited by a scientific study from PubMed on Greatist (and it’d be much faster for us to skip them)— but it wouldn’t feel the same trusted way without those citations.

Hey @TheRock, Invest In This Awesome Health Startup!

Wed, 24 Apr 2013 07:00:00 -0400

Dear Dwayne (aka The Rock),

Know you’re busy filming movies & saving franchises, conquering social media thanks to your 4.5 million Twitter fans & 8.5 million Facebook fan s, wrestling (sorry ‘bout that injury!), and working out a ton. I get it— that’s the life of a kick-butt celebrity!

Buuut I’ve been working to reach out & ask if you’d consider adding one more thing to your gargantuan-sized plate: investing in an epic, fast-growing health startup.

That startup is Greatist, a company working to build this generation’s first truly-trusted health and wellness brand and business with the mission of helping the world think of health and wellness in a healthier way and a vision to simply make healthier choices easier for everyone.

Two years ago, we started with high-quality content, the kind you’d be proud to share (every fact in every article is cited by a PubMed study and each post is approved by at least two experts from our incredible expert network) and now we’re the fastest-growing site in the space, with 3 million unique visitors per month (!), with syndication partners like TIME Magazine, Yahoo!, and USA Today. We’re also not so bad at social ourselves with over 160k followers across our Pinterest, Twitter, Facebook, Instagram, and others. And we’ve built a world-class editorial and engineering team, especially since our acquisition of Sportaneous. What’s really exciting is what’s next: getting people moving. We want to build the social layer on top of health & fitness data tracking— to take the metrics people are increasingly tracking and do fun things with them along with friends.

Happy to share more on all that later, but first here’s the deal: we’re looking for investors who believe they can have play an instrumental role in helping Greatist to become THE health and wellness brand that’s on the people’s side. So fittingly, as The People’s Champion, your name’s at the top of our all-star dream investor team. Here’s why:

Your #greatist personality. You’ve got the Greatist brand down pat. People trust you, recognizing your hard work and passion while admiring your positive, fun-loving mentality. You’re also super engaged with your audience and fans, motivating them to “stand fearless in the face of adversity and bring it every day” with you and your Team Bring It. That’s difficult to do & you’re clearly committed to it— engaging with your fans & making them feel special, one at time, in a way that most celebrities don’t care to do (or just pay others to do for them).

Your #greatist passion for health & fitness. At Greatist, we champion celebrating the healthier choices people make, the #imagreatist mentality, without feeling bad about the poor choices— and you embody that. You wake up at 6am, push through a crazy workout, then strap on a pair of CGI wings and make movies like the Tooth Fairy (where the joke’s on… everyone?). You challenge John Cena to throwdown, then sing Sam Cooke’s classic You Send Me on TV. You blow shit up for your day job, then say motivational & kind things like this. That inspires & resonates with people, exactly what we’re trying to achieve with Greatist.

Greatist is different because, like you, we only do things in a high-quality way. We’re in it because, like you, we care passionately about achieving something great for the world, be it a few lost pounds or laughs. And we’re doing this because, like you, we love every second of what we do.

So, long story short (too late?), would like to share a bit more in person about what we’re doing with Greatist and how we’re doing it— to hear your thoughts about reaching & motivating fans, inspiring the world, and more— with the hopes of convincing you why this is an awesome opportunity to:

1) Make a Difference. Partner with an up-and-coming innovative startup trying to change the world, helping a meaningful cause that’s near and dear to you. We’re a startup filled with people who are passionate about helping the world to make healthier choices— and we’re going to… hopefully with your help!

2) Get Buzz/Press in a Whole New Way. This could be a completely new, different angle to your growing success in the web world— and show you’re in touch with what’s exciting in the space. Other celebrities, like Ashton Kutcher, Kanye West, Lady Gaga, Justin Timberlake, Justin Bieber, and even Leonardo DiCaprio have recently invested startups with big exposure.

3) Get Involved Early With the Rocketship of The Future. You’ve got some huge movies and roles ahead of you & we, too, have been growing like gangbusters. We just acquired a smaller startup and were even nominated for a Webby. Like all good startups, our curve is up & to the right… but it’s just the very beginning. We’re planning to build a billion-dollar, 100-year company.

Know you’re busy, but think meeting with Greatist will be well worth your time: a very cool opportunity for you to support, an interesting world to get involved in, and a wonderful cause to champion. The amount of money you invest is (obviously) not as important as your potential commitment and involvement. If you believe in us as much as we do, then there’s no way we can’t succeed.

So, Dwayne, if you’ve got a second to even think about this, let’s chat ASAP. And if the person who’s reading this isn’t The Rock, but knows him or went to school with him or knows the person that one time he looked funny at in college at UM, let me know ASAP too. Will jump on any leads I can get! (And in that case, thanks for reading, whoever you are, and in the future, though this time it’s cool, don’t get in the habit of reading stuff that isn’t addressed to you, you sneaky reader.)

Thanks Dwayne & would love to connect when you’re in NYC next. Just let me know when works, though preferably sooner rather than later.

Thanks again,

—
The Derek
ceo & founder, Greatist + #TeamBringIt
derek [at] greatist.com

Health Startup Greatist Buys Sportaneous to Stretch from Content to Tech — GigaOm

Tue, 23 Apr 2013 15:26:54 -0400

Health Startup Greatist Buys Sportaneous to Stretch from Content to Tech — GigaOm

"Sportaneous was great…now it will be the Greatist. It is with pleasure and enthusiasm that I..."

Mon, 22 Apr 2013 18:01:51 -0400

“Sportaneous was great…now it will be the Greatist. It is with pleasure and enthusiasm that I announce Sportaneous is being acquired by Greatist. Greatist has been the fastest growing site in health & wellness for the past year and half, and our merger is a shining example of the whole being greater than the sum of its parts.”

