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Bitcoin Use-cases: Turning Bitcoin, Cryptocurrency, and the Blockchain into a Fully Functional Peer-to-Peer Internet

Posted on December 18, 2013 by jessestay

A lot of non-Bitcoin investors and people with little knowledge of Bitcoin are freaking out right now about the fall of Bitcoin’s value in the last 24 hours due to China forbidding deposits into their main Bitcoin exchange. I’m actually kind of excited about it, because I think of Bitcoin as more a protocol than I do a currency. This means it has long-term sustainability. It also means my investment into it is a much more long-term investment into the future of the internet, as a whole. It means I now have an even greater opportunity to buy until the world grasps onto this concept. One of these use-cases is the possibility of completely replacing the internet as we know it. Let me explain.

DNS

Let me start with an example. An exact duplicate of the Bitcoin protocol with a separate blockchain, Namecoin (read all about it here), was created to prove some of the points I’m making here. Namecoin was invented to allow the use of its own Blockchain (remember, the worldwide, public accounting ledger for tracking transactions) to track ownership of domains on the .bit namespace.

Domains and DNS are in essence based on a peer-to-peer network of their own, with one major flaw. They rely on a central authority called the Internet Consortium for Assigned Names and Numbers (or ICANN) to tell other DNS nodes who owns the domain being queried. When you type in a URL into your browser, it likely searches your ISP’s DNS servers (your computer is in essence itself a DNS node that knows to talk to your ISP and other DNS nodes on the internet). Those DNS servers communicate with other DNS servers and so on until they find out who the owner of the domain is. Once the owner is determined through ICANN, your browser knows to pull content from “X Server” and you are delivered a webpage from that server. With Namecoin, however, ICANN isn’t needed because the ownership is recorded on the blockchain.

Namecoin, in essence, is replacing the need for ICANN in domain distribution for the .bit top level domain. They do it by storing the domain names in digest form on the blockchain (and suggest you can do this with other types of documents and text, as well), giving a permanent place to look up ownership with guaranteed authenticity. Currently they’re integrating this with existing DNS architecture, providing translation of those blockchain records in a way ICANN can understand, but in the future, the DNS protocol could be updated to accept blockchain records as sufficient ownership as well. This could be done with something as simple as a browser extension or plugin on most current browsers that overrides the browser looking at DNS servers for ownership, instead looking at the blockchain for ownership.

This is a powerful concept, which shows one use-case in this potential “internet replacement”. And it’s already in place, and it’s already working! You can invest in Namecoin now, and even convert your Bitcoin into Namecoin through exchanges like btc-e.com. (and guess what, the Chinese now don’t have this opportunity, at least not to the scale they used to!)

Storage

So now we have a way to tell where to retrieve content on the internet through a peer-to-peer, Bitcoin protocol-based architecture. Now we just need a way to deliver that data in a distributed manner. What if you could use Bittorrent as the storage for a Bitcoin-powered internet? We’re already headed there.

Recently, a bittorrent client called Frostwire announced they’re working to integrate Bitcoin into their Bittorrent client, allowing seeders of Torrents (which don’t all have to be illegal, by the way – Bittorrent, too, is just a P2P protocol, this one focused on storage) to pay and receive Bitcoin for files. I think this could go further though. What happens when you can associate something like Namecoin with an address of an HTML file on the Bittorrent network? Now, entirely server free, a document can be served (no server-side code required in this case – JavaScript has become quite powerful of recent on client machines, and could be extended even further to more powerful functions within the browser itself to embrace the blockchain and even bittorrent for more info) across a peer-to-peer network delivering documents to your browser at speeds potentially even faster than your current internet can.

As for a database, there are already distributed, file-based databases (see Hadoop, for instance). Instead of owning your own servers to store those files, why not store them across the P2P Bittorrent, or similar network? There are details to be worked out, but the technology is definitely almost there.

The Network Infrastructure

Now the only thing left is the ISP, and infrastructure for giving you bandwidth and access to your internet. What if we made this peer-to-peer as well? There are already many plans in foreign countries for “mesh” wireless networks. What if we took a concept like this, allowing anyone who wanted internet access to set up a wireless receiver of some sort, and that receiver would “pay” into the network to get access using Bitcoin or similar. These payments (this would be the equivalent of “mining” in current Bitcoin) would then go to those willing to provide longer distance wireless access using things like Ham Radio towers and the like to provide access over this entirely wireless, peer-to-peer internet. The bandwidth each node provides to the network would in essence “mine” new tokens and recycle those paid into the network in the process.

Of course, details of how all this can work still need to be worked out. Hopefully now you can see the potential though, and we’re really not that far from something like this happening with very little needing to be done by any central entity (perhaps wireless laws in the USA and other countries would need to be opened up a little to the public). Many of these protocols are already being used. But once they’re all put together, we have an internet that works without central authority, no need for ISPs, no need for server hosting. The entire internet experience is 100% controlled by the user, and companies will need to adapt to this.

This will all lead towards new forms of commerce. My friend Jeremiah Owyang talks about “The Collaborative Economy“, which is already occurring. The idea is that the future of commerce is moving towards more social, consumer-to-consumer models instead of business-to-consumer. Businesses now become facilitators of these transactions instead of sellers of a single product that a consumer can buy.

