Jason Debacco

FOMO, or the Fear Of Missing Out, plagues us all in some way. Whether you miss out on an event, don’t get invited to a gathering, or forget to watch the finale of that one show all of your friends are talking about, we all feel it in some way. The wonderful May King Tsang has discovered a way to use that feeling to her advantage, implementing it into a marketing strategy to push prospective customers over the edge to purchase. She sits down with our Kate to let us in on this fun (and effective) strategy. 

Most people hate the feeling of missing out. We want to be in the know at all times! So if we see people gushing about a new MUST HAVE product or service, we’re gonna want to know what’s up. You can learn how to use that feeling to generate so much FOMO around your product or service that people decide they can’t stay in the dark any longer and have to see what all the fuss is about!

Convert the Lurkers

We all have those people who might interact with us on social media every once and awhile, like our pictures and comment occasionally, but won’t commit to actually purchasing our product. These people are our lurkers. We love our lurkers, don’t get me wrong, but we need to help guide them into pressing that beautiful “purchase” button, even if they are a little hesitant. 

One way to do this is to generate as much FOMO as possible! Make those people think, “WOW, I’ve got to have this.” 

Help these little anxious fellas take the next step in your relationship with them, it’s ok to get cold feet before making a commitment! We’ve all been there ;). Make them see that your product IS something they need in their life AND make them fear the jealousy that could come along with seeing friends use your product knowing they are still too scared to purchase. That sense of urgency will help them go from lurkers to full on customers. 

How to Generate FOMO?

It’s easier than you think, start by throwing out some teasers! Give everyone a little taste of what makes you and your business so great. 

Put the FOMO energy into your writing! Write as if you’re in a secret exclusive club, a club that only the cool kids can join, even though it isn’t exclusive at all. And don’t tell people everything! Leave a little to the imagination, right? 

To get people really excited about you, show more of your personality online. Let people see the real you. You can do this by going live, or posting more “behind the scenes” tidbits from your daily life. Show who you really are as a person so people get to really know you. 

At the same time, show yourself as a business person so they get to see how good your product or service is. 

Now listen up, just as May King says, don’t give away all of the secrets up front. You’re going to have to work a little to get all of the juicy details! Watch the Lately Live with May King Tsang here: https://bit.ly/3qZPElq

Learn More About May King Tsang:May King Tsang is the FOMO creator and a professional live tweeter (and professional tea connoisseur). She helps events and companies build excitement and hype around their product, service, or event that helps them reach new people and make massive sales. She is just a ball of joy and energy (and a brilliant mind may we add). Find out more about the lovely May King here: about.me/maykingtea

I think we can agree that as individuals we have all done some pretty cool things in our lives. You had a baby? AMAZING! You got a raise? WAHOO! You got your degree? SO proud of ya! But can we say we are the most decorated male winter Olympian of all time AND a New York Times best selling author? Probably not, but Apolo Ohno can! Being an athlete comes with an inevitable retirement, and after that most people are left thinking, “well… what’s next?”. Apolo has first hand experience with this, and has got the art of changing your path down to a science. 

Change is not easy. Most people hate it. Let’s be honest, it’s usually easier to stay stagnant rather than take the scary leap of faith towards something unfamiliar. There are a few tips and tricks to make this change less painful, and set you on the path to success faster than you could’ve anticipated. 

How to Pivot

Let me start you off with a little nugget of wisdom Apolo dropped on us, “The pivot is only successful if done consistently over long periods of time”

I’ll give you a second to really soak up that goodness. 

Listen, as much as we want to be able to just change on a dime and keep it moving, it’s just not realistic. If 2020 has taught us anything, it is that we DON’T know what the outcome of things may be, so you gotta be consistent for a while if you expect to see the results you’re looking for. 

Go All In

There are three main things you should keep in mind at all times (hey, maybe even write yourself a little sticky note reminder like Kate and Apolo do!) 

• Change is constant.
• Resilience is necessary and critical.
• Be creative!

Embrace change. Will it be easy? NO, but nothing in life is. Take those growing pains in stride, in the end you will have changed for the better. And hey, if you hit rock bottom, use it as a springboard! You’re not going to hit a home run at your first time up to bat. 

Reinventing yourself, changing your career, or reevaluating your purpose in life is uncomfortable. No doubt about that. But it is necessary in bettering yourself as a person. In a few years, you’ll look back and thank your past self for being brave and making that difficult decision. 

And remember, if you’re stuck in a rut, ask yourself these 2 questions:

• What do I want out of life?
• What does life want out of me?

And you’ll do ok. 

This only scratches the surface of the brilliance shared on this episode of Lately Live, so if you want even MORE greatness, listen to the full conversation here: https://bit.ly/37l8BqQ

Learn More About Apolo Ohno

It’s safe to say Apolo Ohno is beyond fascinating, so why wouldn’t you want to learn more about him? Hey, maybe some of his genius will rub off on you… if you’re lucky. Check out his website apoloohno.com and keep your eyes peeled for his upcoming book that tackles subjects like unlocking a gold medal mindset, accessing your power within, and learn how to live life in the driver’s seat! 