- Honored to have incredible folks like this joining us at Greatist. Sportaneous Acquired by Greatist | Omar Haroun

Photo

Mon, 22 Apr 2013 14:31:34 -0400

Lessons Learned After Two Years As a Startup Founder

Fri, 19 Apr 2013 07:45:08 -0400

Today is the two-year anniversary of Greatist. One year ago, I published a post with the lessons I learned after one year as a startup founder. It forced me to communicate how I had changed in a challenging, but important way. So now I’ve decided to make this into tradition (two straight years is enough to make a tradition, right?) and do it again. Hooraaay!

This post is not about Greatist’s growth, though hey it’s worth mentioning that our growth has been pretty remarkable (800,000 unique visitors a year ago is now 3 million uniques, 7 full-time employees now 17 full-time employees). Our audience has never been more engaged, more obsessed with what we’re doing. We launched a major site redesign. The content has never ever been better—and syndication with places like TIME Magazine, Yahoo!, USA Today, and others proves we’re not the only ones who feel that way. We’ve got a lead that only continues to grow, unique positioning in the center of an exploding ecosystem, expertness in social, and now a world-class editorial and engineering team. Most importantly, we know what we’re building next (because our audience told us) and it’s going to be freakin’ awesome. I’ve never felt more positive that we can build this generation’s defining health and wellness brand and business. Seriously.

That said, at the same time everything is an absolute mess and I have little to no clue what I’m doing. Things are either awesome or terrifying not just day-to-day, but hour-to-hour. I know people say “startups are a rollercoaster” sometimes and then people politely laugh and nod. But a startup really is the world’s craziest rollercoaster. It never slows down. It barrels up sharply without notice and plummets before you can see the drop coming. You’re constantly elated and energized, but also constantly on the edge of projectile vomiting over everyone (just me?). Rollercoaster indeed.

Here are 8 new lessons (adding on to last year’s 8) I’ve learned this past year on the startup rollercoaster, again with the hopes that they’ll be helpful to people in the same position (or close to it, at least). But mostly this is for me.

1. Positive attitude can be unexpectedly powerful.

Imagine if every time you opened your inbox you said “I love email” instead of “Ugh, email is slowly, but surely murdering me with a million tiny iPhone notifications straight to the heart.” It makes sense that you’d hate email that much less, right? This is a simple concept, but something I’ve found to be unbelievably powerful over the past year. Just changing the way I talk about things meaningfully change my perception. Example: I decided to stop telling people how busy I was all the time because, c’mon, everyone is freakin’ busy and no one cares. The minute I committed to not say that, I felt a little less douchey and a lot less, well, “busy.” I call this “intentionality” and have found it apply to almost everything, both to me personally and as an example to the company as a whole.

Sometimes I feel my job at Greatist is basically just making people smile (well, technically that’s our Smiles Director Giuliana’s job), reminding them that every annoyance on the way to something great is just a hiccup. Because if I don’t, things get sticky. Small stuff affects attitude and that can snowball. Grumbling about this or that meeting can lead to grumbling in general. In the office, every day comes with a zillion new potential stressors, each of which can add up to one shitty day… unless, you know, you turn that frown upside down. I’ve learned, with effort, that I can and that I need to.

2. Hiring the best people takes building the best long-term relationships.

It’s rare to come across someone blindly through a job post and get to know them well enough to offer them a job. And rarer that it works (partly because I think a surprising amount of people want to “work for a startup,” but don’t really understand what comes with the territory (risk, lack of structure, shitty pay) until far too late). In fact, almost all of our recent hires at Greatist have been people I (or someone on my team) met more than a year ago or have known for an even longer time. A relationship with mutual respect and understanding has grown, where cultural fit is just the very beginning if a long, long-term process. When super talented people begin looking for a change, they’ve already built a network and group of friends who wants to work with them… and they want to work with!

Does this mean there’s no way to find anyone out of the blue? Absolutely not. But I’ve been devoting more and more time to building real relationships with people who’ve applied to jobs at Greatist before… or even just strengthening relationships with people I’ve always had on my “to hire” wishlist. And those are increasingly paying off in the absolutely best ways for everyone involved.

3. Do due diligence and then some.

Oof. This is a lesson learned the hard way. Last year, I wrote about how one of the major things I learned was that sometimes you had to make mistakes for yourself. The good (er, bad?) news is that still sure hasn’t changed. Doing due diligence is like putting on a seat belt in a NYC taxi cab, most don’t but everyone knows they should. Say you’ve gotten to know someone, you’re both on the same page, and hey, they seem positively perfect. But perfect is scary. Though chances are they’re everything you think they are, it’s also possible you’ll get over-excited, overlook the diligence you know you have to do, and potentially end up with cider in your ear. Better put on a seat belt than wait for the accident.

Due diligence is relatively easy today, too. It’s a no-brainer to ask someone for references or reach out to LinkedIn coworkers of theirs. It’s simple to do a deeeep Google search. It’s obvious that asking a friend to conduct a technical test (or, at a minimum, take a look at their code on GitHub) is a must-do. But sometimes we forget. And sometimes we learn far too late that the person we really wanted someone to be (that maybe even that person honestly really wanted to be too) wasn’t the person you needed at all.

4. Don’t get six pack abs in six weeks.

I got six pack abs in six weeks. It sucked.

5. Learn to get rid of all the stuff in your head so you can focus on the things that matter.

My brain is like an internet browser window, usually way too full of tabs. I’m convinced that removing as much as possible from your head allows you to think freely, focus on what’s really important, and opens up space for creativity. So I’m obsessed with it. But the more tabs, the slower the browser goes. So I’ve learned to exit out of the following: things I forgot to finish, things I’m worried I’ll forget, things I’m waiting on, errands, bigger tasks without specific action steps, appointments & recurring tasks, and personal goals I want to reach. Over time, I’ve created hacked-together solutions I swear by to get them out of my head: my Master Planner, my @waitingfor gmail label, Boomerang, Nudgemail, Captio Instapaper, Google Calendar, and then some (for some reason I actually imagine this a lot, if you’ll pardon my fandom, like the pensieve from Harry Potter). The key is clearing and freeing the mind by moving anything that would distract somewhere you have full confidence you’ll never miss later.