In “The Chain” era it works the same way – no longer will we need DNS, hosting, or even storage. Ownership records will all be stored on “The Chain”, all delegated to the proper owners of the content and storage and names. Businesses will need to start preparing for this in order to adapt to this new model – I’m actually seeing some of the smart ones do this now, which I’ll talk about later on this blog.

Bitcoin is not just a currency as you can see. If you’re seeing it as just a currency that goes up and down, you’re looking at it wrong. Instead, you should be looking at it as a new paradigm. It’s a paradigm shift in not just currency, but the entire internet as we know it, and you should be looking to hop on, pay in, and get on board. Those that do so now will be the leaders of this new era in the next 5 years.

My company helps businesses adapt to these new paradigm changes such as Bitcoin, strategizing new innovation and marketing shifts to gain an edge on their competitors. If you think we can help, contact us (contact@staynalive.com) – we even take Bitcoin!

Like this article and want more like it? Consider a donation! Here’s my Bitcoin address:

Address: 19AdCAbjshRuEFhx4py1Ny7i48s1d6RFi

Growth Hacking: How to Target Ads to the Followers of a Public ("Follow") Profile on Facebook

Posted on December 9, 2013 by jessestay

I shared earlier on this blog the benefit of using a personal, “Public Profile” on Facebook over a Fan Page on Facebook to personalize the experience and grow your network. I encourage each of my clients to, when they have the choice, choose the public profile over the Fan Page for personalities in the company for the reasons I shared earlier. It personalizes the company better, and I think the opportunities to grow organically are stronger.

There has always been one downside though – you can’t advertise to the followers of public profiles. It turns out there is actually a way to finally advertise to the followers of a traditional profile on Facebook with a “follow” button. It involves just a little Graph API knowledge (see my book to learn!), use of Graph Explorer, and a Facebook Page for your brand that you can use to create the ad. Here’s how you do it – let me know if I can help your company or brand do the same!:

Using Graph API to Get the User’s Followers

The trick involves just a little Graph API (the Facebook developer platform used to get data out of Facebook). To start, open up Graph Explorer from the developers.facebook.com “Tools” section.

Give your user the “user_subscriptions” permission by clicking on the “Get Access Token” button and checking the box under “User Data Permissions”.

Now, type in the following path next to the “GET” drop-down:

jessestay/subscribers?fields=id&limit=5000

You can replace “jessestay” with the id of any public user. The limit=5000 lets you traverse through the more subscribers at a time. Hit “Submit”, and a bunch of data will be returned.

Now is the part you need to figure out, and where a little programming knowledge might help (I may upload this as a tool on SocialToo.com at some point if it makes sense). Each page has only 5,000 subscribers listed, but there is a “next” link at the bottom that takes you to the next 5,000 subscribers. Your job is to traverse through this list, follow all the “next” links until there are no more, and extract a list of facebook ids in a text file (csv or txt). You can do this either manually or through an automated script that you create

This script took me about 15 minutes to write on my own, so it’s not too difficult a task if you have a little programming knowledge. Of course, this is also a service I provide to my clients so let me know if I can help! Once you have this file, you’re ready for the next step!

Uploading the Followers to Ad Manager

Now that you have your file, you need to upload it to Ad Manager as a “custom audience”. This used to only be available to Facebook’s Power Editor, but it’s now a native piece of the Facebook Ad management experience.

Start by going to http://facebook.com/ads/manage and make sure the account you’re using is selected (for those that might manage multiple accounts like me). On the left is a link that says “Audiences”. Click on that.

Now, click on “Create Audience”. A dialog box will appear – select “Data File” from the dialog box.

Now name your audience whatever you like, and choose the file you just created in the above section. If it’s a text file that has a Facebook ID on each line of the file it should work. Also, make sure you select “advanced options” and “user ids” so it recognizes your ids as Facebook ids and doesn’t try to read them as email addresses. Click “Create Audience”, and now your custom audience should be created! Pretty quickly you’ll start seeing the number of potential people you can target show up next to the audience stats on this page.

Creating Your Ad

Now that you’ve created your custom audience out of the user’s subscribers, you just need to create an ad that targets this custom audience. This is where you’ll need an existing Facebook Page for your brand (Not the user themselves – to me Facebook Pages are for brands. Facebook Profiles are for users!) if you want to do a promoted post. If you don’t want to use another Facebook Page you can just do a right-nav ad that targets a URL and that will work too.

Start by creating a promoted post using Ad Manager, or on the Page itself (don’t use the “boost” option!). You can make this visible or invisible to your fans – it’s up to you. Include a link if you like, just text, or whatever you want. Maybe even put the image of that user in the post so it’s recognizable to the fans of that user. Another option is to have your Facebook Fan Page share a post of that user, and then you can promote that!

Then in your targeting options, select the custom audience you just created. You can further refine the audience if you like, should the post be needed to target a specific subgroup of that audience (allowing for much stronger micro-targeting and perhaps even better results for less cost). Set all your bidding options, submit the ad, and now you have an ad targeting all the followers of a specific user on Facebook!

The great thing about this is you don’t have to limit it to subscriptions – it works with any data your user has access to. You can access your friends, your friends’ friends. You can target the attendees of an event you’re going to. Or members of a group you participate in. You also don’t need to limit it to your own user if you’re targeting just followers. Because public profiles are public, you can target the followers of any user that has their profile marked as public!

