Viral Video Winner and New Contest Announcement!

One thing is for sure: If you’re going to be a successful entrepreneur, you’d have creative abilities.  Not that you have to be artistic.  Creativity comes in many forms.  Whether we’re devising new solutions to old problems, creating blog or marketing copy or designing more streamlined business processes, we entrepreneurs use creativity all the time.  Because we know that creativity is so important to entrepreneurship - and because we like to have a lot of fun, our other site, YoungEntrepreneur.com, recently ran a viral video contest.  After collecting a ton of video submissions from young entrepreneurs who we challenged to come up with a Young Entrepreneur-themed video with viral potential, we came up with a winner, to whom we awarded a $500 cash prize!

Here’s our winner!

What made this video a winner?  First of all, we think it’s hilarious!  Next, the editing is super creative, and the skit itself shows a lot of creativity.  The message in the video is actually pretty clever too.  As an entrepreneur, have you ever had to deal with someone who just didn’t get “the whole Internet thing” or how social media or other tools vital to your business worked?  We all have to some extent, even if it was a family member or friend asking when we’re going to “get a real job”!

Nick Scheidies and Josh Stevens of Next Level Ink are the two guys who put this video together.  These two personify what entrepreneurs are all about.  They’ve each founded and managed several ventures, and while still involved in other projects, they head up Next Level Ink, a Longmont, Colorado-based creative media agency, specializing in audio and video.  They’re passionate about taking each of their clients’ brands to the next level with unique, personalized, and professional media. And because they’re just getting on their feet, they’re able to do it for less.  Also, they are both self-taught when it comes to audio and video production.

Announcing a monthly Viral Video Contest!

Want to get in on the chance to win $500 cash?  We’re excited to announce that we’re kicking off an ongoing Viral Video Contest.  Each month we’ll sort through video entries to find a single winner who will win a $500 cash prize and some great exposure in an article like this one!  Here are the details:

- Create a video - Create a video with a young entrepreneur theme and upload it to YouTube.com.

- Include our logo - Include this image within your video.

-  Submit your entry - Use our contact form to submit your entry.  Just fill out all the fields, typing “Viral Video
Contest” in the Subject box, and a link to your video in the Message box.

-  Rules -

• Entry deadline is the last day of the month, with the first deadline occurring 8/31/2010.  Winner will be notified by the 15^th of the month following entry.
• We will accept one entry per contestant per month.  If you submit more than one video in a calendar month without prior approval, only the first entry will be considered.
• To be considered, your video must be young-entrepreneur-themed and must include the YoungEntrepreneur.com logo within the video.
• This contest is open to everyone, and the prize will be paid in US dollars via prepaid Visa debit card or PayPal at the winners choosing.
• It is acknowledged that judging is 100% subjective, and the decisions of the judges (us) are final.

So that’s all there is to it.  Start shooting, and get your first video to us by August 31, 2010.  You could have $500 in your hands and your business in front of thousands of readers shortly thereafter!

7 Tips for Kick-Butt Blog Writing

Far different from book or other formal writing, writing for a blog requires its own specific set of skills. And once you’ve got them down pat, you’ll be able to produce sparkling, original, copy that will keep your readers coming back for more. There are tons of books and sites devoted to writing great content, but unless you’re someone who really struggles with writing a complete sentence, it really boils to some basic principles.  And even if you already know all this, it’s always a good idea to get a reminder and re-evaluate your writing to make sure you’re not falling back into bad habits.

Here are the seven most essential things that every blogger needs to know:

1. Keep it short - Learn the skill of brevity. Your readers will love you for it. It can take time to develop the art of saying more in fewer words, but it’s worth it. Keep sentences short, paragraphs tight, and articles at a reasonable length. Make your point, repeat it, then leave it. Short, succinct sentences look appealing to a reader when they scan your page. This means they will keep the window open and take a look at what you have to say.

2. Bite-sized nuggets - Break your content into nice, digestible pieces. As a general rule of thumb, paragraphs written for the web shouldn’t be longer than four of five sentences. Ever heard of the popular web abbreviation “TLDR”? This stands for “too long, didn’t read.” Readers scan web pages, rather than reading them carefully, such as they would a book or newspaper. Make your content look short and readable and you will stand a better chance of keeping your reader’s attention.