The other thing I’ve taken up is meditation. Super simple: just five minutes of closing my eyes, sitting upright, and focusing on my breath coming in and out. I’ve struggled quite a bit with fitting meditation into my life regularly, even after the great BJ Fogg taught me the ultimate hack: the best way is to tie it to a habit I already have. I just couldn’t figure out what habit to tie it to. Then, my incredible friend Johnny Angellilli suggested I do it after I work out at the gym and it just clicked. Right before the shower, every time, I take five minutes to clear my head. And wowza does it work wonders for my stress, my happiness, my focus, and my ability.

6. The difference between someone who’s good & someone who’s truly special is huge.

The so-called startup “unicorn” is someone that isn’t just better at their job than other people, but 10x better. They’re astonishingly good. If it takes a week for someone to build something, it takes them a night. If it takes a month to come up with the right idea, it takes them a split second. If you’re wondering if you have any unicorns on your team, you don’t. If success is really binary, then you better have quite a few of them… and get rid of the ones that aren’t (fire fast… or as fast as you can).

7. I’m not alone, even if it sure feels that way sometimes.

Running a startup is hard. No one really, truly knows what it’s like. No one on your team shoulders the same responsibilities, the same burden, the same pressure, no matter how involved they may be. You can be their friend, but you can’t be their friend. It’s awfully, terrifyingly lonely sometimes. Especially as a solo, first-time founder. And that’s okay, though perhaps the right word is more accurately “aloneness,” not “loneliness.” Perhaps that’s one of the curses of entrepreneurship, but I’ve found it can be profoundly helped through connecting with people who are going through similar things, through commiserating and laughing with other founders who get it. No startup is the same, but other people deal with many of the same big challenges and the same day-to-day madness. Putting time and effort into building those types of relationships and getting that touch, that connection, is so key to surviving. In particular, I’ve found the NYC community to be particularly giving, generous, and open—and have been lucky enough to build friendships with people doing unbelievable things that can still spare a moment every few months to chat about how we’re all in this together.

8. Passion FTW.

In two years, I’ve grown mightily as a leader as my role has evolved a lightspeed (aside: a stunning realization I had recently was that even though every day seems like it flies by, 2 years somehow seems like 5, maybe more). I love every part of it, every new stage and every new challenge. Seriously. Gives me chills how much I love it and sometimes cares me how much I would rather be working on Greatist than doing nearly anything else. But this shit is it hard. It seems like I’ve pitched Greatist a billion times. I have to deal with projections, insurance, accounting, reimbursements, legal contracts, and PEOs a shocking amount of my day. But none of that can dampen my passion. None of that can get in the way of how excited I can get when I talk about why we’re doing what we’re doing and why that matters. Every time I talk to someone about Greatist is a new chance to build a life-long fan. Every time I chat with a team member is a new chance to re-communicate why what we’re doing matters so much. Every moment I’m working on something is a new chance to learn something new and get better. Better so I can push and be pushed by the people I work with. Better so I can steer this ship in the right direction, no matter how choppy the water. Better so I can grow into a leader that can build an empire that lasts, that’s built the right way so we can make a difference in the best way. Better because, well, I don’t know any other way. Keeping the fire “on” all the time can be exhausting, but if anyone knows how to turn this fire off, good luck explaining it to me.

Mostly about how effective the s’mores diet is. (via...

Thu, 18 Apr 2013 22:46:20 -0400

Mostly about how effective the s’mores diet is. (via Becoming A Greatist - HuffPost Live)

Love these so much. (via Captain Kirk’s guide to fighting...

Thu, 18 Apr 2013 12:50:27 -0400

Love these so much. (via Captain Kirk’s guide to fighting - Imgur)

"If you want to build a rocket ship, it’s necessary to have people who have the skills and technical..."

Thu, 18 Apr 2013 09:18:00 -0400

“If you want to build a rocket ship, it’s necessary to have people who have the skills and technical know-how. But it’s more important to light them on fire with a longing for the stars.”

- Original is by Antoine de Saint-Exupery (“If you want to build a ship, don’t drum up people to collect wood and don’t assign them tasks and work, but rather teach them to long for the endless immensity of the sea.”) but rocketships are just THAT much cooler.

via Mark Fisher

"Yes, every brand has a story—that’s how it goes from being a logo and a name to a brand. The..."

Mon, 15 Apr 2013 09:30:26 -0400

“Yes, every brand has a story—that’s how it goes from being a logo and a name to a brand. The story includes expectations and history and promises and social cues and emotions. The story makes us say we “love Google” or “love Harley”… but what do we really love? We love ourselves. We love the memory we have of how that brand made us feel once. We love that it reminds us of our mom, or growing up, or our first kiss. We support a charity or a soccer team or a perfume because it gives us a chance to love something about ourselves.”

- Yes. via Seth’s Blog

"Nearly 90% of employers offer wellness incentives, or financial rewards or prizes to employees who..."

Sun, 14 Apr 2013 18:22:05 -0400

“Nearly 90% of employers offer wellness incentives, or financial rewards or prizes to employees who work toward getting healthier, according to a recent survey from Fidelity Investments and the National Business Group on Health. That’s up from 57% of companies in 2009.”

- Pros and Cons of Company Wellness Program Incentives - WSJ.com

What I Wish I Knew Then [Epic Brand Growth]

Fri, 12 Apr 2013 09:00:00 -0400

(Or, Now The Whole Internet Will Know)

This is Part 5 of 5 in a series on Epic Brand Growth: From 0 to 1M Uniques/Month in 1 Year (Or Less) based on Skillshare & General Assembly classes I taught in the past. Catch up on Part 1 (Is 1M Uniques/Mo Really What Your Want?), Part 2 (Why Knowing You Audience & Nailing Your Brand Matters Most), Part 3 (How To Find The Right Rocketship: Brand-Audience Fit), and Part 4 (What Content Works & Why People Share It).

WIWIKT (What I Wish I Knew Then)

At the beginning of this series, I mentioned my goal was to help you get to 1M uniques faster than we did at Greatist. I meant it. So, with that, here are some examples of things I wish I had known (or at least wish I had done better) when we were starting:

Have a great PR “story.” Friends in college, Dick and Brian were super into video games. Dick weighed a ton. Brian was what’s called “skinny fat.” So they both decided to use game-like mechanics to push each other to get healthy and fit. Now their awesome product, Fitocracy, gives people a platform to do the same: gameify their journey toward getting fit. It’s a classic, compelling story and has propelled them everywhere, even CNN.