Just a side-note: I did notice a bug in Facebook’s Graph API that doesn’t return all of the subscribers. I think it excludes subscribers that are subscribing to you through Facebook lists. It will return most though, which makes an ad campaign totally worth it!

So when you think you have to use a Fan Page because you can’t advertise on a public profile, think again! You indeed can target subscribers of public profiles on Facebook, making the use of a public profile even more powerful, and something every brand should consider!

Let me help your brand! These little “Growth Hacks” are the core of our business, and how we excel against other marketers and firms in this space. If you want to get an advantage against your competition that other marketers can’t touch, send an email to jesse@staynalive.com!

Oh, and like what you see here? Did it help your marketing strategy? Please consider sending donations to paypal@staynalive.com (Paypal), or send me Bitcoin!:

Address: 19AdCAbjshRuEFhx4py1Ny7i48s1d6RFi

First the PC. Second the Web. Third the Cloud. And Now…The Chain – Why Bitcoin is Not Just a Currency – It’s a Platform!

Posted on November 23, 2013 by jessestay

What if you could transfer stock to another individual, without a stock broker or stock certificate? What if you could sell your home, without a real estate broker or deed? What if you could sell your car without need for a title or vehicle registration? That’s the concept of the technology behind Bitcoin, and why you need to be paying attention to why this is so much more than just a currency or investment, and why your brand could be disrupted soon if it does not adapt.

The technology behind Bitcoin, the currency that is making little-known software developers millionaires as the price has gone from less than $1 per Bitcoin to $800 per Bitcoin in just a couple years, has the potential to revolutionize the way the world authenticates human-to-human transactions within a matter of years. The technology, or protocol, is called “The Blockchain”, and it has the potential to be so much more than just a currency-driven protocol. It’s an entirely new platform. “The Chain”, as I’m now calling this platform, is incredibly powerful, and I truly think it is a paradigm shift on par with the shift from the mainframe to the PC, the PC to the Web, and more recently the Web to The Cloud.

“Colored Coins”

I had the chance to sit down with some of these Bitcoin millionaires and soon-to-be-millionaires (I’m not exaggerating!) at a local event in Provo, Utah (organized by my friends from the upcoming documentary, “Life on Bitcoin“) called a “Bitmob”. The idea is this (in a nutshell): a group of Bitcoiners approach a local business and tell them they will bring x number of people willing to pay with Bitcoin if the business will be willing to accept it. It’s a great way to get businesses to start accepting Bitcoin as a currency, brings a lot of new customers to those businesses, and overall improves the economy of Bitcoin as a whole.

It was at this meeting that my mind was enlightened that Bitcoin is not just a revolutionary, worldwide currency without central control, but it is so much more than that. A group of developers in the Bitcoin community have proposed an addition to the Bitcoin protocol (introduced by a pseudonomous developer named “Satoshi Nakamoto” in 2008, but with precedence in other standards and technologies prior to that), which allows each Bitcoin transfer to contain a payload of text. They call these “Colored Coins“. This payload of text could be synonymous with writing on a $1 bill the words, “I’ll give anyone who gives me this bill a car”. Then, that person would be held to giving each person that gave them that $1 bill a car. However, attaching this to an encrypted digital transaction that can be guaranteed as authentic, traced between the sender and recipient (by code, not necessarily ID of a human – one fatal flaw in Bitcoin IMO), now you have an even more certain guarantee of that agreement that the entire world can audit and ensure took place. If it is dishonored, the entire world knows (instead of just the people that gave the individual the $1 bill). See this video to get a better idea of how their proposal works – it does a much better job explaining:

Bitcoin is Just One Implementation of The Platform (The Chain)

The power of why this is possible lies in a worldwide “ledger” called “The Blockchain“, basically a ledger similar to an accounting ledger, that each bitcoin client has access to, can’t delete, and proves the transaction takes place. Because the entire world has access to this ledger, there is no mistake in the transaction, and anyone can prove that the owners of the 2 sides of the transaction are in agreement with each other.

The power of Bitcoin is in a vast, worldwide network of connected computers that can all authenticate what agreements were made from which parties. Each of these computers performs computer algorithms to ensure the strength of encryption on each transaction, further ensuring its authenticity. I’m told that if you added all this computing power worldwide, it would equal the power of more than 500 of the world’s top super computers. The number of trades on the network, today alone, outnumbered the number of transactions on Paypal, and are soon to outnumber the number of transactions by Discover Card.

The sheer number of participants in this worldwide peer-to-peer network, the value attached to each transaction (in Bitcoin – the Bitcoin-to-Dollar ration today is approximately 1/$700 and growing), and most importantly the openness of the network, the Blockchain, and the protocol behind it make this new network designed for commerce as scalable as the Internet, and perhaps even more valuable. As you can see, it can also be used for more than just monetary trade. One individual is using it for authentic transfer of files between individuals, for instance.

The thing is it’s the idea of Bitcoin and the Blockchain that makes all this so powerful. There will be numerous additions to the protocol over time, and I’m sure other versions, making this concept more and more powerful. What’s powerful isn’t that Bitcoin exists – it’s that this is the direction it is taking us as a society, and the technology exists today. For that reason this is a very large platform that will have many components to it, just like the web has HTTP and TCP/IP and MAC addresses, and even OAuth, and OpenID that all work together in one. We’ll see the same with cryptocurrency and online commerce in ways that transform commerce and corporate structure as we know today. There are already other cryptocurrencies like Litecoin and Namecoin. Devs and businesses will create their own currency exchanges (I’ll explain that in another post).

