Social Media Marketing

Colorado, Daily Blog, Estes Park, Social Media Marketing

Skybok Films The Stanley Hotel


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Listed on the National Register of Historic Places and a member of Historic Hotels of America, The Stanley Hotel is famous for its old world charm. Offering four different Estes Park accommodation experiences including historic rooms, modern apartment-style residences for extended stays, and expansive condominiums on the legendary grounds overlooking Rocky Mountain National Park. The Stanley offers over 14,000 square feet of sophisticated meeting and event space equipped with modern amenities and several stunning indoor and outdoor wedding venues. Only an hour away from Denver, it is the ideal destination for your Colorado vacation getaway. 

 

 

 

Social Media Marketing

Spotlight On: Zero To One


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Spotlight on this awesome book by Peter Thiel, “Zero To One”.

Author Peter Thiel
Author Peter Thiel

Chapter 1 – The Challenge of the Future

“What important truth do few people agree with you on?” Answering this deceptively tricky question is the key to any future of progress—and to building a great business.

Chapter 2 – Party Like It’s 1999

The dogmas created after the dot-com crash continue to haunt us today. The first step to thinking clearly is to question what we think we know about the past.

Chapter 3 – All Happy Companies Are Different

The most successful businesses share one key feature that enables them to innovate at unprecedented scale.

Chapter 4 – The Ideology of Competition

Competition isn’t just seen as a spur to productivity—for many, it’s a way of life. But what if it’s actually holding us back?

Chapter 5 – Last Mover Advantage

Short-term thinking ruins companies. The most important lesson an entrepreneur can learn is to think big but start small.

Chapter 6 – You Are Not a Lottery Ticket

The same question lurks behind every success: was it luck or skill? But builders aren’t backward-looking; they adopt a more definite attitude and engineer a better future.

Chapter 7 – Follow the Money

Apply it correctly, and one simple insight—almost everything is radically less equal than it appears—can change your life.

Chapter 8 – Secrets

Every one of today’s most famous and familiar ideas was once unknown and unsuspected. Lots more secrets remain undiscovered; learn to find them and see your fortune rise.

Chapter 9 – Foundations

The decisions you make today will govern what your business looks like years now. Every entrepreneur has to get a few things right from the start.

Chapter 10 – The Mechanics of Mafia

After PayPal, the “PayPal Mafia” created SpaceX, Tesla, LinkedIn, YouTube, Yammer, Palantir, and Yelp. The incredible story of that team will help you build yours.

Chapter 11 – If You Build It, Will They Come?

The best product does not always win. Great products do not sell themselves. That’s up to you, and the problem is much stranger than it seems.

Chapter 12 – Man and Machine

20 years ago, people feared cheap foreign labor; today, it’s replacement by robots. But the most successful entrepreneurs make products that help humans, not automate them away.

Chapter 13 – Seeing Green

Clean energy is a hugely important sector—and to date it’s been a huge flop, as entrepreneurs neglected to answer the seven questions that every business must get right.

Chapter 14 – The Founder’s Paradox

Founders are contradictory: revered and abhorred, powerful and weak. Just as we need founders in all their peculiarity, founders need to understand a few things to survive.

Conclusion

What will our society look like 20 years from now? 100? It’s up to us. We cannot take for granted that the future will be better, and that means we have to work to build it now.

Social Media Marketing

The 10 Commandments For Entrepreneurs Everywhere


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1. Seven days thou shalt labour + do all thy work, for the startup life knows no sabbath.

That includes holy days. All-night coding sessions, missed meals + triple espressos are the order of the day.

2. Thou shalt not torture thy customers with an endless beta.

To a customer, the “beta testing” label doesn’t mean much. If you keep making mistakes + your buttons don’t work + their password gets leaked, saying that you were “in beta” isn’t going to make them feel better – or stick around.

3. Thou shalt not take thy competitors’ names in vain.

Badmouthing competitors sounds a little too much like gossip. “We’re very careful: we don’t talk about competitors, we don’t slag them, we don’t throw them under the bus,” says Dave Olson, VP Community at HootSuite. The point is to focus on building a better product. “We don’t compete against people; we compete against ourselves,” he explains.

4. Thou shalt practice humility + not compare thyself to Mark Zuckerberg.

If you have to compare yourself to Mark Zuckerberg, you probably shouldn’t be compared to Mark Zuckerberg. Brian Wong, the 21-year-old founder of Kiip, complains about this phenomenon: “This is giving birth to a generation, unfortunately, of extremely cocky, ego-driven young entrepreneurs that think that just because they’re young, they should be paid attention to,” he says.