Platform legitimacy. If your target audience lives in a forum somewhere, spending the time to become a respected member of that community is among the best ways to get an organic, genuine boost. There’s no way to fake this. You’re either someone that people look up to because of your long-term, awesome contributions or not. But if you are, that can single-handedly be the burst you need out of the gates. Fitocracy actually nailed this, too— and their early, passionate, ecstatic userbase very much born out of Reddit’s Fitness subreddit, among its most popular subreddits.

Paid social media followers. I experiment with everything. And you have no idea how cheap it can be to purchase social media followers. Though previously a bit of a secret, paid social follows are now much more mainstream (thanks Mitt Romney?), but they’re still the same: of little to no value besides vanity metrics. Followers that are paid for won’t engage, comment, or add in any way to your community. They’ll look spammy. But they can bump up numbers enough that, at a glance, can add to social proof around your brand and give it the legitimacy that it needs early on. In the super early days at Greatist, I purchased a small amount of Facebook followers and, though I’ve never purchased any since (we more or less don’t care about any numbers any more but engagement), I’m convinced that the difference between seeing 7 likes on a Facebook brand page and 300 likes is a big one. I don’t have any services to recommend, but I’d honestly consider it much like you’d consider any kind of early branding or marketing if you’ve got a few dollars to spend.

Voting Brigade. Many of the most popular social sharing/bookmarking services online (including places like Reddit, Hacker News, Pinterest, StumbleUpon, formerly Digg, and others) feature stories based mostly on popular vote. The more upvotes, the more likely it is people will see it. But just submitting good content is rarely enough to make it out of the fray of a million submissions. Instead, one of the most handy tactics is to create a “Voting Brigade,” a group of people that are asked to upvote/like/pin/whatever your content when it’s added. That group of people can be built in lots of ways: contributors across the country, ambassadors at every college, remote employees, convincing your frat brothers, whatever. If they’re supportive of what you’re doing, you can mobilize them to give your content a fighting chance. Putting it into play with 5-10 upvotes will give it the momentum to be seen by more people, who will ultimately decide if it’s worth the time. And, early on, in my opinion it’s among the most useful ways to get attention without spending money on anything. That said, this is tricky and has to be handled really cleverly. Obviously most of these networks aren’t blind to this and work hard to prevent upvoting blocks. So don’t push it. Only do it for truly great content that’s really relevant to the community. Don’t pretend to be someone you’re not. Don’t have the same people upvote it from the same IP address over and over again. We used this at Greatist to great success early on and, now, the neat thing is we don’t need to orchestrate it any more. People share our stuff without our help, typically. But a few extra upvotes never hurt.

Get big friends. Great examples include Hipmunk & Ashton Kutcher (and how he shared their logo on Two and a Half Men) plus Ridejoy & Y Combinator (their recent Vanity Fair story). This is easier said than done, obviously. But getting legitimacy from known quantities can only help.

Thought leadership. If you’re constantly writing on a topic and build an engaged, awesome audience with you as a thought leader early on, then there’s no better way to build a relevant business. People like Jason Baptiste and Andrew Warner (Mixergy) have both produced awesome content, then built a meaningful business thanks to the respect they’ve garnered.

YOU

As this series draws to a close, it’s important I mention the crucial part you play in achieving success. I don’t just mean you, the founder/CEO/marketing director/whoever you are professionally. I mean you, personally. For me, the two are profoundly intertwined. Personal balance and the right attitude in your life will make you better at everything in your professional life. So three things to keep in mind that I believe are crucial to growing something to success, whether we’re talking social/brand growth or anything else:

First, Make Healthier Choices. This lesson is among the first I learned when I started trying to get more serious about my health and surprisingly found it made me more efficient, more creative, and more confident at everything else in my life. It’s obviously super relevant to our mission at Greatist, but it’s just so crucial. Finding time to sweat a ton, savoring moments to breathe and de-stress, prioritizing sleep, and working to just eat good food will simply make you better at life. None of this is a sprint, but instead a really freakin’ long race. Make sure you model that for yourself and everyone you work at. I find the minute this stuff goes is the minute everything else starts to fall apart.

Second, Put the Time in to Find Email Inbox Happiness. We spend an extraordinarily huge amount of time in our email inbox. Most of us use it as our to-do list (and it doesn’t help that it’s the world’s only to-do list where literally anyone can put whatever they want at the top of it). Taking the time away from answering your email to organize and create systems to manage it is unbelievably important. It’ll make everything easier—and so many people have created step-by-step guides to achieve inbox happiness (including me: Be An Inbox Hero: The Ultimate Guide To Mastering Gmail).

Finally, JFDI. Among our key core values at Greatist, “Just F*cking Do It” is an important perspective (and first brought to my attention by the very awesome Mark Suster in this blog post) that’s so freakin’ important. If you don’t just do things, things just won’t get done. One weekend last year, I decided to write huge, long emails to some personal heroes of mine: Richard Branson, Howard Schultz, and Danny Meyer. Within a few weeks, I had spoken to Danny Meyer on the phone and received an email from Howard Schultz (no word from Richard, though). No way that would have ever happened without me JFDI.

WHY I DO THIS

I love teaching. I have no interest in being a teacher, but if I believe I learned a few things, working to communicate and teach them has always taught me more than I learned in the first place. That may sound like a selfish thing, but teaching others forces me to constantly challenge myself, work to fully understand complicated concepts so I can truly simplify them, and confront questions and perspectives I may never have encountered.

I’ve also found that almost every time I take the time to share with others, things always come back to me in spades. That may sound like a selfish thing, but I don’t think it is—instead, it’s just the way human relationships seem to work. If you do something for someone, they’re more inclined to do something for you. And exposure to new people through helping them just gives you more of a chance to meet people who might be able to help you.