Bitcoin is Much More Than Just a Currency

For that reason I see Bitcoin as much more than just a currency. Bitcoin is an open platform designed for commerce. It is the architecture and Infrastructure for all transactions that Jeremiah Owyang mentions in the Collaborative Economy philosophy. Whether in “colored coins”, or another standard, Bitcoin, and cryptocurrency in general, are the platforms that will power every guaranteed human-to-human transaction on the planet. It’s already globally recognized. Each transaction has an intrinsic value (Bitcoin itself is limited in number, giving it rarity, similar to Gold). Each transaction can be proved, with 100% accuracy. And it’s near impossible to forge, unlike traditional currency. And what’s even better is this is all a platform which will evolve and grow, just like the internet.

Bitcoin is what happens when you apply digital and cryptographic principles to accounting. This is as big a change in technology to come to the world as the PC, the Web, and most recently the Cloud. We are entering a new era of human-to-human commerce where the brand, and the government is no longer “the middle man” in these agreements. Is your business ready to handle it? Are we pushing our governments to adapt? I’ll do some articles shortly on ways brands can adapt, and what I’m telling my clients.

Want to know more about Bitcoin? This video will get you started!:

Like this article? It’s freely shareable and can be copied and distributed (or linked to) via Creative Commons Attribution license. Or, just send a tip via Bitcoin!:

Address: 19AdCAbjshRuEFhx4py1Ny7i48s1d6RFi

How Your Cub and Girl Scouts (and Youth) are Being Cheated in the Personal Manufacturing Era

Posted on November 18, 2013 by jessestay

Our youth are in for a wake-up call when they grow up. Gone will be blue-collar work. Gone will be factory and manual labor jobs. Gone will be construction and mechanical jobs. The fact is, machinery, robotics, and computer programming are replacing all of this, in favor of devices average families can buy and set up in their living rooms. It is so important that we get these skillsets to our youth so we can survive as a society as my generation retires and our kids take over.

For long-time followers of this blog, you are well aware of my passion for 3D printing, and predictions for the disruption of modern manufacturing within just years from where we now stand. Within 5 years, it will be very possible for entire, room (or larger) sized manufacturing processes to be taken over by a simple machine in your office through 3D printing. It’s already happening in fact. I call this “The Personal Manufacturing Era”, because it’s the closest disruption we have in modern times to the Personal Computing Era and what it did to the mainframe.

Of course, all youth are affected by this, but there’s one group I want to address more than any, and I think they have the greatest potential to make a difference in this new era of manufacturing – it’s the Cub Scouts and Girl Scouts of America (of course, I’m talking to mostly a US audience here, but you likely have equivalents in your country). Both groups are missing out on a HUGE opportunity here to prepare their youth for the future.

Currently my wife and I volunteer for the Cub and Boy Scout organizations in our area. Each year there is an annual competition – usually it’s the Pinewood Derby. Some times it’s the Space Derby, or Raingutter Regatta. The thing is I’ve always hated these competitions because they focus on skillsets (woodwork, mostly) that are hardly valuable to the boys as they get to be our age. Not to mention that the dads do most of the valuable work for them anyways.

I propose that these boys, and in equivalent activities for the Girls in Girl Scouts (I’m mostly familiar with the boys organizations because most of my service has been there, but girls need it even more than the boys), be exposed to more STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering, and Math) related activities. True, Pinewood Derby does have some engineering that applies. But how much better would it be if the ENTIRE activity was centered around logic and engineering? How about a computer programming competition? Or what about a robotics competition? Kits could be provided to give boys a basic start, and understanding of these, and a fair base to start on.

My concern today is that we’re perfectly okay asking boys and dads/moms (and girls and dads/moms) to build a car they can race from scratch, many of those dads/moms not having previous woodworking experience (I’m one of those), but when we propose that we do a “computer programming competition” or “robotics competition”, two activities that really aren’t much harder to do if a kit is provided to show them how to do it, people say, “It’s too hard.”

We need to get away from this notion of woodworking being seen as a “manly” thing to do and computer programming and robotics being seen as “too geeky” or “too nerdy”. The fact is, our childrens’ futures depend on it! Every “too geeky” statement you make hurts your children and the future of this country, and the world in general.

I’m very worried about the future of our children, and the future of this nation. Cub Scouts, Boy Scouts, and Girl Scouts of America all have a HUGE opportunity here to fix this. They are making steps with new computer programming merit badges, and computer safety programs. I’m concerned they’re not moving fast enough though. To change, these programs need a complete overhaul of the system, one focused on STEM as a main, core component of each program, and outdoor activities to balance it all. Right now it’s much, much too heavily balanced toward the latter.

If you have kids. Take a stand. Reach out to your local Cub Scouts or Boy Scouts, or Girl Scouts organizations (to have the most effect you really need to do this at the district or council level), and let them know you share this concern. Am I alone in this? Are our youth missing out?

