The Power of Social Media (my story)

By James Plouf

In March 2009 my wife Amy and I decided that we wanted to share our passion for Days of Our Lives with the world. I had been watching Gary Vaynerchuk’s Wine Library TV Show and was thinking that a daily recap and analysis of each Days show would be a natural way to reach our audience. A video blog (vblog) in combination with a regular blog sounded like the formula. Gary V says that if you got the chops for your subject and you want to reach the world then go out and get a cheap video camera and get started. Don’t worry about the details he says. Just start spreading the word.

Gary V also goes into great detail on how to leverage Facebook, Youtube and Twitter to build up your audience. So, with those fundamental principles and a video cam from Best Buy we got started. Basic principle is that all social media should funnel traffic to your blog.

A couple of pointers. Do not heavily edit your vlog. Try to do it in one take. This makes it seem real. If you get a call in the middle of the video just work it into the show. People love this. The easiest way to shoot is with a video cam connected directly to your computer. Some laptops already have this built in. There are vlogs on youtube that get 1 million views and are shot with nothing more than a laptop.

Anyway. Fast forward 8 months. We now have 18,000 followers on Facebook, 300+ people watch our video each day on Youtube and we have about 1,000 followers on Twitter. Our twitter play was probably our biggest mistake. It should be close to the Facebook number. We are working on correcting this situation.

So, last weekend we flew to Los Angeles to attend the Day of Days fan event and to get a chance to meet the actors from the show and to talk to other fans. Here is the scary part. Lots of people at the event recognized us and stopped us and told us how much they like our show and could they get a picture with us. It is a strange but good feeling to be recognized 3,000 miles away from home by complete strangers. Now the big shocker. Some of the actors recognized us and admitted that they watch our daily recaps on Youtube.

We followed Gary’s formula and it worked.

If you are interested in learning more about Gary Veynerchuk and his business tactics of using social media then order his book: Crush It! It’s a good overview — not tons of detail — but it will give you the big picture of what you can do and he’ll give you lots of encouragement to quit your day job and follow your passion (whatever it is).

Here is a link to his book:

http://www.amazon.com/Crush-Time-Cash-Your-Passion/dp/0061914177/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1258149660&sr=8-1

note: This is not an affiliate link. I gain nothing if you buy his book.