3. Subheadings - Put the most important points, keyword and phrases in bold subheadings. This helps to catch the eye of readers skimming over your page. Subheadings are where people “land” on a website. Each subheading should introduce a kind of “mini article.”  Take advantage of subheadings to make readers stay on your page for longer.

4. Leave them wanting - The number one trick to making a profit from web writing is to leave readers wanting just a little bit more. Introduce the problem, offer some solutions, but don’t completely solve it. That is what your next link, next post, or targeted ads are for. Learning the skill of leaving the problem a little bit open is the best skill you can develop.

5. Offer something original - Why should readers choose your blog over someone else’s? Offer them something original, and they’ll make that choice. Figure out how you can tap into a niche and how you will be able to offer a unique angle. If you are an expert in a field, use that to your advantage. Any topic that you are passionate about is a good place to start. This way you can deliver readers heartfelt, knowledgeable advice that doesn’t just repeat what someone else is saying.

6. Watch your adverbs and adjectives - Any writing teacher will tell you that you need to eliminate your writing of adverbs and adjectives. Blog writing is no exception! There is a place for them, but most of the time they tell the reader nothing. They are empty words which don’t say anything, yet they do take up plenty of space. Consider the sentence, “This product is really rather quite good.” What does that mean? If you mean good, then that’s what you should write. Keep your writing simple, active, and powerful.

7. Use a professional yet casual tone - There is a careful balance that needs to be struck. Write informally, but don’t litter your blog posts with careless grammar mistakes, messy formatting or text speak. Not only does this look ugly, readers will wonder why they should trust you to tell them anything. Want to be an authority on a topic? Keep your readers coming back? Write in a professional tone that gives them a good impression.

Follow these tips, and you’ll take your blog to the next level.  Or at least be on your way to keeping your content clean and readable.  Do you have other tips and tricks for great writing?  Be sure to share with us in the comments!

Coming Soon to a Device Near You: Web 3.0

Hold on… aren’t we still figuring out what Web 2.0 is?  Well, yes.  But those on the cutting edge have been dreaming of Web 3.0 for quite some time already.  In fact, the oldest reference we can find to Web 3.0 was when Google CEO, Eric Schmidt, was asked about it at a conference back on August 2, 2007.  In any case, whether we’re ready or not, Web 3.0 is on its way, so let’s start the conversation about what it’s all about.

But before we start talking about Web 3.0…

It makes sense to get clear on what Web 2.0 is all about.  When the Internet first took off (we can call it Web 1.0, although it was never referred to as such back then), it wasn’t really interactive at all.  It was basically like a library of information.  You could look for what you wanted, read the results, and that was about the end of it.  The most interactivity we found was the ability to purchase products and maybe email a company for more information (through a web form if the site was really high-speed!).

With the emergence of Web 2.0, the Internet has become very interactive, even to the point where site visitors create the web content.  The most prevalent sites on the net, like YouTube, Facebook, and Twitter could not exist without members contributing content.  To a lesser degree, even smaller sites, from news feeds to personal blogs, give visitors a chance to weigh in on the content, through comments, ratings and forums.  Some of these sites, news feeds in particular, actually decide which content visitors see first, based on ratings by previous visitors.  In this way, while the content itself is generated by the site, how that content is delivered is decided upon by the masses.  Then there are the social bookmarking sites, like digg, Slashdot, StumbleUpon, Reddit, etc.  These also depend on reader submissions for their existence.  In general, Web 2.0 has made the web hyper-interactive.  In other words, it has allowed people worldwide to interact with sites and with each other whenever they want, wherever they want, in real time.  This has made the Internet more intuitive and vastly more useful.  Of course, there’s more to Web 2.0, including design elements and mobile connectivity, but that’s a brief overview.

So, what can we expect from Web 3.0?

Web 3.0 continues the evolution of the Internet.  Unlike a software application, we can’t put a “release date” on the next version of the web.  There won’t be a day when we say, yesterday Web 2.0 ended, and today Web 3.0 begins.  Instead, just like with all evolutionary processes, the transition to Web 3.0 will be gradual.  We’re already seeing some signs of this transition, but most experts predict we will be safe to say we are fully in Web 3.0 some time after late 2011 and before 2014.