The Perfect Use of Custom Audiences Through Facebook Ads

Posted on October 17, 2013 by jessestay

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Custom Audiences are a terrific way to build Facebook ads that convert and bring strong traffic back to a site. The way they work is this:

You have an email list
You import that email list into Facebook’s Power Editor
Facebook matches those emails with Facebook users that also use those emails
You target ads to that email list or exclude the people in that email list from your targeted ad campaigns

I’ve been encouraging my clients for awhile now to look inside their existing user databases and find ways to segment users to better target ads back towards those existing users to get new sales. One way to do that is to look at users that have not completed a full transaction, and remind them to do so through a simple non-intrusive Facebook ad. The potential for the completed sale goes up significantly when brands do this.

I saw this in action today as I went through the process of adding flower bulbs to my Shopping Cart at Brecks.com, but not completing the purchase. Within minutes, I was seeing ads on Facebook reminding me that I had not completed my purchase, and even offering a further discount to get me back.

8b4b5-screenshot2013-10-17at1-57-00am-9535586

Having worked at a few e-commerce companies in the past (my college minor was e-business), I can attest that it’s difficult to get customers all the way through the sales process. Previously there were few ways, without outright spamming them and driving them further away, to get those customers that never completed their purchase.

Now, with custom audiences on Facebook businesses can remind the user very quickly after-the-fact, when they’re still in purchasing mode, further increasing the likelihood of the sale. This, to me, is the perfect use of custom audiences on Facebook. Well done Brecks!

Wanna learn more about Facebook ads? I just finished a course you can take to learn about my own secrets to success with Facebook ads. I promise you’ll learn something new in this course. If not, let me know and I’ll refund your money, 100% – go get the course here!

YOU Get a Free Book! And YOU Get a Free Book! How to Use and Make Money Using Facebook Ads

Posted on September 30, 2013 by jessestay

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I mentioned last week that I was launching a new webinar on Facebook ads. In this webinar I’m going to be showing you one of the biggest questions I get in my consulting and coaching for my clients – how you can MAKE money instead of SPEND it on Facebook ads! From my experience, so many business owners are afraid of Facebook ads, or seeing little success because they’re focusing solely on fans and traffic and not revenue. In this already successful, pitch-free course I’m going to show you how to focus on revenue, and increasing that revenue by thousands to tens or even hundreds of thousands or millions of dollars by utilizing a strong Facebook ad campaign. And if you order this week I’m giving you a few perks – FREE stuff!

I’ve spent my career learning how to build massive audiences for multi-national organizations and growing some of the top presences on Facebook. I’ve learned a lot over that time, and it turns out you don’t have to spend much to build an audience on Facebook. And even more – you can use Facebook to actually MAKE money instead of just grow audiences through ad spend. I’d like to show you how.

I don’t want to do it like just any other webinar out there though. In many of the webinars I’ve seen, you pay $200, $300, or some times more to get a little information only to get a big pitch at the end for more information, asking you to spend more to get the full picture! This webinar is going to have NO PITCH. I’ll add you to my list and you can learn about future events, but I want this webinar to be 100% CONTENT. The focus of this webinar is VALUE, and MAKING YOU MONEY through the use of Facebook ads, not pitching you on other products! Not just that, but I’m only charging $150 for what could be THOUSANDS of dollars in revenue you generate from Facebook ads!

This week I’m adding a few more perks though. First, for every person that registers for the webinar by end of this Saturday (Mountain time), YOU GET A FREE COPY OF MY MOST RECENT BOOK with Jason Alba and Rachel Melia, “I’m on Facebook–Now What???” 2nd Edition! On top of that, for all those that register by the end of this week I’ll WAVE THE WEBINAR DOWNLOAD! For those that already purchased the download and would like to upgrade to the live webinar let me know and I’ll arrange an upgrade for you to get both at the $150 price. For those that purchased the download and webinar together I’ll refund your download immediately!

LARGE GROUPS – I can give you a group rate if you contact me. Just contact me at jesse@staynalive.com and I can arrange a group rate for your organization.

There’s ONE MORE THING. I want to let everyone have a chance at hearing this message – it’s important to me. I know there are individuals and businesses that can’t afford this course right now. Or, maybe you know someone in this situation. For that reason I want to choose 5 individuals to give the webinar and download, and a digital copy of I’m on Facebook–Now What??? FREE OF CHARGE. All you need to do is pitch why you think you, your business, or your friend needs to take this course, and post it somewhere that I can see. Post in the comments of this blog post. Post in the comments on my Facebook posts. Write a blog post and tag me in it. I want to hear your stories! Consider this seed money, a gift, to get you going in making THOUSANDS in revenue from the knowledge you’ll learn off this course! So let me know your story!!! This will expire the Wednesday before the webinar.

This webinar is the best way I know to impart knowledge to as many people as possible and get the word out to as many as I can. I want all of you to learn what I’ve learned. I truly believe that ANYONE can be a Marketer! I want you to learn too, so GO SIGN UP NOW! (and share this and tell your friends!) I need your help to make this a success!

How to Optimize Your Facebook Ads for Event Conversions on Eventbrite

Posted on September 25, 2013 by jessestay

In preparation for my upcoming webinar on Facebook ads, I felt I would be a hypocrite if I did not use some of the strategies I’m teaching in the webinar on my own event for the webinar. In searching Google, I couldn’t find any good solution listed, but I did figure out a way to optimize your Facebook ad campaigns for when people buy, or sign up for your events on Eventbrite. That means Facebook will do its best to only charge you for your Facebook ads when people purchase your event!

