Shawn Powell Social Media Pioneer & Professional Photographer New York, NY Online 1998-2011 » Uncategorized

World Trade Center at night under construction May 4th 2011

admin — Thu, 05 May 2011 13:59:11 +0000

I took this picture of World Trade Center at night. The Freedom tower under construction May 4th 2011. Photo by Shawn Powell www.shawnpowell.com

What is social proof?

admin — Wed, 04 May 2011 17:08:11 +0000

One of the keys to success in business is the use of social proof. My definition of social proof is that” if everyone else is doing it why can’t we.” When people don’t necessarily understand something, but they see other people doing it, they assume those people know what they’re doing and feel more comfortable about joining in. Sounds a bit complicated, right? Well actually it’s really quite simple and is a powerful tool to use for success in business.

Social proof is everywhere around us. How often have you seen a street performer or beggar with an empty hat? There’s always a small pile of coins in there, just to nudge you to make a donation. What about the last movie you saw? Was it a blockbuster? A movie is a blockbuster because that was what the critics recommended what the advertising said, and what people said to each other. Then there’s the old classic. Try this yourself if you’re uninhibited enough. Walk along the street and then just stop and look up at a building. (Watch out for lamp posts!) See how long it takes until you get a group of people looking up wondering what on earth you’re starting at!

But how does that relate to success in business? Amazon is one of the best examples. Would you buy a book on Amazon if it only had a one star rating? But what about if it had 20 five star ratings? You can use social proof for success in business and here’s a few ways to get you started.

Testimonials This is one of the most classic uses of social proof and a great tool for success in business. It’s fine saying how great your product is and how it will solve all the worlds problems. But there’s a much bigger and believable impact if one of your happy customers says the same thing. If you don’t have testimonials about your product, you could use what people are saying about you on social media, like Facebook or twitter. Written testimonials are great, but video testimonials are even better, so use them at every possible opportunity. Blog Comments Encourage people to comment on your blog. Then when a new visitor arrives and sees the comments they will be more inclined to comment, or at the very least read your article as it looks like it’s worth their time reading it.

Social media is the wake up call for any business online or offline. It’s so easy now for someone to say something great about you and your service or product on Facebook and twitter. Your reputation can spread like wildfire on social media, and as it’s still in it’s infancy it will only get bigger.

However be warned. It’s also one of the fastest ways to lose all credibility and reputation. So for any online business today, it pays to always offer as much value to your customers as possible to avoid any negativity on social media. If you said you had a 30 day money back guarantee, then honour it without question if someone asks for a refund.

Social proof is one of the most powerful techniques available for online or offline businesses today. It helps make the internet a better and more honest place because it’s so easy to spread the word about a great product, but equally, spread the word about an inferior product. Use it well for success in business today.

Google sees Youtube as an eventual online TV station

admin — Tue, 15 Feb 2011 15:29:46 +0000

In an article published on today Bloomberg, the topic of online TV and video advertising come to the forefront. The discussion is about how Google sees Youtube being steered towards an eventual TV station. The idea is to have streaming video and longer content capability added to Youtube. Google clearly sees the value in having users spend more time on the site. More time, means more eyes on advertising which is up almost double 1 year ago. Here is a link to article http://tinyurl.com/64b8c96

Shawn Powell

Great image of team work from 2011 Rolex 24h race at Daytona

admin — Wed, 02 Feb 2011 16:03:18 +0000

Here is a great image of team work from 2011 Rolex 24h race at Daytona, which I attended this past weekend.

FXDD sponsors the FXDD #69 SpeedSource Mazda RX-8. The series is called Grand-Am and is sponsored by Rolex. The race is called the Rolex 24 hours of Daytona. The race allows up to 5 drivers and the teams race for 24 hours straight. It’s a test of reliability and of driver concentration. While the FXDD #69 team has competed well at Daytona in the past, and are overall champions from 2010, this time out was not as successful. At nine hours into the race, the FXDD #69 car was taken out of the race by another car which rear ended it and caused too much damage to continue. The FXDD #69 car finished 27th overall.

The next race takes place in Florida, March 4-5th 2011 and is called the Grand Prix of Miami at Homestead International raceway.

