Platform Get Noticed in a Noisy World

Michael Hyatt, one of the top business bloggers in the world, provides down-to-earth guidance for building and expanding a powerful platform.

To be successful in the market today, you must possess two strategic assets: a compelling product and a meaningful platform. In this step-by-step guide, Michael Hyatt, former CEO and current Chairman of Thomas Nelson Publishers, takes readers behind the scenes, into the new world of social media success. He shows you what best-selling authors, public speakers, entrepreneurs, musicians, and other creatives are doing differently to win customers in today’s crowded marketplace. Hyatt speaks from experience. He writes one of the top 800 blogs in the world and has more than 100,000 followers on Twitter. His large and growing platform serves as the foundation for his successful writing, speaking, and consulting practice.

In Platform, Hyatt will teach readers not only how to extend their influence, but also how to monetize it and build a sustainable career. The key? By building a platform. It has never been easier, less expensive, or more possible than right now. . .  The book includes:

• proven strategies
• easy-to-replicate formulas
• practical tips

Social media technologies have changed everything. Now, for the first time in history, non-celebrities can get noticed-and win big!-in an increasingly noisy world.

MY THOUGHTS

Michael Hyatt not only knows the ins and outs of building and maintaining a platform, he also knows how to write a book. The chapters are short, clear, and easy to digest. The bullet point system is right up my alley! He must have known I learn best when subject matter is broken down into bit-sized chunks. Thanks for that, Michael. You’re a pal.

As far as the subject matter itself…Well, let’s just say I’ve never dog-eared a book so much. The thing is practically barking at me. It’s saying “I’m wisdom itself! Use me, use me!”

Every dog-ear is a page that has content I plan to address. Here are just few examples of things I need to work on.

• Get your plans out of your head and onto paper (pg 39)
• Craft a good elevator pitch. (pg. 43) Yes, I’ve done these before, but he has a way of describing how to do it, that just makes so much sense to me that I want to re-write the ones I have.
• Five basic personal branding tools you should take advantage of before you move on to more complex ones. (pgs 46-47) 1. e-mail address  2. email signature 3. business cards 4. Website 5. social medial profiles. I have all these too, but I’m not taking full advantage of any of them, and I plan to remedy that.
• Get lots of endorsements. (pg 53) Already working on this one!
• Get a great headshot (pg. 56) Got this one dog-eared because my headshot is old and not accurate. I’ve lost almost 20 pounds since the last shoot, and at my last signing actually had two random strangers at different times tell me I needed to update it. Yikes!
• Fine tune your blog (pg 100). He lists blogging musts and blogging mistakes. Those chapters are too marked up and highlighted for me to mention here and still retain my dignity. You’d think that after seven years of blogging I would have figured some of this stuff out on my own. Nope. BUT I now feel like I understand why I’ve struggled so much to get off my feet.
• Open pathways of communication with your “tribe” (aka fans) (pg. 129) You to tribe member. Tribe member to you. Tribe member to tribe member. Tribe member to outsiders.

(How do you like my bullet points?)

This is just scratching the surface, and I left all the good stuff for you to discover on your own. If there’s any ONE marketing book you can afford this year, Platform by Michael Hyatt is the one it should be. I just found out that he’s going to be the keynote speaker at the ACFW Conference in September and I CANNOT wait to hear what other nuggets of wisdom I can glean from him!

So here I am doing exactly what he intended, and what he says a properly developed platform will do. He wrote what he’s passionate about, and gave me something I needed. Because his passion is contagious,and because I feel a need was met (and am therefore grateful), I’m now a tribe member who is so devoted, I’m advertising for him. And enjoying doing it! THAT’S the basic concept of the book.

It works for him! If it works for me, I’ll let you know. Or better yet, one of my devout tribe members will.

 –April W Gardner is a mutli-published, award-winning author

and the senior editor of the literary contest site, Clash of the Titles.

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