The secret is simple. At the end of the Eventbrite event registration process, there is a confirmation page each attendee is taken to. You can actually edit this page, and it takes HTML. So all you need to do is get your Facebook conversion pixel in there and you’re good to go. Here are the steps:

First, get your Facebook conversion pixel

To start off, go to your Facebook Ads Manager. I’m not going to go into fine detail on how to do that – you can go buy my book, I’m on Facebook–Now What??? (the 2nd Edition) to learn how to set up a Facebook ad. Or register for my webinar that takes place in 3 weeks and I’ll even show you some really valuable techniques, just like this one, that will take your ads to the next level! (if you’re reading this after the webinar, you can also purchase downloads at that link)

In Facebook Ads Manager, on the left side column, there is a link that says “Conversion Tracking”. Click on that.

This is the page where you set up your conversion pixel. In the upper-right, you’ll see a big green button that says “Create Conversion Pixel”. Click on that.

A popover will appear, asking you to name your conversion pixel, and select a type. I called my “Eventbrite Ticket Sales”. You can name this whatever you want though. I also choose the “Checkouts” option, since I’m tracking sales. This is just to allow you to categorize different types of conversion pixels you might use. Here’s what mine looks like:

On the following screen/popover you’ll now be given code you can copy and paste into your Eventbrite page. This is what mine looks like:

Do NOT follow the instructions on this page. Instead, all you want for Eventbrite is the piece between the and the tag. In the above example, I would just copy the text, (the image tag) and nothing else. The reason for this is Eventbrite strips out all JavaScript from the code you put on their page, but they do support image tags! The image tag will be all you need. Click “Close”, and your conversion pixel will be set up. You’ll note that right now it says “Unverified” – this means no one has hit a page with your conversion pixel on it. That’s okay. Now we need to add this code to Eventbrite.

Add your conversion pixel code to your Eventbrite Event

To add the code you just created (again, just the image tag!), go to the “Manage” section of your event. This will take you to the Event Dashboard. On the left side of the Event Dashboard, you’re going to want to click the “Order Confirmation” link. You’ll be taken to a page that looks like this:

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On this page, scroll down to the text area at the bottom that says “Message to be displayed on confirmation webpage:” (below “Customize order confirmation webpage”). This is the area you want to add your code. Below any confirmation message you add, copy, and paste the conversion pixel image tag you copied above. It will look like this when you’re done:

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Now, click “Save”, but there’s one more thing you need to do. You want your conversion pixel to be verified. Once saved, click on the link, “View your current order confirmation page” below the final text area where you entered your conversion pixel code. This will take you to what looks like the order confirmation page. Don’t worry – your conversion pixel is invisible, so you won’t actually see it on this page, but you did want this page to load at least once!

Now that you’ve loaded your page, go back to your Facebook Ads Manager, look at the “Conversion Tracking” page again, and next to your conversion tracking link you just set up, it will now have a big, green “active” next to it if all worked well! This means your conversion pixel now works, and will load every time someone buys one of your event options!

So now you just need to add the conversion pixel to your Facebook ad.

Set up your Facebook Ad with your conversion pixel

In the Facebook Ad you created, at the bottom, you can set optimization options. You should have the option to “optimize for conversion”. Select this, and a drop-down will appear with your new conversion pixel listed in it. Select that conversion pixel. Now, Facebook will do its best to make what you pay only occur when an actual conversion occurs! This means real sales, for a fraction of what you’re paying in Facebook ads. That should be how every one of your Facebook ad campaigns runs.

Want to focus more of your ad campaigns on conversions? I’ve got a webinar coming up where I’ll share how to build audiences on your Facebook Pages that you can optimize for conversions. My techniques aren’t well known in the industry, so you’ll be learning very unique strategies, just like this one, that can help take your Facebook ad campaigns to the next level! You don’t want to miss this – go sign up here!

Are YOU a Social Asset to Your Company? Are Your Employees?

Posted on September 24, 2013 by jessestay

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One of the things I talk about in Google+ Marketing For Dummies is the importance of getting your employees and brand loyalists involved in social media. This is something I’m seeing has more and more importance with the emergence of Google Authorship and the affect a public profile on Facebook has for individuals. The truth is, our culture is evolving from a culture of brands to a culture of people. The focus is no longer on your brand.

For that reason, I think it’s more and more important that you get your employees, or if you’re an employee, yourself, involved more and more in social media. In the future (and to some extent, now!), your job is going to depend on this!

Let’s take Google Authorship as an example. For one organization I worked with, we implemented Google+ profiles for high ranking officials/executives of the organization, and tied those profiles, using Google Authorship, back to content they had written on the organization’s website. With no content whatsoever on the profile, and solely the link to that individual’s profile, the organization saw a 300% increase in traffic on the individual articles written by those individuals on the company’s website. Imagine what it would have been like with MORE followers and MORE content on those profiles! You can see why I talked about making your website more about people, with content written by actual people in your organization in my books.

Just yesterday, SEO experts started complaining that Google was no longer providing keyword data back to websites for identifying the keywords people are searching for when they visit your website. Google is making it clear that it’s not about keywords any more. It’s about people, and real, genuine content. Your employees and the people behind your brand are a critical part of your SEO strategy now. You see the same with Facebook as they try to penalize “memes” and other brand-focused spam in the News Feed.