Finally, I believe profoundly in great brands and awesome content. There just simply isn’t enough of either. Building a great brand is so super hard. Creating awesome content is the same. And neither have really obvious, tangible returns on that investment. My mission in life is ultimately just to help make health & wellness easier for everyone, to help them think about it in a healthier way. I’m obsessed with this. If I can help make it a bit easier, in whatever small way, then more people will be healthier, happier, and everything that comes along with those feelings. Lots, lots more. Social brand growth is no different. If there’s any way I can help make it easier for you to reach people with an epic brand and high-quality content, then count me in. Just let me know what I can do.

**Drops mic.**

Next? Why not Start all over again with Part 1, Is 1M Uniques/Month Really What You Want? (Or, So You Think You Can Grow).

What Content Works & Why People Share It [Epic Brand Growth]

Thu, 11 Apr 2013 09:00:00 -0400

(Or, Linkbait & Spikebait)

This is Part 4 of 5 in a series on Epic Brand Growth: From 0 to 1M Uniques/Month in 1 Year (Or Less) based on Skillshare & General Assembly classes I taught in the past. Catch up on Part 1 (Is 1M Uniques/Mo Really What Your Want?), Part 2 (Why Knowing You Audience & Nailing Your Brand Matters Most), and Part 3 (How To Find The Right Rocketship: Brand-Audience Fit) or read ahead for Part 5 (What I Wish I Knew Then).

CONTENT

Okay, so you know your brand, your audience, and where you’re going to reach that audience with your brand. But wait, what the heck are you supposed to share with them?

Let’s assume you don’t have an editorial team, tons of money to burn, and/or aren’t famous enough to get people to write content for you for frizzle. Those would all be awesome, I know, but chances are they aren’t the case (yet). The good news is that you can definitely still share stuff that’s great and relevant in a smart, cost-effective way

The way I think about successfully creating and sharing content online is that it’s all about building weenies. Funny word, I know, but the concept of a “weenie” is among my most favorite lessons learned from reading every single biography of Walt Disney (so many fun Friday nights!). When Walt was building Disneyland, he and his Imagineers became obsessed with the idea of building big, interesting elements that would draw people in for a closer look. Then, of course, they’d stick around the area where the weenie was and, hey, maybe buy some Mickey Premium Ice Cream Bars. The most famous example of this is probably the Cinderella Castle at Magic Kingdom in Walt Disney World. You walk in and you’re immediately drawn into the park by this big, beautiful castle (proof I didn’t make up the whole concept). The fancy title for this online is basically Inbound Marketing, but more or less the concept is the same: create and share big, beautiful, relevant content to build an audience around all your other stuff (or convert people to buy your Mickey Premium Ice Cream Bars or whatever).

The world of “things that work” online, in my mind, is split into two different kinds of shared content: Linkbait, content that can become a lasting resource and build an audience long-term, and what I call Spikebait, content which can produce a burst (“spike”) in attention, but likely won’t build long-term brand awareness and keep people around. Linkbait takes more time and resource to create than Spikebait and more often than not it won’t work at all. But Spikebait is, by definition, not enough. So, I’d ultimately recommend a healthy mix of the two, but each brand should have its own balance. Over time, I’ve built out the following examples of each kind:

LINKBAIT

Infographic: Complete Guide to Interval Training (Super Infographic: Snake Oil? Scientific Evidence for Health Supplements META ALERT! Infographic about infographics.)

Egobait: The 25 Healthiest Colleges

Top X List: 100 Excellent Free Wordpress Themes

Comic/Cartoon: 15 Things Worth Knowing About Coffee

Chart/”Minfographic”: Am I Wearing Pants?

Link Roundup: Links We Love

Ultimate Guide/Content: The Coffee Lover’s Guide to Tea

“SPIKEBAIT”

News Item: Bully Calls News Anchor Fat, News Anchor Destroys Him On Live TV

Motivational Poster: “Go Wherever Your Heart Desires”

Funny Image: T-Rex Hates Pushups

Beautiful Photo: Central Park 90 Days Apart

Quote: “You miss 100% of the shots you don’t take.” – Wayne Gretzky

Shameless Ask: “Retweet If You Love Fridays!”

Meme & Gif: Texts from Hillary

Would You Rather: “Would you rather give up sex or the internet for a year?”

Specific tips:

Curate picture lists (works for Buzzfeed, TwistedSifter, & Greatist)
Find help for frizzle (interns!)
Share stuff from other publishers/content producers (e.g. infographics, summaries of stories a la much of Lifehacker’s stuff, etc…)
Or pay for it by hiring high-quality freelance writers through Contently or licensing high-quality content through NewsCred.
Or, of course, create it yourself.

WHY PEOPLE SHARE

So all this is great, but what’s the real deal? What’s the code that you need to crack to get “viral growth”? How have Buzzfeed, Upworthy, Greatist, and other outlets grown so freakin’ fast?

I’ve spent a few years pretty obsessed with this question. And my conclusion, at least so far, is that why people share almost always comes down to identity.

People share because it makes them look smart, funny, or cool.

Think about the things you’ve personally shared in the last day or so and my guess is a lot falls into the three categories above.

BUSTED.

Just kidding, I already think you’re smart, funny, AND cool, so keep up the good work.

People share because it says something about who they are or who they want to be.

At Greatist, the majority of people who share our content aren’t in our primary audience. We’re ultimately trying to reach normal people working to simply make healthier choices, one choice at a time. But the people who share our content are usually the health & wellness professionals or superfans, people who either are defined by the space or want to be defined by it, people who want to prove to their followers that, “Yes! Greatist agrees foam rolling really is awesome as I’ve mentioned before.” or, “Hey, avocados really are a healthier choice just like I said they were. Good thing I’m wearing this ‘I Heart Guac’ t-shirt today!”

Tim O’Reilly maybe says this (in a great article) best: “It’s to find people who care about the same things you do, and to tell a story that amplifies their voice because it helps people who haven’t yet heard the word also come to know and care… In short, the secret of promotion in the age of social media isn’t to promote yourself. It’s to promote others.”

Also, if you’re wondering when people share, then Jonah Peretti’s the king here. His ideas about the “Bored at Work” network (and “Bored in a Line” network) are important reads.

