Own Your Space

Own Your Space

by | May 31, 2022 | Marketing and Advertising Insights, ScLoHo's Web World, The Not-So-Secret Writings of ScLoHo

Here we are in the summer of 2022 and due to some recent business meetings I’ve had, I need to give you a piece of advice that I’ve said repeatedly over the years.

Own Your Space.

Not just any space, but your space online.

This applies to you as a person and if you have a business.

A dozen years ago, I was showing college students how I created my own personal brand, the ScLoHo brand with a couple of blogs that I updated every single day.

Then 11 years ago, my friend Kevin challenged me to create my own space, not for the ScLoHo brand, for me, Scott Howard.

And so I did.  It took a few months but I invested in my own website instead of using the free blogger sites from Google.  This is that website I created in 2011.

It looks much different than the first version.  The domain name, ScottHoward.me, was selected because the dot com version of my name was already taken.  So while the layout and design have evolved over the years, this website has been consistently been the Space I Own.

Recently I’ve seen business start-ups that don’t have their own website, they are relying on socials.  You don’t have a real business, you’ve got a hobby.  Until you spend a few hundred bucks, buy a domain and create a simple landing page, at the bare minimum, you aren’t real.

Not in today’s world at least.  Look, you don’t even have to use it to run your business, but if your own website doesn’t exist, neither does your business as legit.

I’m not into building websites anymore, but I can connect you with the people I trust.  Believe me, I want you to succeed, and there are always a few exceptions to most any rule, but do yourself a favor and get Your Own Space now, for your business and also for your own personal branding.

The Scott Howard Genuine ScLoHo Media and Marketing Podcast

The Scott Howard Genuine ScLoHo Media and Marketing Podcast

by | Feb 1, 2022 | Marketing and Advertising Insights, The Not-So-Secret Writings of ScLoHo

This year marks the completion of 5 years of creating, hosting, recording and producing a weekly podcast and it seems like an appropriate time to introduce myself or reintroduce if we’ve been friends for awhile.  By the way, don’t worry when I say completion, I decided to use that word and not conclusion.  I’m not planning on stopping my weekly articles and podcast episodes, it’s just that we are entering year number 6 of the podcast.

First off, my background.  I grew up in Fort Wayne, Indiana and as a kid dreamed of doing all kinds of professions.  Astronaut and race car driver, gave way to television production by the time I was in middle school and then high school set the stage for radio.  When I was growing up, I listened to Bob Sievers in the morning on WOWO Radio to see if we had school delays.  Back in the 70’s over 70% of people in Northeast Indiana listened to WOWO in the morning.  Some to hear about the weather and school closings, others for farm news delivered by Bob and farm director Jay Gould on the Little Red Barn radio show on WOWO.  I also listened to Chris Roberts in the afternoon after school and Ron Gregory at night on WOWO as a young teenager and that was what planted the seed to be a radio personality.

WMEE was another Fort Wayne radio station that was influential as they played the Top 40 hits of the day.  WMEE was AM radio station at 1380 in the 70’s and WOWO was also on AM at 1190.  At the end of the 70’s WMEE moved to 97.3 FM where they have been ever since.

My high school, Concordia started an FM station when I was there and that was my first on-air experience.  After graduating I began a full time on-air career at WBAT in Marion, Indiana, followed by WIOU in Kokomo and then I ended up on WMEE for 3 years.  I returned to Kokomo, Indiana for about 3 years on the air and as Program Director at WZWZ until the station was sold.  I worked briefly on the air at WXIR in Indianapolis before moving my family to Detroit and WMUZ where I first ventured into the advertising and marketing side of the business.

I did some additional on-air work both part-time and full time at stations WMUZ, WBTU, WGL, WFWI and WAJI. In 2003 I entered the ad world in Fort Wayne, working for a group of 6 radio stations for more than 8 years and it was during that time I began blogging using the online name ScLoHo.

ScLoHo is a mashup of my first, middle and last names. Take the first two letters on Scott Louis Howard and it spells ScLoHo.  Many people have attempted to pronounce it without success.  Often they leave out some letters or add extra letters.  Not even Alexa knows how to pronounce ScLoHo.  

I had multiple ScLoHo blogs on the Google Blogger platform and my friend Kevin challenged me to create an online reputation under my birth name of Scott Howard so in 2011, when I was working fulltime in the webworld, I launched the first version of the Scott Howard dot me website using over 10,000 articles I had already published as the foundation.

Ever since around 2004 or 2005, I have published a minimum of one new article per week.  I used to do it daily and multiple times per day, that is how I ended up with over 10,000 articles in just 6 years.

15,000 articles and counting was what I was continuing to work on when I was approached in 2016 with a request to do a podcast.

More on the podcast in a moment, but first back to me and radio.  In 2013,  I was hired to join WOWO radio, not on the air, but as one of the Local Advertising Sales People.  Official job title was Account Executive and I added Marketing Consultant too it because that was what I did besides selling advertising schedules.  By 2019,  I grew to be the top local advertising account executive not just at WOWO but in our entire company at Federated Media which included a dozen radio stations and nearly 40 A.E.’s.

At the end of 2019 and beginning of 2020, before the pandemic hit, Federated Media had a couple of management changes.  My boss, Ben took over as the Federated Media Fort Wayne Vice-President and General Manager and I became to General Sales Manager for WOWO.  These were not “automatic” promotions due to longevity.  Both Ben and myself were promoted from within after our company conducted extensive nation wide searches to find the best leaders for management. Both Ben and myself are now in our 3rd year in our current positions with Federated Media.

Let’s go back to 2016.  Ben and another manager, Suzee were given the task of starting an advertising oriented podcast for Federated Media.  Podcasts were still an early adopter thing 6 years ago and Federated Media wanted to get in on the ground floor.