Massive wide reaching mortgage foreclosure fraud at Wells Fargo

admin — Mon, 15 Nov 2010 16:17:58 +0000

It’s getting tougher and tougher to just stand by while massive wide reaching mortgage foreclosure fraud at Wells Fargo has clearly become the norm. There are many stories appearing across the internet. It is sad that the mass media is burying the issues at hand. Literally hundreds of thousands of home are effectively being stolen from home owners through fraudulent practices like robo-signing, where fake names are used on falsified documents. Read these two chilling articles on Wells Fargo mortgage fraud.

http://stopforeclosurefraud.com/2010/10/08/why-wells-fargo-must-be-ordered-to-stop-its-foreclosures/
and the upcoming Nov 25 2010 Rolling Stone Article http://www.rollingstone.com/politics/news/17390/232611?RS_show_page=0
Retweet, repost and rebroadcast until this comes to light.

Firefox: How to Targeted Advertising Cookie Opt-Out (TACO)

admin — Wed, 03 Nov 2010 20:06:48 +0000

Here is a helpful link for Firefox users. It shows how you can opt out of the new wave of highly pervasive target advertising by large marketing houses. If you don’t know what this is, it is the advertising that follows you from website to website, serving you the same ads. Use the Targeted Advertising Cookie Opt-Out (TACO) in Firefox thru this link

Shawn Powell is a long time industry expert on Social media in New York City

Mobile marketers engage your customers with 2D barcodes

admin — Thu, 14 Oct 2010 16:39:06 +0000

Mobile marketers engage your customers with 2D barcodes. The trend is starting to emerge in mainstream markets. Also growing is the use of mobile phones snapping in-store barcodes, allowing marketers to reach consumers while they’re making purchasing decisions by providing access to reviews or special promotions. Now, with the rise in use of camera-enabled mobile phones, 2D barcodes are making headway with marketers. More to come including how to make your own 2D barcode.

Enhancing your Twitter Personal Engagement

admin — Wed, 04 Nov 2009 14:52:53 +0000

I’ve been thinking about this in detail for a few days and thought i would put it down on paper. The concept is called Twitter Personal Engagement. Its the ability to summon responses from your list at a moments notice. It’s about seeing a constant stream of high quality content, ideas and news that are relevant to your particular interests. Its about having people that share the same values and getting into alignment with those people. I like to see those same familiar faces giving me good information that will help me to improve myself and to keep me positive and on the leading edge.

In my last post I discussed ways to increase your followers. In this post, I am talking about increasing your Twitter Personal Engagement. I don’t watch TV or read much other media than what I get from Twitter and from http://forex.fxdd.com for financial and trading news (one of my passions) I’ve been doing this for the last 18 months and my state of mind is fantastic. Thanks Tim Ferris.

So… Cut the crap out of twitter. Remove people that post constant negativity, post crap, post every two minutes, post stuff on american idol haha, I hope you get my point, in that, if its not relevant, get rid of it. Don’t watch it, don’t follow it, and certainly don’t re-tweet it. Also check your @’s mine is @shawn_powell you’ll have a sense of what and how many people are redistributing your content and ideas. All these things will increase your Twitter Personal Engagement score

I also want to mention that your Twitter Ratio is important. That is your following to followers ratio. Keep first number smaller and the second number bigger.

Its clearly not about having 20,000 people that you follow and 20,000 people following you. You can’t digest what you are getting from the people you follow. Again this is my opinion, but I feel that 300-500 people is plenty of people to follow.

So your task for this time around is to clear the crap from your twiiter. Increase your TPE Twitter Personal Engagement and maximize your results. Also a final point, make sure that you have a website or facebook listed in your Twitter so people that want to research you have a place to go for more information and also make sure people have a way to contact you.

Shawn Powell

http://twitter.com/shawnpowellfx

Everyone is talking about Twitter. Ultimate time waster or business tool?

admin — Tue, 26 May 2009 16:20:38 +0000

It seems like everyone is talking about twitter these days. I got wind of it a year ago from a fellow named Ed Dale. Originally it was for friends to know what friends were doing. As with any mass adoptable tool, internet savy people started to use it, then students, then business people, now moms, dads, preachers, weather people, and finally your grand mother are on twitter or asking about it. Too funny.

So is Twitter a waster of massive time. For the unexperienced, yes completely. I call it the faster facebook. Users are limited to a 140 characters on any single message. You can update in real time and anyone following you can see what you are up to and also add links to particular news stories, web pages and so on. I tend to like SEO stuff and there are people posting some great stuff on this topic.

Advanced twitting includes re-tweeting where you repost other twitterer’s content and the use of # hashtags, like #cnn or #msn or #Mkt for trading news. Also as you move deeper into Twiiter-dumb you will find many apps and tools to increase your Tweetability. Don’t get sucked in… Your friends on Facebook will miss you. Also on the tech side, you can twiiter from your cell phone which is super cool.