Next? Part 5, What I Wish I Knew Then (Or, Now The Whole Internet Will Know)

"I’m convinced the killer app for health and fitness tracking is social. That’s what I..."

Wed, 10 Apr 2013 11:14:54 -0400

“I’m convinced the killer app for health and fitness tracking is social. That’s what I think can take health tracking to the next level, where regular people care. If we can do something fun with it, compete or work together to achieve certain goals with it, then we’ll forget about the numbers and instead just focus on getting healthier.”

- How to Make the Most Of Your Fitness Tracker (Without Falling Off the Wagon)

Terrifying.

Wed, 10 Apr 2013 10:50:22 -0400

Terrifying.

How To Find The Right Rocketship: Brand-Audience Fit [Epic Brand Growth]

Wed, 10 Apr 2013 09:00:00 -0400

(Or, Why Friends/Search/Email/Social/Love Is All You Need)

This is Part 3 of 5 in a series on Epic Brand Growth: From 0 to 1M Uniques/Month in 1 Year (Or Less) based on Skillshare & General Assembly classes I taught in the past. Catch up on Part 1 (Is 1M Uniques/Mo Really What Your Want?) and Part 2 (Why Knowing You Audience & Nailing Your Brand Matters Most) or read ahead for Part 4 (What Content Works & Why People Share It) and Part 5 (What I Wish I Knew Then).

Brand Audience Fit

Exercise 4: BAF (“Brand Audience Fit”) (I’ve often wanted to call BAMF, but can’t figure out what the “M” would stand for. “Must”?).

Where does your audience meet your brand? Referring back to Exercise 1, you now have a sense of your audience. Referring back to Exercise 2 & 3, you now have a better handle on your brand. So now where is your audience? And where will they embrace engaging with your brand?

Write 3 potential places down.

Some options: StumbleUpon, Pinterest, Reddit (and its many subreddits), Tumblr, YouTube, Facebook, Google+, Twitter, Instagram, Fark, Hacker News, MakeUpAlley, BodyBuilding.com, Fitocracy, etc… Google Search? Email? Meetups?

That’s a start! Next, what I’d do is speak to your audience (survey them, go to their events and ask them, sit at a coffee shop and ply them with free lattes, whatever). Where do they hang out? If you’re not in the target audience, they’ll obviously know better than you. Listen to them!

The truth is the answer here can be basically anything. I’m serious. It can be AA meetings or 4chan. It can be AOL chatrooms or Craigslist. It can be smoothie shops or PatientsLikeMe. Just depends on your audience and your brand.

My advice here is to focus on one at first. Find that 20% that’ll drive 80% of your traffic (aka the “Pareto principle”) and then move to others if you’re looking for more once you’ve nailed that. You could be wrong, by the way. That’s okay. At Greatist we didn’t find the right platform for us until six months after we had launched. Pinterest was beginning to take off and we noticed Food & Drink and Health & Fitness were among the most popular categories without any great brands there. So we doubled down on visuals and went all-in. Pinterest became our springboard and we basically haven’t looked back since. For more on this, check out an article I wrote for Inc., “How My Site Gets Tons of Traffic from Pinterest” and a Mixergy Master Class I did that’s mostly focused on that moment, “How to Go from Zero to 1 Million Unique Visitors in Less Than a Year.”

UNIQUE CONSISTENT VALUE

So let’s assume you’ve figure this out. You’re the best! Now what do you say?

Well, one of the big things we’ve developed at Greatist has been the idea of each platform offering a “unique consistent value.” Basically this means the answer to the question: “Why would you follow/like/stumble/pin/+1/tumble/chest-pump/top gun high-five your brand?” If you’re only sharing updates on your company, then the only people who will care are your investors and team members (and maybe their families). If you’re only sharing industry-related news, then why are you different? The question becomes what’s your obvious added value—not just on one platform, but all platforms. In an ideal world, you want people to follow all your updates everywhere (from Facebook to Twitter and everywhere in between). How are they each offering unique value so they’re all a must-follow? Figure out how to consistently add value. Then do it. Consistently.

For example, at Greatist:

Twitter = our Twitter account shares the best health & wellness content on the web that shares our friendly & relatable perspective.
Pinterest = our Pinterest account pin the most visually appealing health & wellness-related images that, again, fit into our brand
Newsletter = our Daily Tips Newsletter delivers a short health tip that can be put into action that day
Tumblr = our Tumblr Page shares the most hilarious health & wellness “outtakes” across the web: memes, gifs, etc…
Instagram = our Instagram account shares the most inspiring and awesome photos taken directly from our #imagreatist community
Facebook = our Facebook account sparks the best health & wellness-related conversations

And so on. If you think we haven’t written this out on whiteboard, think again. This is serious stuff!

A couple of my favorite (non-Greatist) examples are:

MilkMade Ice Cream. On their Adventures in Ice Cream tumblr, MilkMade consistently shares beautiful behind-the-scenes photos of their delicious ice-cream making process and has built quite a following (of hey, people that love ice cream and just may purchase it) along the way.

ShapeUp. With their CEO-hosted webinars, they reach their target customer (primarily HR decision-makers at companies over a certain size) with original content on the month’s most relevant content to those customers whether they work with ShapeUp (yet) or not.

Got it? Great. Next, we’re going to tackle each of the major platforms, including Social, Email, Search, and what I call “Friends.” I assume if you’ve decided on where to start, you’ll figure out the basics, so I won’t dive too deep into what each is and how it works. Instead, here are some nitty-gritty tips and tactics that you might find useful.