“I am my own person, I am my own class of entrepreneur, and I will build a company without anybody asking me how I built it compared to someone else. I’m going to build it my way.”

5. Thou shalt confess thy sins with true contrition + then fix the problem.

Otherwise, your customers will be vengeful rather than forgiving masters. Social media has made business more + more transparent, so it’s hard to get away with apologies that don’t admit wrongdoing – “We are sorry if some were offended” – or apologies that skew the facts.

6. Honour thy investors, that their purse-strings may be loosened.

Zvi Band, the CEO of Contactually, recommends keeping in touch with current investors every 2 weeks + potential investors every week.

And while you may not always follow investors’ advice, show some respect + actually take it seriously. Even if they didn’t create your startup, they are helping it grow.

7. Thou shalt not covet thy neighbour’s acquisition.

Holding out your hopes for a $1 billion acquisition like Instagram’s is foolhardy, to say the least. And even profit-hungry investors don’t want to hear about your acquisition fantasies. “If you show me a slide as an early-stage company that mentions your exit opportunities, and in 3 years you’ll sell to Google for that return to me, I’ll just laugh at you – but the laughing means you’re dead,” says Jeff Clavier of SoftTechVC.

8. Thou shalt not steal thy startup’s contact list.

In a recent scandal, one of WakeMate’s cofounders used the startup’s email list and Twitter account to promote his new product, MiLife+, and raise funds on Indiegogo. He claimed it was affiliated with WakeMate, but the other cofounder didn’t know anything about it. Here’s the full story. The Indiegogo project was eventually taken down due to the drama.

9. Thou shalt kill thy startup if thy money is gone + thy customers are few + thy website is ugly.

Closing down a startup may be a painful process + an admission of failure, but it frees you up to move on to the next exciting thing. “You got a lot of good guys running companies that are not doing well, when they could be joining forces and building a lot more value,” says Mohan Belani, the founder of Asian tech blog e27. “I call it a zombie. People don’t want to kill themselves.”

10. Thou shalt practice generosity if thou becomest a gazillionaire.

Virtuous choices including being a mentor or investor, opening an accelerator + donating pizzas to hungry entrepreneurs in your  your community.

And that’s the way to startup heaven.

Thanks for this awesome article Tech.Co!

Social Media Marketing

When To Work (And Not Work) For Free


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As a creative entrepreneur – artist, designer, actor, model, blogger, singer, freelance writer, editor, videographer, photographer (whatever it is you do) – there’ll be times you’re asked to work for free. Sometimes an offer of  “exposure” is legit, but it’s up to you to vet every offer. As a business owner (your business being yourself), you’re tasked with sifting through all of the various “work for free” offers and ascertaining which ones are useless and which ones will lead to actual exposure for you and your brand. Exposure is good. We like exposure. Marketing leads to discovery which leads to business.

As you grow and your name gets bigger and bigger, people will begin to associate your name with certain positive or negative adjectives. These associations are not necessarily always because of what you do. Sometimes you make a name for yourself by just being in the presence of great (or sinister) people. So you need to monitor what brands you allow yourself to be associated with.

+ NEXT TIME YOU RUN BY A “WORK FOR EXPOSURE” OFFER, ASK YOURSELF:

  • Will being associated with, and working with, this person/business/organization boost my authority in my field of expertise?
  • Will I be in the presence of captains of industry which could grow my network and help me build business contacts?
  • Will be doing this add valuable credibility to my brand for my audience?
  • Will it offer me experience I would otherwise not get or could use more of (building on your skill set, learning new stuff about performing on stage for instance)
  • Will I have direct access to an audience that will buy my [service, art, expertise]?
  • Will I have fun doing the gig?

If the answer to all questions is yes, consider taking the offer and at the very least get all of your expenses covered. At most? Consider negotiating your way into a paid gig.

Social Media Marketing

What To Share On Social Media


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+ BLOG / WEBSITE

Your headquarters for content. The place you use to establish your reputation, share your expertise or portfolio, answer questions, talk in your natural voice, and wow your readers.

+ TWITTER

Your place to post text messages the whole world can see. Use it to share useful information, jokes, timely updates, anecdotes, quotes, inspiration, previews of blog posts, and your stunning personality. Engage in real conversations frequently on Twitter. Use Twitter for research, Twitter chats, and the power of lists (organizing connections into useful categories).

+ PINTEREST

Your place to post everything visual that you want your followers to check out. Even if it’s information and not an image, you can make a beautiful image that goes with the information.

+ FACEBOOK

Your platform for connecting with people 25 or older. A great place to share visuals, links to useful information, promotions, and inspiration. Facebook has an affordable ad program that can help you target readers with specific interests.