What will this next version of the web look like?  No one knows for sure.  Technology and ingenuity is continually advancing, so it’s likely that it will include features we can’t even imagine right now.  We can however predict more generally what kinds of functionality we can expect.  The word most used by web experts to describe Web 3.0 is “intuitive.”  For example, let’s say the Academy Awards show is going to begin in a few hours.  You want to know what time to tune in, so you go to Google and begin to type your query: “what time do the a…” Google, in a failed attempt to be intuitive, provides these search suggestions:

Above are Google’s actual search suggestion results on the night of the 2010 Academy Awards. The American Music Awards, the first suggestion, airs more than three months before the Academy Awards.  On the night of the Academy Awards, the search suggestion function wouldn’t have to be all that intuitive to know that that is, if not your most likely search query, at least much more likely than the AMAs.  Instead, “what time do the academy awards start” is the last suggestion, even below “when do the arizona cardinals play…” well after football season has ended.

Will it be your best friend ever?

The prediction for Web 3.0 is that all of the searches and a lot more will improve immensely.  Not only will sites be more generally intuitive, they will be tuned into you and your personal preferences.  This is actually true with Google’s search suggestion function now, when you have your search history turned on, but it still has a long way to go.  According to Wired Magazine’s Kevin Kelly, Google and others will indeed go a long way in the new Web 3.0 environment.  Kelly and others envision a web that knows you better than anything or anyone, when it comes to what you like, what you don’t like, and what you want and don’t want.

For example, rather than searching five different travel sites to find the best deal on a vacation package, the evolved web will not only come up with the best deals, but will narrow the results down to, for instance, tropical locations that are kid-friendly.  Want to go to dinner and a movie?  You would just need to type the phrase “dinner and a movie tonight” to get a list of movies now playing and your favorite restaurants that are within five miles of the theater closest to you.  Web 3.0 will “learn” about you based on your online activity and will get smarter, the more you use the Internet.

The question remains, do we really want the web to “know” us that well?  Also, what about people who share computers?  The beauty of the web, whatever “version”, is that it naturally molds to the preferences of the majority, so these and other questions will work themselves out as the evolution continues.

As entrepreneurs, we know that the only constant is change.  So as uncomfortable as this new A.I.-like web may make some, we can say for sure it’s not a matter of if but when.  And the best thing we can do is spot the trends happening, adapt, and even lead when possible.  This will ensure that whatever the future brings, we’re ready to capitalize - for Web 3.0 and beyond.

Social Media Marketing - Why It’s Not Enough

There’s little doubt social media marketing can be a valuable resource for both internet-based and brick and mortar businesses.  But it’s just as important to know what it can’t do for you as to know its benefits.  While you’ll see a lot of articles on this site and others touting the benefits of social media, the best strategy is to incorporate a mix of online marketing and traditional marketing techniques.  Rather than replacing all methods of traditional marketing, the two can work hand-in-hand to optimize your overall marketing strategy.  In case you’re not sure why you would want to use anything other social media marketing, here are 5 reasons to consider:

1. Not everyone uses social media - or even the Internet. Every time we post a story on this site or our YoungEntrepreneur.com site about Twitter or Facebook or any other social network, we invariably get comments from people saying they don’t use that network, they don’t like that network, or that they’ve been meaning to but haven’t started yet.  This is proof that not everyone is using social media.  Furthermore, there are still plenty of people who don’t have internet access at all, or just use it to check email.  If you’re a blogger, those people clearly aren’t your target audience, but if you have a more traditional product or service business model, you’ll alienate a lot of potential customers if you assume everyone is online and on the same networks you are.

2. Wider reach. When you spread your marketing between online and “legacy marketing” strategies, like print, radio, and TV, you reach a wider audience.  Again, assuming everyone is looking at the same medium is folly.  Billions of dollars are still being spent on non-internet campaigns, because they still work, as long as they’re approached right and well-targeted.

3. Consistency. People don’t typically schedule when they’re going to be on Twitter or the specific time each day when they’ll check their Facebook page.  On the other hand, people listen to the radio during drive time, and a great number of people read the paper or magazines and watch TV at specific times each day.  When you need to get your message in front of your audience at least seven times on average before they act on your marketing, traditional marketing helps make sure that happens.

4. People don’t like it when you sell on social media. As we pointed out in a recent post, and several comments confirmed, those who try to sell on social media too much turn off their audience.  On the other hand, we all expect to see ads in print publications, hear ads on the radio, and see commercials on TV.  No one expects these media to be ad-free, so they’re a great opportunity to be as salesy as you want without putting people off.