PLATFORM: SOCIAL

Specific Tips:

Twitter: create a private “fans” list (https://support.twitter.com/articles/76460-how-to-use-twitter-lists) and ping them out the blue every now and then!
Pinterest: Consider adding article text INTO the image (example here: http://pinterest.com/pin/161074124144028608/)
SproutSocial: Social media management tool that allow you to schedule updates in the future. Also mentioned Hootsuite & Tweetdeck as alternatives.
Buffer: Another way to schedule your content in the future, except in a linear way so you don’t have to plan it out (I use this like woah for my personal account).
Klout Chrome Extension: Just don’t be too judgmental!
Register for accounts early & often w/ gmail’s magical “+” trick: http://support.google.com/mail/bin/answer.py?hl=en&answer=12096

PLATFORM: EMAIL

Specific tips:

Smart ways to make your pop-up even better.
Newsletter partner contests/swaps. Basically, find an email list that’s in the same industry + roughly the same size. If you think their subscribers would love your newsletter, pitch them a contest w/ a prize (e.g. $250 Lululemon package) & then cross-promote to each list, asking simply that for people to be entered that they subscribe to the newsletter they aren’t on yet. Ta-da!
MailChimp is the email service provider we currently use (and is free up to 2000 subscribers). If you’re looking for something more sophisticated, SailThru, Constant Contact, & SendGrid are popular email service providers.
For surveying people, options I’ve used before include Mechanical Turk, Ask Your Target Market (expensive, so try to find a discount), & SurveyMonkey (which won’t, as I mentioned, have a built-in audience).

PLATFORM: SEARCH

SEO (“Search Engine Optimization”) may sound intimidating, but it shouldn’t be. My metaphor for SEO is that it’s basically “gift wrapping.” When you’re opening gifts, which do you open first? Obviously the one that’s wrapped the nicest. You have no idea what’s inside, but usually that’s the one that catches your eye. Similarly, on the web, your product/content is the gift. And if it’s the best gift for someone’s search, then it’s Google’s job to make sure it gets to the top… but only if you’ve got wrapping that’s at least just as good as the other gifts. So, to me at least, SEO is simply about making sure your “wrapping” is just as good as everyone else’s.

My quick “How SEO Works” 101, adapted from the great Periodic Table of SEO Ranking Factors:

On-Page SEO: It’s more or less a technical checklist. Seriously. Things change, but don’t panic since almost always the old way to do it is grandfathered in.
Page Content: Content quality, relevancy, freshness/newness, user engagement on-site. This you can affect a ton, but hopefully you’re already focused on these things!
Off-Page: Link quality in, social media in, number of links.

If interested in learning more, would absolutely start with SEOMoz’s The Beginners Guide to SEO, which is amazing. If you subscribe to any SEO blog (even if it’s just for a bit), I’d recommend the SEOMoz Blog (which is similarly great). Neil Patel also writes really newbie-friendly & legitimate SEO/Marketing things at QuickSprout. If you’re considering attending a conference (which I would advise is the best way to get a crash-course in how this whole thing works), recommend those held by Distilled & Blueglass (two major digital marketing firms), but those tend to be pretty expensive without a discount… so keep an eye out for one! Otherwise, there is an increasing amount of really great stuff both online, often free or cheap, at places like Udemy, Coursera, Khan Academy, and Skillshare.

PLATFORM: FRIENDS

I’m convinced “making friends” is among the most underrated forms of growth online. We’re so serious about that that we’ve got a Growth Director whose entire job is basically “making friends.” Before Greatist launched, I reached out to the top 100 influencers in health, fitness, and wellness. All of them. I had spent years following them and getting to know them, but had never really interacted with them before. So I wrote an email that looked something like this (okay, it was literally exactly this):

“Happy [DAY OF THE WEEK]! You don’t know me, but I was hoping you’d be willing to spare a quick moment to answer just a few questions. I [INSERT LEGITIMACY REASON HERE, such as where you graduated from, where you’ve worked, etc…]… I’ve followed [INSERT BLOG], your work in [INSERT PAPER/BOOK/SOMETHING], plus even your [INSERT OTHER STUFF] and continue to be impressed by how you [connect with your audience in way that’s informed and scientific, yet still broadly appealing and practical.] … [SHORT DESCRIPTION OF WHAT YOU’RE BUILDING] It would mean a lot if you could offer any advice/tips— [what have you found has worked in engaging your audience?] … Can just be a few sentences, anything would mean a ton! If a call is easier, would love to schedule one. Of course, no worries if you don’t have the time & thanks!”

Simple, I know. But extraordinarily effective. I personalized each one. I followed up twice on every single non-response. And, by the end of it, nearly 70% responded. I spoke and met with tons of them. Many have become friends, advisors, even investors. Today, most continue to be huge ambassadors of Greatist. When we first launched, influencers sharing our site with their followers was unquestionably how we got our biggest initial burst.

The key was that I genuinely wanted their help—and meant it when I said I was a fan. Even then, so many surprised me with advice and perspective I couldn’t have imagined.

So:

Exercise 5: The “100 Influencer Challenge”

List the top 5 influencers in your space. Write them down on a piece of paper or an email draft or somewhere.

If you can’t name 5 influencers, you’re in trouble. It’s likely you don’t know your space well enough yet and, if that’s the case, then hop to it and do your homework. Seriously—influencers may not be your audience, but the people that listen to them and follow them most certainly are.

Next, turn that list into the top 100 influencers. This might take a little work, but it’ll be worth it.

This list will become your initial blueprint for creating momentum and getting the whole space on your side. (And, by the way, this doesn’t only apply to people who haven’t launched yet. If anything, it may be an entirely new marketing channel you haven’t really considered).

OUTREACH

Specific Tips:

Email plugin that you can use to auto-magically email anyone & everyone? Rapportive For more tips on this, would big time recommend, as I mentioned, a friend Scott Britton’s post on “Finding Anyone’s Email Address.” Don’t use this for evil! (My rules include: don’t bother someone at their personal email, no more than two follow-ups, outreach has to really be personalized.)
For tips on how to master gmail, I recently wrote a blog post myself based on a tutorial I teach at Greatist: “Be An Inbox Hero: The Ultimate Guide To Mastering Gmail.” This includes the way I use an “@waitingfor” label in Gmail to follow-up on everything and my favorite internet tool, Nudgemail.
Email plugin to email anyone whenever you’d like (especially if, say, you spend most Friday nights sending email and don’t everyone else to know how super lame you are)? Boomerang
Yesware is an email tool that allows you to check if your email was actually opened. I think it’s super sketchy & probably a bad thing for mankind, but hey— it’s out there!