+ INSTAGRAM

Your place to share compelling, interesting, fun, meaningful, helpful, and inspirational photos and videos. Instagram is a great place to display some of your portfolio items and your behind-the-scenes processes and life. It is best used in a very interactive manner (leaving comments and responses often).

+ GOOGLE+

Your place to share longer insights and thoughts (that aren’t quite blog length), visuals, videos, tutorials, tips, and inspiration. Google+ is excellent for communities, deeper discussions, following key influencers, and educating your audience.

+ LINKEDIN

Your place to show your professional side, diverse capabilities and skills, and ability to provide useful information. LinkedIn is a great place to make connections for collaborations and to find talented individuals you might hire in the future.

+ YOUTUBE

Your place to share tutorials, product reviews, trainings, and your winning personality. If used, YouTube is best used consistently and strategically.

Social Media Statistics South Africa

Social Media Marketing

Fashion Week Brooklyn


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Skybok is handling the Social Media for Fashion Week Brooklyn in New York. We have the Denim Day NYC coming up + the shoots in Soho + Williamsburg were awesome. On April 29th, models, makeup artists, college students, hairstylists, bloggers + all fashionistas will walk across the Brooklyn Bridge to City Hall styled in denim for the cause of “SEXUAL ASSAULT/VIOLENCE AWARENESS MONTH”.

City Hall will host the official commencement speech. The Denim Day NYC pre-event is tonight, photos from that will be up on our online platforms soon. Follow the story of Fashion Week Brooklyn + Denim Day NYC 2015 with us!

denim day nyc

FWBK Website top banner

Social Media Marketing

Michelle Benjamin Digital Artist


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Michelle Benjamin Blue Rhino
“Blue Rhino” by Michelle Benjamin has become the global icon for Rhino Activism. It was auctioned last year in London for Save The Rhino International at the Prince Albert Suite in the London Zoo. It was also exhibited on a 25 storey billboard in Times Square this year.

Skybok welcomes talks with potential client Michelle Benjamin, a prominent South African artist whose artwork “Blue Rhino” has become the global icon for rhino activism. It’s been exhibited in Pretoria, Durban, London, Italy, France + New York. With a following in 40 countries worldwide, it was recently auctioned in London for Save The Rhino International. Earlier this year it was exhibited on a 25 storey billboard in Times Square, New York!

Some things Michelle has been involved with

+ Lawrence Anthony Earth Organization.

+ The African American Museum in Dallas, Texas. Her piece “Madiba” will join their private collection.

+ Reach For A Dream Foundation. Her piece “Eesha’s Journey” was donated to them for auction in 2013 and all proceeds went toward fulfilling the dreams of children with life-threatening illnesses.

+ Paul Baloche. This world renowned Gospel musician, singer, songwriter owns an edition of “Blue Rhino” in his private collection.

+ Radiant Hope Foundation, part of Living Flame Ministries, who auctioned her collection “Vyrna-Lee Rose” in 2014. All proceeds were donated towards empowering and healing disadvantaged communities.

Some facts about her work

+ Her “It’s My Horn” + “Blue Rhino” artworks were auctioned in London for Save The Rhino International at the Prince Albert Suite, London Zoo, in 2013. All proceeds were donated toward the fight against rhino poaching.

+ Her “5 Cities” Collection was showcased at the Blue Sky Exhibition at Soho Art House, New York.

+ Her “Whose Keeping Score” contribution for the US Superbowl was exhibited there in 2013.

+ She has exhibited at the “Altered States of Reality” Exhibition in Chelsea, New York.

+ She has exhibited at the Soho Gallery For Digital Art in New York at the “Steampunk Burlesque & Exhibition Fundraiser For Coney Island”, where proceeds went towards the recovery of devastation from Hurricane Sandy.

quotes pablo picasso

Social Media Marketing

Rotary Club of Algoa Bay


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The Rotary Family Health Days 2015 will be held in the heart of Zwide Township at Ubuntu. It was incredible to hear Bill Clinton travelled there last year. It’s the home of the Ubuntu Education Fund. The RFHD are 3 days of free health care for the community. Skybok shot and produced the Algoa Bay Rotary Club’s video profile recently, as well as their soup kitchen for Madiba Day at Provincial Hospital.

Rotary at Ubuntu Education Centre South Africa

Social Media Marketing

Gravel Road Entertainment at Waterfront Film Studios Cape Town


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Skybok is handling Gravel Road Entertainment’s “Retro Afrika Bioscope” Social Media Marketing at the Waterfront Film Studios in Cape Town. Retro Afrika Bioscope is Gravel Road’s specialty release label for classic retro African content. The exciting challenge is to digitally restore 160 films that were made during the 70’s & 80’s in South Africa! We launched the Mayibuye Film Festival which ran on SABC 1 from April 13-27 to showcase 6 films that have been restored so far. We’ve been to film festivals all over the world, including the Berlin Film Festival in Germany, The Carthage Film Festival in Tunisia, The Lumiere Film Festival in France + we also had our North American debut at MoMa in New York! The community is now around 30,000 members online!