Google Authorship is just one strategy though. If you follow me on Facebook, you know I don’t have a Facebook Page for just me. I have Facebook Pages for my books and other brands, but not myself. Instead, I use what’s called a “Public Profile”, and allow people to “follow” me there. I actually do this on purpose. There, of course, are disadvantages to not having a Facebook Page for myself – I can’t advertise as easily (I can do a Promoted URL or Promoted Post back to my personal profile, however). There are no Insights/Analytics for personal profiles.

However, the advantage using a Public Profile is it focuses on me as an individual. It allows me to show the person behind my brand. When people follow me they know they’re following a real individual. I can comment much easier on others’ posts. In addition, I show up in Facebook’s suggestion algorithms as a person, which in my opinion favors more highly than Facebook Pages do. All of this is just the tip of the iceberg.

Here’s one example of why all that’s valuable: Yesterday Mark Zuckerberg changed his profile cover image on Facebook to an old graphic of all the relationships that exist around the world on Facebook which their data team put together back in 2010. Within minutes, he saw tens of thousands of likes on the cover image and I was seeing half my friends share it. I was familiar with this graphic because it hangs on the wall in my office – awhile back I blew it up and printed it out so I could show it off (If Facebook provided a way to purchase these they would sell off-the-charts!).

I commented on Mark Zuckerberg’s cover image stating that I had this hanging on my wall. All of the sudden that evening I started seeing friend requests from people trying to friend me, and new followers coming in like crazy! Within 12 hours I gained more than 1,000 new followers on my profile. It turns out Mark Zuckerberg liked my comment along with a few other of my friends that worked at Facebook, and that alone was enough to highlight the comment as the top comment on his cover image. Organically, 1,000 new followers in 12 hours is pretty good, and now I have the chance to build a personal relationship with every single one of those followers! Seriously, if you want to get some quick followers go reply on my comment that’s already highlighted there (only one reply right now!).

So as you can see, it wasn’t my brand, but my personal profile that provided the value. I couldn’t have accomplished that with a brand page, or bland brand website. You (the person, not the brand), and your employees need to be doing the same.

Next time you think about your presence on social media, stop thinking about Facebook Pages and Google+ Pages, and start looking at ways you can engage your employees and yourself as people on social channels. Make them “social embassadors” for your brand, and you should see ten times the success you are seeing with just one marketer and one team in your company focused on just the brand.

In these days, EVERYONE is a marketer! You need to be training your employees to be social assets for your company. If you’re an employee, your social presence, and even more than that, value (number of followers, etc), will be a defining factor of whether you, or the guy being interviewed next to you gets the job. It’s time to start learning to build audiences through social media, and build your own value for the companies you work for.

For companies and business owners interested, I provide a “Social Embassador” training curriculum as part of my “Everyone a Marketer” program. You can learn more about it here. Talk to me (jesse@staynalive.com) if you’re interested in training your own employees as social assets! I am also doing a webinar in 3 weeks that you and your employees can learn how to grow your brand through Facebook ads. Go here to purchase your tickets and learn more!

ANYONE Can (and Should) be a Marketer! My New Business and Focus

Posted on September 23, 2013 by jessestay

About 7 years ago I was sitting in a full-time job, developing software as a senior engineer for UnitedHealth Group. I loved writing software, and began writing a few tools on the side just for the fun of it. I couldn’t build an audience though! I was stuck – great software, with nowhere to go. I’ve heard this over and over again from other software developers, small business owners, executives, product managers, and the like, all lacking the proper skills they need to grow an audience successfully and do it without paying an expensive marketer or social media professional. I feel your pain!

I spent the next 7 years experimenting and trying new methods I learned from friends of mine and other marketing experts to where I finally think I’ve come up with the optimal process in growing audiences and revenue from those audiences. I ended up writing 6 books from my experience. I began to take some of my software development skills to take things I learned writing documentation for Facebook, Inc. and turn that into a concept I call “social design”. I learned perfect methods for Facebook, and Google+ Page growth. I learned ways to advertise on Facebook that many Marketers today still come to me asking about. In all honesty, I don’t share any of this to boast, but to show the learning process I went through.

You’ve probably seen me lately trying to figure out “my next thing”. Do I look for a job? Do I consult? Do I build a product? I’ve been meeting with a lot of people, and received some amazing advice. Today I’d like to announce what that next big thing is!

Today I’m announcing my “Everyone a Marketer” program with a series of webinars, online training curriculum, corporate retreats, and individual coaching all catered to showing anyone from the software developer, to the business executive, to even the marketing department itself how to grow significant audiences, and how to grow revenue from those audiences. The idea is that I want to show you, and every one of you how to become a marketer. I want to show you how to grow audiences. I want to show you how to sell to those audiences. I want to show you how to target to specific audiences. I want to show you how to learn who your audiences are. I want to show businesses how to engage their employees as marketers and social assets for the organization!

I’m kicking it off TODAY with the announcement of my first webinar in the program! I’m calling it, on this same theme, “Everyone can Learn Facebook Ads! How to Build Fans and Revenue With FB Ads”, or “Mad Facebook Ads!”. I’m spending 1, jam-packed hour to show you techniques I’ve learned with the organizations I’ve worked for, and clients of mine that will grow Facebook Pages using Facebook ads at a very low cost. Have you ever seen $.002 (that 2-tenths of a cent folks!) per like in your Facebook ad campaigns? I have! I want to show you how.