Next? Part 4, What Content Works & Why People Share It (Or, Linkbait & Spikebait).

Well wow. Greatist was nominated for the Best Health Website Webby!

Tue, 09 Apr 2013 11:09:46 -0400

Well wow. Greatist was nominated for the Best Health Website Webby!:

Help us out w/ a vote, please!

Why Knowing Your Audience & Nailing Your Brand Matters Most [Epic Brand Growth]

Tue, 09 Apr 2013 09:00:00 -0400

(Or, Know Thy Audience & Nail Thy Brand or Ye Will Suck)

This is Part 2 of 5 in a series on Epic Brand Growth: From 0 to 1M Uniques/Month in 1 Year (Or Less) based on Skillshare & General Assembly classes I taught in the past. Catch up on Part 1 (Is 1M Uniques/Mo Really What Your Want?) or read ahead for Part 3 (How To Find The Right Rocketship: Brand-Audience Fit), Part 4 (What Content Works & Why People Share It), and Part 5 (What I Wish I Knew Then).

THE AUDIENCE

Exercise 1: The “Little John”

Here’s how this works: First, who is your audience? Seriously, write it down. Right now—on a piece of paper, in a gmail email draft, wherever. I won’t peek.

Next, answer this: What do you want them to do? Again, do it live. Keep this one short.

Okay, NOW take the sentences you’ve written about your audience and narrow them down. Waaay down.

If you wrote “women looking for better makeup reviews,” how old are they? What part of the country are they from? What’s their average annual salary? What do they do for a living? What kind of makeup do they care about most?

If you wrote “small business owners struggling with the move to online,” what kind of small business do these folks own? What kind of computer do they use? Who are their customers? How many people are on their team?

This part is something you’ll basically be constantly evolving, but the sooner you narrow down your audience, the sooner your brand becomes actually relevant to someone. And relevance really, really matters. When Greatist was starting out, we wanted to reach “everyone with an interest in health & fitness being easier.” That was silly. That’s a huge market, obviously—but no one can start there. Instead, we moved to “18-35 year olds looking for a trusted health & wellness source online.” Then we went to “18-35 year olds trying to just make healthier choices.” Each time we’ve narrowed down our audience, our audience has become easier to find, our followers have become more engaged, and our traffic has grown by a ton. So work on it right now. It’ll be worth it.

Next, take the sentence you wrote about what you want your audience to do… and broaden it. Surprise! Go as general and big vision as you can.

Are you trying to “drive visitors to purchase your home-made jewelry” or “giving people a beautiful way to build confidence”?

Are you hoping to “convince startup founders to download your group messaging app” or “change the way they think about the community around them”?

Are you trying to “maximize health care benefits for customers” or “giving companies and employees peace of mind”?

Do this one now, too. I’ll wait! This may sound silly, maybe, but a big vision statement inspires your audience and engenders them toward your brand in a more meaningful way. It also affects everything you do, from the flavor text you write in your welcome email to the packaging you send along with your product. Everything is affected by it and, by extension, your audience is touched by your brand in a more profound way.

Whoever you think your target audience is should be narrowed. And whatever you think you’re trying to get them to do should be broadened. If that’s the only thing you take away from this, I’ll be one happy clownfish.

THE BRAND

Exercise 2: The Personality Profile.

What is your brand’s personality? If your brand were a person, what kind of person would it be? Again, write this down in paragraph form, 4-5 sentences. Do it now (then READ ON, brave brand builder reader person).

For comparison’s sake, here’s Greatist’s personality profile: “Super fit, super fun friend who impresses you with knowledge and also how down to earth he/she is. Very empathetic. Pushes you to be your best, but doesn’t judge you at your worst. Killer faithful. Always trustworthy. Energetic, positive, motivated, relatable.”

Defining your brand’s personality is incredibly important—a brand isn’t a brand without a personality profile. This (along with the “Tone of Voice” Checklist below) will become your brand crib sheet. Anyone creating anything can refer to it and make sure everything is uniquely and beautifully consistent. You should be able to hand it off to a completely new social media/community manager and they should totally be able to step in without skipping a beat.

Worth noting that this does evolve over time—that’s the natural way brands grow. But it has to start somewhere.

Exercise 3: The “Tone of Voice” Checklist.

If you know who your brand is, then how would it communicate and talk? How many exclamation points does it use? Would it use emoticons? Smiley faces? Below is literally a checklist. Go through it and thoughtfully check the boxes that you believe apply to your brand. I’ve also shared examples of each instance.

This may seem like a silly exercise, but deciding whether to check or not check each box will force you think through an increasing amount of subtleties about how your brand communicates. Is it casual or more professional? Is its audience super web-savvy or not? Is it funny or serious? These questions matter!!! LOL :**)

THE DESIGN

You can’t get to 1M uniques unless you look like you have 1M uniques first.

Or, at least, for the most part (see: Craigslist). What’s clear is that design, especially on today’s Internet, has never been more important. The classic example is Mint.com, where so many people (probably you included!) entered all their credit card information into the site before checking how secure it was because, well, of its design (if you’re curious, there’s a great interview with Mint’s designer, Jason Putorti, on how they built that trust through design here).

Basically, if you spend money anywhere (and you’re not a designer yourself), spend it here. Even early on. At Greatist, we found our first designer on a site called Dribbble. I sent out personal emails to the 5 designers I felt most matched the aesthetic I was going for, then somehow convinced one of them to help us for what, in retrospect, was an embarrassingly small amount of money.

To me, the most important thing about great design is the details. Because the details matter. Think of the sites you’re most impressed by in terms of their design. Then take a closer look. Every single detail has been thought through, from the text on the footer to every pixel around the social media buttons. Here’s my take: people may not notice the details, but people will notice the absence of them. (One of my favorite examples of this is a story about Walt Disney in the early days of Disneyland demanding that a horse carriage had the era-appropriate window drapes. If anyone knows where the heck I read this story, let me know— have been trying for quite a few years to track it down, no joke!)

Next? Part 3, How To Find The Right Rocketship: Brand-Audience Fit (Or, Why Friends/Search/Email/Social/Love Is All You Need)