5. Traditional is tried and true. Twitter and Facebook are both wildly popular right now.  With hundreds of millions of people on social media, we can’t even imagine them going anywhere.  On the other hand, that’s what people thought about MySpace just a few years ago, and while it’s still around, few serious businesses are devising MySpace strategies today.  The point is: Social media is forever changing, and what we think is here to stay today is “so yesterday” tomorrow.  Traditional marketing has been around for decades, and it shows no signs of disappearing in the near future.  While newspapers have suffered great losses in recent years, magazine subscriptions are actually way up, and broadcast advertising is still fairly strong.  It’s also very measurable, so you know how many people you’re reaching with your message.

Again, we love social media marketing and the potential it brings.  In fact, there is no business that cannot benefit in some way from marketing through social media.  It’s just that social media isn’t the only basket you want to have your eggs in.  An approach that includes the best of all the marketing channels gives you a wider reach and the best results.

What kind of marketing are you using for your business?  What has worked, and what hasn’t? Share with the community in the comments!

5 Steps to Solo Brainstorming Success

When we think of brainstorming, it’s usually something we think about doing with at least one other person.  But there aren’t always other people around.  Or sometimes those around you aren’t the right people for brainstorming.  But as entrepreneurs, we sometimes need the spark that can be lit with a good brainstorming session, and we can’t wait for circumstance to be ideal.   We’re not talking rubbing sticks together kind of spark either.  You want a douse-it-with-gasoline-and-toss-a-flare-on-it kind of spark!  So how do you get the spark going on your own?  Here are some tips for fueling your creative thought processes, even without the help of a brainstorming partner:

1. Prepare to buckle down. You don’t want to have to stop and start unless absolutely necessary, so prepare for your brainstorming session.  Make sure you have notepads and pens (if you’re going to use them), snacks, something to drink, and reference materials, like a dictionary and thesaurus (of course, online versions are fine if you’ll be using your computer).  Also, if you don’t have it, consider getting More Words that Sell.  Even if you’re not brainstorming about marketing or sales, the lists in this book will get your creativity flowing.

2. Be a shut-in. Go somewhere quiet, where you won’t be disturbed.  Turn off the TV, the radio, your phone, and anything else that might distract you.  If you’re going to use your computer during your brainstorming, close out your email and any notification apps you have installed.  Also close any browser tabs that you won’t be using.  If you’re not used to that kind of solitude, it can be a little scary, but don’t worry.  It will do you good in more ways than one to get away from all the noise.

3. Write until your hand hurts. Ok, or type, but there’s something about writing that drives creativity.  Maybe it’s that you’re actually creating something tangible when you put ink on paper, or that it’s not as easy to erase.  In any case, what’s important is that you begin to create - whether on a notepad or your laptop.  You’re not going for anything concrete or perfect.  Just start writing.  Whatever comes to you, get it down.  You can go back later to sort and weed out.  One key is to ignore any voice in your head that might be telling you something is dumb, not worth writing down, or won’t work.  Remember, while absolute clarity on goals and objectives is important, this isn’t the time for that.  The idea is that one “dumb” idea might spark another brilliant one, and if you snuff out the spark of the dumb idea, the good one will never have a chance to grow.

4. Mind-map it. To really enhance your note-taking and idea flow, consider using a mind map.  If you haven’t used mind maps, do yourself a favor and look into it.  Mind maps are a very easy technique that will make a world of difference, whether during brainstorming, planning or any kind of note-taking.  Take a look at this video that does a good job of explaining mind mapping.

5. Wrap it all up. Once you feel like you’ve exhausted your brain, you should have a whole bunch of notes and ideas to go through.  Obviously brainstorming is only effective if you take something from it, so don’t delay in going back over everything.  While you might be mentally drained right away, set a time in the very near future to scour your notes and narrow down what you’ve put together into something useable.  If you used mind maps, this won’t be that difficult.  If you simply wrote notes, your goal is to pull out the useful information and put it into a form you can use to move forward.

Whether you’re trying to come up with business ideas, marketing plans, or content topics, you’ll be surprised at how much you’ll gain from these sessions.  And the great thing is that the more you do this, the easier it will be, and the more you’ll get out of it.  So, what are you waiting for?  Get to brainstorming now, even if you’re going it alone.

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