Registration is fairly cheap considering the value you’re going to get – for $150 you get access to the webinar and the Q&A for 1/2 hour afterwards (That’s half of what I charge for consulting!). This is potentially thousands of dollars in savings you’ll get from the knowledge you’ll receive in the webinar! My hope is for you to get much, much more out of this than you put in – I’m extremely passionate about this subject, and making YOU successful! If you don’t want to attend the live webinar, you can download for a reduced price the recorded version after the webinar is finished.

YOU CAN REGISTER FOR THE WEBINAR HERE! GO NOW! 🙂

It doesn’t stop there! I need your help! If you want to join me in growing this webinar, I have set up a simple affiliate program for you to help me promote the webinar. Each affiliate gets 33% of any ticket sales they refer, which is pretty good for an affiliate program in my experience! Will you please SHARE this webinar with your friends and family? TO SIGN UP AS AN AFFILIATE, CLICK HERE! This is a great opportunity!

I’m limiting this to just 100 people per day (2 different days, same webinar), so act quick – I’m predicting this will sell out quick! Again, GO HERE TO REGISTER! This will sell out soon!

Oh, and STAY tuned for more! I’ve got much, much more planned for this program! I want YOU to learn what I’ve learned! If you want to learn more, GO HERE AND SIGN UP TO RECEIVE UPDATES!

In the Collaborative Economy, Are Local Classifieds in Trouble?

Posted on September 19, 2013 by jessestay

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I’m a big fan of my friend Jeremiah Owyang’s principle of “The Collaborative Economy.” The principle is thus (yet very hard to explain unless you actually experience it): the trend in social media, up to this point, has been the sharing of virtual content, goods, and services through close friends and family on social networks like Facebook, Google+, and Twitter. The Collaborative Economy is a new phase of this principle, where instead of only sharing online, close friends, family, and some times strangers are now using online tools to find ways to share in real life. The idea, when applied to commerce is that instead of businesses being the source of the transaction from them to their customers, they will instead become the facilitator of the transaction between customer and other customers. The future of social media will be services like Uber, AirBNB, and others that grasp this concept and enable real life social transactions to occur in physical form, from customer to customer and not from big business to customer.

This is why I fear for local classifieds markets. Having worked for 2 media companies so far (and at one being responsible for developing new online classified experiences), I know how important classifieds are to the revenue of local news media. Classifieds are at the core of revenue for most news media outlets, outside display advertising, and as sites like Craigslist have taken over these markets you are seeing some of that result on revenue for local news around the world. It affects these markets so much that you see when local classifieds sites like Salt Lake City’s KSL Classifieds overtake Craigslist, it develops a sort of monopoly on the market in terms of classifieds revenue that goes to these news orgs within the local market.

A key element to good Classifieds is getting local auto dealers to sign on. On top of that, real estate is another big factor for revenue in modern classifieds sites. To get an idea of where that revenue comes from, just go down any classified site like Craigslist or KSL Classifieds and look at which ads they charge you money for. You’ll see the biggest are auto and real estate. There are other similar categories though.

This is where the trouble begins. Right now we know (Deseret News, KSL Classifieds’ own sister site declared the end of cars!) that automobile sales are in decline in favor of services such as Uber (for getting around town with a driver) or ZipCar (for getting around on your own) or RelayRides (for longer-term car rentals) that embrace the Collaborative economy. On the real estate front, you’re seeing more and more people embrace the collaborative economy in favor of renting through services such as AirBNB. All of this is so much so that businesses like Ford are reconsidering their sales strategy to provide similar type rental services of their cars as they recognize the recent decline in sales.

In fact, my friend Jeremiah Owyang, who is advising many of these businesses already, is seeing such great demand in this market that he recently quit his job at Altimeter in favor of advising these businesses full time on their collaborative strategy. This should have all classifieds departments in news organizations, as well as Craigslist and the like paying attention – their revenue stream from autos, real estate, and similar transactions is in trouble!

My hope is that local classifieds, Craigslist, Ebay, and other similar sites begin to recognize this. Person-to-person transactions are in, and business-to-person transactions are on the way out. Services such as the person-to-person trade service Yerdle (founded by a former Walmart exec Andy Ruben, btw), really get this. They’re finding ways to build business models without the businesses at the top of the model, focusing on platform the B2B relationship. They’re developing new business models unfamiliar to traditional e-commerce sites, and ways to get in the middle of those C2C (Customer-to-Customer) transactions. Local classifieds will need to take this same approach in the future to survive as their business partners stop selling, and start taking this same approach (essentially making those partners competitors!).

I mentioned before that local news orgs are competitors with Facebook and other social networks and they don’t realize it yet. Local news has the potential for a very strong, tight-knit community of individuals passionate about their community and growing that community. They are in the business of sharing, and getting people to share. When it comes to classifieds, this applies there as well – the future of classifieds is, and should be the collaborative economy, and facilitating transactions from customer to customer, not from the business to the customer. As long as the revenue comes from the latter, classifieds websites are going to suffer in the future, and those that get this will be the winners.