Chris Brogan on Growing Your Business in 2012

The more I learn about best-selling author Chris Brogan, the more I want to learn from him.  About a week ago he gave an interesting keynote presentation at the 2012 Entrepreneur Growth Conference.  For my own purposes, I took notes on his main points, and include them below in case anyone else finds them useful....  His full presentation is here:

• This is the year of growth. 
• It's a great time to be in business.  Investors are looking.
• Transactional or Relational?  Do you care enough to be a sustainable relational business?
• Relational: it's hard & time consuming
• Transactional: like buying a burger, the biz is unconcerned with customers personally
• Channel development:
• Regular/Standard digital channel: Like a website. 
• If it's unclear what a website wants of you, it's broken. If there's more than 1 choice, its broken.  (Rand Fishkin, Danny Sullivan, Upshot (?) are the experts here.)
• Human digital channel: Context. Use context on Google/FB/Googleplus
• Understand the context of Twitter.  Why are ppl there?
• Not to buy products/services
• For entertainment, information, to understand whats next for them, to belong, to socialize
• There is an opportunity to identify & answer needs
• GooglePlus vs. FaceBook:  
• GPlus: 100 million ppl gather around interests, 
• FB:  800 million ppl gather around ppl they already know
• Community vs. Audience
• "One big difference between audience and community is the direction the chairs are facing.  An audience just sits forward, a community sits and turns to each other." C.Brogan
• Facilitate community - referrals - word of mouth SEE: "The referral Engine" by John Jantsch (Affiliate link)
• Earn it
• Use CLEAN relationship-based selling.  
• Be clear when you are selling, versus just giving context away.  
• "I want to talk to you about the product because i want you to buy this product."   
• Own it. 
• Don't be shy. 
• Create a call to action.
• Build a campfire & people will gather
• Make interesting content/media, bring to your community
• Invite partipation.  
• Give ppl things to talk about.
• Good uses of LinkedIn: 
• Keep your relationships warm
• Don't just contact people when you need something
• Don't use it like a bulletin ward
• Don't try to bait people with tricks like: "Free webinar" - the insincerity is transparent
• "Be a TV station/magazine...You ARE a magazine company. You just haven't owned that responsibility yet." C. Brogan
• Curate content
• Write about what you're passionate about
•  Example: American Express: generating tons of good content, like a magazine company, great way to build a business
• Show interest in people. 
• "Where are you from? What kind of things are you interested in?"  
• Desperate talk about themselves only.   Pitching multiple times a day shows desperation.
• Tactics
• Be responsive. Respond!  (duh!)
• Invest in listening tools
• Like the industry standard: Radian6,  (For more see, his post: "Grow bigger ears")
• Make videos, lots of videos this year
• 2 minutes or less
• Ask for people to subscribe 
• Measure what matters
• Not Klout (duh!)