Last month, my friend Dan Gingiss asked me to contribute to an article for Forbes by answering this simple question:
“Name the ONE thing marketers must do this year to stay ahead of the curve in social media?”
My response, perhaps predictably, focused on Instagram Stories: I was fresh off of presenting about IG Stories at conferences in Wichita and Denver, and given that Stories consumption is up more than 842% since 2016 (as reported by TechCrunch), I’m personally very bullish on the future of Stories.
I took a moment today to reconsider Dan’s question, and it’s leading me right back to an announcement I’ve been wrestling with exactly how to shape, so here goes:
To truly stay ahead of the curve in 2018, marketers should be focusing not on one particular medium or another, but on balance.
Balance.
———————————
Over the last few years, I’ve been blessed to spend a lot of time with a lot of people in the social media industry.
I make it a point to try and attend a broad variety of social media conferences around the country, and next month, I’m fortunate enough to have been invited to keynote my first conference overseas: Marketed.Live in Nottingham.
I’ve been blessed to speak to audiences featuring some of the world’s largest brands, and crowds filled with solopreneurs and nonprofit representatives. The logos — and marketing budgets — vary greatly, but in speaking with people from coast to coast, no matter how big the brand, one consistent theme always emerges:
“How can I do more with less?”
————————————
Whether you’ve landed your dream job with a big company, you’re wearing 10 hats within a medium-sized agency, you’re searching for job interviews or — especially — if you’re all-in on doing your own thing, the one skill that you really need is, frankly, all the skills.
And here’s the contrapositive: if you’re a senior-level marketer, accustomed to doing things one way for your whole career, you must prioritize developing at least a cursory understanding of what the next generation is doing — or you could soon find yourself without a job.
————————————
At each step of my career, I’ve tried to be a Jack of all Trades. Dating back to my first job, at AMC Theaters in high school, I could sell bucket combos with the best of ‘em, but I also took great pride in learning about each movie to succeed at the box office, and I strived to determine the fastest route to clean each movie theater.
Being well-rounded is a skill set that will serve you well anywhere. In baseball, general managers are shifting dollars from the muscular sluggers, like Mark McGwire, to the “super-utility” guy, like Ben Zobrist, who can play any position. The Golden State Warriors feature sharpshooter Steph Curry and big man Kevin Durant, but the not-so-secret weapon is Draymond Green, who can adapt and defend any position on the floor. In tennis, you could have the best forehand in the world, but if you can’t hit the backhand, you’re screwed.
We value being well-rounded in every other aspect of our lives — never skip leg day, right? — so why would social media be different?
Hiring a social media marketer who only excels at one platform is like hiring a chef who’s only proficient with one knife, or a drummer who can only play the cymbals: it’s short-sighted and silly.
——————————
But being well-rounded is only part of the puzzle. Today, I’m launching the #SocialWithStrub Course Bundle because I think it’s critical to emphasize balance.
SAVE $200 ON THE BUNDLE WITH CODE SocialWithStrub - Get it now
Through all my travels and studies of the social media industry, I determined four major areas of importance for content creators:
— Instagram Stories
— Live-streaming
— Snap Spectacles
In my work with clients nationwide, their exact needs will differ, but I couldn’t imagine trying to take on assignments without this variety of tools in my toolbox.
And in conversations with social media professionals of all experience levels, their thought process almost always defaults to this sort of statement:
“Ooh, I wish we were doing more ____________.”
I see this everywhere, and I see it every single day: live-streamers dipping their proverbial toe into Instagram Stories; power Twitter-ers experimenting with live-streaming; Snapchatters being totally perplexed about the value of Twitter.
And there’s good reason for it: if you’re not balancing your efforts over these different channels, you’re missing out on audiences that are looking for you. Guaranteed.
——————————————
My new set of courses, called the #SocialWithStrub Bundle , tackles this exact issue head-on. It is perfect for the marketer who feels weak in one or more of those four areas. It is perfect for the aspiring social media speaker, who may be asked to fill a spot on stage about one of these topics in the future. (I’ve spoken about live-streaming, Snapchat and Instagram Stories this year, and am applying to speak about Twitter at another major conference soon.)
It is also perfect for the non-profit marketer, who doesn’t need the best, brightest and most sophisticated approach — she needs a practical, simple and applicable solution, and she needs to learn it quickly.
And it is perfect for the college student or recent graduate who recognizes the value of building his brand on social media beyond 4am drunken pizza-and-beer boomerangs. (Not that there’s anything wrong with that.)
————————————
Each one of these four separate courses includes a detailed PDF (the Instagram Stories course alone is a hair shy of 10,000 words); an audio recording of the PDF, read by yours truly; and an interactive video that brings you directly inside my phone, demonstrating in real time, exactly the steps that I’m discussing. The bundle includes more than five hours of totally exclusive video.
I strongly encourage you to consider the bundle and use the code SocialWithStrub to save $200. For a limited time, you can get all four courses for the price of the IG Stories course ($197.) Click here to check out the bundle .
————————————
I designed these four courses with the “Frankenmarketer” in mind: that person who needs to know a little about everything, and quite honestly doesn’t need to know everything about everything.
And I designed it that way on purpose: because at the end of the day, balance is what’s most important.
Unlike many social media practitioners, I don’t feel overwhelmed by social media. I don’t feel the pressing crush to create. And if you know the first thing about me, you know for certain I am not intimidated or obsessed with perfectionism. I’ve led a successful social media career by staying balanced, staying authentic, and staying human — and my hope is that these courses can help you achieve the same.
SAVE $200 ON THE #SOCIALWITHSTRUB BUNDLE WITH DISCOUNT CODE SocialWithStrub
—————————————
Chris Strub is the first person to live-stream and Snapchat in all 50 U.S. states, author of ‘ 50 States, 100 Days: The Book ,’ and host of the SocialWithStrub.com Facebook Group , designed to help you get more comfortable using video on social media.