Michael Hoffman of Gather Voices and Lately’s very own Kate Bradley Chernis sit down and chat about all things virtual events. Michael and Kate have both been to their fair share of virtual events, and it’s safe to say that not all of them knock it out of the park in terms of keeping everyone interested. It is absolutely crucial that people learn the ins and outs of making a great virtual event, because honestly we don’t know how long it will be until we can all cram into a conference hall again… hold your tears! 

Virtual events have skyrocketed in popularity during this pandemic, and being many months in at this point (haven’t we all lost count?) we have to up our game and make these events interesting and beneficial. You can’t go around and create a virtual event that mirrors your kids middle school math lecture! As Michael puts it, “A day-long webinar is NOT a virtual conference”. 

Step 1: Prepare for Liftoff 

It’s smart to have at least a few things prepared before you hit the “go live” button. This will minimize the awkward pauses like the dreaded, “Does anyone have a question…….” (insert cricket noises here!) 

Most of us can agree that not being face to face makes everyone a little more uncomfortable, so running a put-together event can make the situation more pleasant for everyone involved. 

One way to do this is to follow a method we saw at SXSW, where people were able to submit questions beforehand and then vote on the questions they wanted answered most. That way, the questions are already accumulated so you don’t have to shout “Bueller… Bueller” while earnestly looking at the camera praying someone will ask ANY sort of question. 

And by providing the guests with an opportunity to vote beforehand, you’re giving them a way to show you what THEY want to hear about, which makes them feel more engaged in a time where virtual engagement is fairly limited. Doing all of this before the event even starts helps create a community of people, which will make for a better experience overall.

Step 2: All Systems Go

Ok. So your virtual event is underway, hopefully you’re not reading this while the event is going on because ooooh boy that sounds boring! 

It can be easy to feel like you’re just talking to a bunch of screens, which (while feeling kind of fun and futuristic) can get old and can make your audience feel like they are just attending a lecture and not something that is actually interactive. 

So how do you make things less robotic? Well, as Kate says, “Be the water cooler break at your own meeting”. Ask personal questions, go off on tangents, talk about that one show that has made you neglect 90% of the work you should be doing right now! These things will make people interested not only in being there but will make them more interested in you, the speaker. 

Step 3: Blastoff

Your big virtual event is done! Have a drink, sit back and relax, you did great. You had 30 people show up! Not bad, not bad… but what if you could turn those 30 sets of eyes into 30,000 sets of eyes? Sounds intriguing right? 

Go back through your footage and find those “golden nuggets” of information, gather up the quotes and clips you loved. Oh, don’t know how to do that? Well there IS a place called Lately.AI that could help you out (wink wink, nudge nudge). 

Anyways, you can start rolling out those perfect moments onto your socials, so that those who were unable to attend can get a bit of that greatness as well! Schedule it sporadically over a long period of time to make the absolute most of it. That way more people will be interested in you, and maybe even attend your next virtual event!

And now you’re ready to tackle the wondrous world of virtual events, I am so proud of you. Don’t forget to write, give me a shoutout when you make it big *snif*. Oh, they just grow up so fast! 

Want to hear the whole conversation? OF COURSE YOU DO: https://bit.ly/3gKdn4u

More About Michael Hoffman Michael Hoffman is the CEO of Gather Voices, a company that automates the management, creation, and publishing of video content. Michael is also an advisor to organizational leaders on engagement strategies, he is truly a brilliant man! You can get more info about Gather Voices and all the amazing things they do at their website: gathervoices.co.

Lately CEO Kate Bradley Chernis joins digital marketing consultant Eric Schwartzman on the latest episode the B2B Lead Gen Podcast for a discussion about automating social media marketing with artificial intelligence.

Lately uses AI to transform long-form like white papers and blog posts into dozens of smart social shares that optimize audience engagement.

Kate shares the idea behind Lately, which is not to waste something you’ve spent a lot of effort creating. Longer content marketing initiatives like blogs, podcasts, videos, reports, white papers, checklists and other lead magnets take a lot of time and energy to develop, and they’re not always easily shareable in social media. 

By loading content into Lately, Kate discusses how the tool transforms it into a collection of shorter posts you can schedule on Twitter, Facebook, Instagram and Linkedin in a couple of clicks.

Lately uses AI and natural language processing to select the most shareable, conversation worthy snippets from your long form content based on what generates conversations with your community and Kate breaks down how Lately scores posts for engagement. Before Lately was out there, this was a manual process, which took a lot of time and resources. 

Lately uses past user engagement as a proxy for future performance, and automatically produces posts likely to generate similar responses.

Listen to the entire podcast at the top of this post for the complete interview.

About the B2B Lead Gen Podcast

The B2B Lead Gen Podcast is a weekly audio masterclass about how to generate, qualify and convert leads to revenue. 

Past guests include former Wired Magazine Editor Christopher Null, growth marketing hacker Neil Patel, head of growth marketing at SEMrush Anna Lebedeva, senior Amazon UX designer Darren Krape, Content Marketing Institute leader Robert Rose and SXSW chief content officer Hugh Forrest.

Subscribe at https://www.ericschwartzman.com/b2b-lead-gen-podcast-subscriber/