SOME OF THE FILMS:

1971 – Joe Bullet

1987 – Ezintandaneni

1988 – Ambushed

1989- Bona Manzi

1989 – Isiboshwa

1989 – Treasure Hunters

See the crew working hard on digitally remastering the films – read more about themhere. See the gallery of behind-the-scenes here (Photos by Patrick Ryan, shot on location at the Waterfront Film Studios).

It was the first time these films were seen by audiences in over 40 years, as well as being their first ever TV debut. I think these stories are so important because they are our heritage. It’s exciting to me that we can restore them to perfect condition and show them to modern South Africa. One of our films is Joe Bullet, originally banned in 1973 by the Apartheid government. It has now been recovered, fully restored & premiered at the Durban International Film Festival in July 2014. It’s crazy to think that while it was being made Nelson Mandela was in prison and Winnie had just been arrested!

2 films aired back-to-back every Sunday night in April from 20h30 on SABC 1. If you missed them you can catch them via online streaming. We’ve got an awesome partnership with Wabona, one of Africa’s premiere video streaming services, to make the films available to the public for free (http://wabona.com/). If you are a Mxit user, watch them through that platform via Cinemo (Wabona’s mobile service). A new deal that’s been struck with Commuter TV will see the films running on TV screens in mini bus taxis throughout the country. There’s no excuse not to see these vintage African films!

Become part of the conversation online with us:

Retro Afrika Blog: http://retroafrika.com/

Retro Afrika Twitter: https://twitter.com/RetroAfrika

Retro Afrika Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/retroafrika

Gravel Road

Tamika Doubell Waterfront Film Studios

Tamika Doubell Retro Afrika Bioscope

Tamika Doubell SABC1

wabona-logo-black-hi-res

Tamika Doubell Mayibuye Film Festival

Social Media Marketing

What is Social Media Marketing?


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SOCIAL MEDIA MARKETING REFERS TO THE PROCESS OF GAINING TRAFFIC OR ATTENTION THROUGH SOCIAL MEDIA SITES.

Social media itself is a catch-all term for sites that may provide radically different social actions. For instance, Twitter is a social site designed to let people share short messages or “updates” with others. Facebook, in contrast is a full-blown social networking site that allows for sharing updates, photos, joining events and a variety of other activities.

HOW ARE SEARCH + SOCIAL MEDIA MARKETING RELATED?

Why would a business who has a website which comes up in a search engine care about social media? Because the two are very closely related.

Social media often feeds into the discovery of new content such as news stories, and “discovery” is a search activity.

Social media can also help build links that in turn support into SEO efforts.

Many people also perform searches at social media sites to find social media content.

Social connections may also impact the relevancy of some search results, either within a social media network or at a ‘mainstream’ search engine.

A current feed (daily updates) ensures your brand is top of the news stream or search results. This means potential customers are more likely to find you.

An active community on social media channels leads to community which leads toengaged customers who keep coming back and using your product/service.

A personal touch to your brand makes people feel connected to you in a unique way, wanting to share in the experience that is your brand.

Including your customers in your giveaways, sales information, ongoings behind the scenes makes them feel supportive + patriotic.

Having social channels lends to transparency for your brand which means feedback from your audience.

This all means more feet through the door, a deeper understanding of your clients, a chance to improve your service or product and better (bigger!) business.

WHY YOU’RE SEEING MORE HASHTAG STICKERS ON SHOP WINDOWS

Hashtagging is a popular way for brands to run competitions, giveaway tickets to events + generally get people talking about the brand.

Here in Cape Town, it’s become a hot trend to see shops such as Topshop, Mr Price, Zara, Guess, Sunglass Hut + other fashion stores display hashtags on their windows. This isn’t just limited to clothing stores, though. Places like Woolworths, Pick ‘n Pay, Mac, CNA or even coffee shops like Vida e Caffè are catching on. In fact, you’ll see references to social media channels pretty much everywhere now – banks, bars, theatres, camera stores, bookstores, restaurants and even liquor stores have some kind of “voice” set up online. It’s about:

+ community

+ brand awareness

+ audience interaction

+ discovery

+ feedback

+ influence

+ reach

+ growing business

Are you looking for advice, help, set-up or management of your channels? Get a quote now.