I see the value in Twitter if you have high quality content or if you come accross cool stuff online and want to share. Its also good to stay in contact with your customers. Here are a few do and don’t that I have gleaned (is that a word) along the way.

Add only high quality real people.
Delete people that post constantly or who over post useless content ie travel discounts
Post 70% topic related, 30% life stuff, ie going to see a movie, travelling to spain this summer.
Check the links you post to make sure they work.
Post at least 1-2 times per day.
Have a postive attitude in your posts, smile while you write.
Don’t post stupid stuff and remove people that do to keep your twiiter experience very high quality.
Keep your followers higher than your follows. I use tweepular.com to remove people that don’t follow me. This is a key factor in appearing like an expert/someone of value that people want to follow. Ideally maintaining 1 to 4, following to follows, 1 to 3 is ok. You can see this on my personal Twitter.
Don’t go for massive numbers of people. Get the right people and your following with grow just on its own. However, I do like www.mytweetfollowers.com to find a few extra cool friends.
Follow me at www.twitter.com/shawn_powell

Tweet tweet to you and twiiter on

Shawn Powell

The correct thought process for hard economic times

admin — Sun, 01 Mar 2009 14:55:39 +0000

I’m in Miami for the weekend. I’m up early and feel clear. I decided to write in my blog about a topic that is close to many of us. As we head into our generation’s great recession, there are a few things that are ultra critical for getting through to the other side. Let’s first look as some of the challenges.

First we have massive layoffs and businesses folding and closing their doors every day. Home are foreclosing at a similar pace, an offshoot of the buisness slowdown. The government is seemingly unable to do anything about it, in fact the level of corruption could be likened to some far off bannana republic. Nothing makes sense and everything is changing at a rapid pace. I’m scratching the surface here. We all know the bad

Let’s change gears and move into the good. Here is the first and main golden nugget. It requires an immediate change in thought. You’re going to have to seperate yourself from the 99% of the masses into the 1% elite group that see something else out there… Massive opportunity. Everywhere you look. Everywhere you go. Massive opportunity. The price are coming down to 1990’s levels, people are selling off assets, selling homes, condos, cars, luxury items and more for pennies on the dollar.

Gas is cheap again, the sky is blue if you want it to be. Now lets be very clear. This is not a pie in the sky dreamers view. You must look at this from a purely business view point. People that will have real success in these times will identify a niche or basic service that must be filled and they will run with it. They will specialize and get good in that particular area. They will grow by adding other products or services in the same arena. The idea here is to become a trusted expert in your particular field. Note: Make sure it is something you love and can do 1, 3, 5, 10 hours a day.

The correct thought process begins with seeing everything as an opportunity to make a profit. During the great depression, while the masses were down and out, fortunes of untold wealth were created. The spark was ambition, the driver was opportunity. The difference were those that took action. Now fast forward to 2009. We have a series of tools and an online marketplace that was non existant just ten years ago. Let’s go technical for a moment as I lay out a quick system for building income. This may seem basic to some of you but here goes.

Find items to sell in your niche or area of interest, place free ads in craigslist.org. Test here and write clean copy. The more descriptive and better the reason that you explain why the potential buyer would benefit from your items the better. Craigslist is better for larger items that are not good for shipping, ie beds, tables, chairs. The secret here is to buy in the offline local market and sell in the online national market. Think buy from small, then sell to big.

Take small or highly specific items to the larger Ebay.com. Ebay charges roughly 20% with all their fees, but you do get paid instantly. Do this by creating an account and setting up a paypal.com account at the same time. Get a low cost digital camera and some photo editing software . These are business tools of the online retailler. Don’t tell me you don’t know how to use them, no one did before they started.

Now lets go back to the thought process parts for a moment. Its not just about seeing opportunity, its about adding that little piece of magic, called the willingness to learn or rise to the challenge by doing something new. Learn how to use the camera, learn how to use Ebay or Paypal. Don’t make excuses. Do it.

I’m going to throw a final thought at you. Mental clarity. Do you find yourself feeling down or negative. Sure, we all do. Here is a surefire way to blow out the cobwebs. Get active. Go for a run or a bike ride. Play some sports. Go for a walk. Do it for long enough that you start to enjoy yourself no matter what. I got rid of my cable tv service a year ago and have never looked back. In this economy the $100+ dollars a month you save can do a lot for your small business.

Lets end this one here. Feel free to email me at shawn at shawnpowell.com if you want to discuss my comments further. I’m heading out for a bike ride by the beach and then a healthy breakfast before I start working. Cheers!

Shawn Powell