Ben and Suzee, were aware of my weekly articles I was writing about advertising and marketing on my website at Scott Howard dot me and they might have been aware that I had experience talking behind a microphone too, so they approached me to consider being the one to launch this podcast.  After a little bit of thought, prayer and negotiation, I said yes and by March of 2017 The Genuine ScLoHo Media and Marketing Podcast was launched as a weekly audio version of the articles I was writing and publishing.

While the written form of this is article 15,000 and something.  This is also episode 250 of the podcast.

Who chose the name of the podcast and why?  I did.  Because of my online identity as ScLoHo and the subject matter dealing with media and marketing, that’s why those words were selected.

Why is it the “Genuine” ScLoHo podcast?  As a way to clearly claim my work.  Several years ago when I was just publishing online under ScLoHo, I discovered someone was stealing my articles and republishing them on another website site without my permission.  I also voice my own podcast and identify myself as Scott Howard in each podcast episode. 

One change was made a few years ago with the advent of smart speakers.  I discovered that Alexa doesn’t know how to pronounce ScLoHo so I amended the name to Scott Howard’s Genuine ScLoHo Media and Marketing Podcast.  Now if you ask Alexa to play the Scott Howard Genuine Podcast, she usually knows where to find it.

Unlike the audio version of this article, nearly every weekly episode is less than 10 minutes.  Just long enough to give you an update without eating up too much of your time.

As we move forward this year, I’m going to revisit and update some of the topics I have covered in the past along with keeping you current on the latest trends and thinking to help you with your advertising and marketing as you run your businesses.

There are some Timeless Human Relationship Principles that should be applied to your marketing and advertising and that is where we will start again in some upcoming articles and episodes. 

The Significance of 200 Episodes

The Significance of 200 Episodes

by | Feb 3, 2021 | Marketing and Advertising Insights, Really? The Personal ScLoHo, The Not-So-Secret Writings of ScLoHo, WOWO Fort Wayne Radio Advertising with Scott Howard

The Scott Howard Genuine ScLoHo Media & Marketing Podcast turns 200 this week.

To me, that’s a little bit of a bragging right.  For you, perhaps it will give you a little bit of confidence or trust in what you are reading or listening to.

Indulge me for a moment as I talk about the significance of this and I’ll be sure to wrap up with a couple of questions that can help you with your business or branding.

First of all,  what’s a ScLoHo?

Nearly 17 years ago I registered the ScLoHo.com & ScLoHo.net domains, and even before that I had email accounts on Hotmail and Yahoo! that used ScLoHo.  I may have even had a MySpace account under the ScLoHo moniker.

ScLoHo is a made up word.  I took the first two letters of my first name (Scott), middle name (Louis), and last name (Howard) and created a unique word. There is a Wikipedia user page that has more of my history. The name Scott Howard I discovered is not unique.  The most famous Scott Howard is the fictional character in the Michael J Fox Teenwolf movie.  So ScLoHo became a unique way to identify myself online and it eventually spilled offline too. My wife and some coworkers call me ScLoHo and every once in awhile.

Here’s how ScLoHo became more than an email address.  I started a blog on the old Google Blogger platform which grew into multiple blogs.  It was a way for me to share stuff online about media and marketing along with personal stuff.  It was nothing I got paid for, it was simply a passion of mine to capture and share some wisdom from others and myself.

In 2011, I left the radio stations I was with and took a position working with my friend Kevin Mullett in the web-world and Kevin encouraged me to spend money and buy my own spot on the internet.  Not just a domain name like I had been doing, but a real hosted website.  It took a few months to design but I launched ScottHoward.me in October 2011 and moved over 10,000 article that I had written to the new website.   Also I want to emphasize that the dot me is only because the dot com version of my name is taken by a realtor in California.

The blogging articles never stopped on this website, although I slowed down to about 50 articles a year.  I used to do 50 per month, that’s how I got up to 10,000 in a short period of time.  Later this year, I will be writing my 15,000 article which is another accomplishment that not many people have done.

And before I tell you about the significance of 15,000 articles or 200 podcasts, here’s how the podcast even came about.

Our company, Federated Media, decided that it would be a great idea for someone to create an advertising or marketing podcast about 5 1/2 years ago.  I wasn’t in management at the time, but was writing these weekly articles on the subject so a couple of the managers asked me if I would consider switching to a podcast instead.

I told them I could do both.  With my on-air background, I knew how to do all the recording and production.  With my desire to continue writing, I created an audio version of what I was already doing.  Sort of like books on tape, read by the author.  It took a few weeks of planning including picking out theme music, and creating a logo after deciding on a name for the podcast and then it debuted 200 weekly episodes ago.

Here’s a few lessons that you may be able to apply.

  1. Do What You Are Passionate About.  There is no way, that I would still be writing weekly and then creating 200 podcast episodes if I didn’t care about this stuff.
  2. Do It When You Don’t Feel Like It.  There are times when I really don’t feel like writing or recording, or producing this material.  But I have found a way to push through those times, because they don’t last forever.  Here’s my secret… I usually have a few articles ready to go in advance.  That way when I don’t feel inspired, I can pull something I wrote from a day when I was feeling inspired and turn it into a podcast and publish it.
  3. Don’t Do It Only For The Money. Here’s another secret… Nobody pays me to write the articles or produce the podcast.  Which leads to my next lesson:
  4. Invest In Yourself. In real dollars, I have spent a few thousand bucks over the years making purchases for this website and the podcast. I have no real tangible way to measure the Return On Investment, dollar for dollar, but that’s okay.
  5. Invest In Others. That was the primary reason for starting my own website and blog and now 200 episodes of the Genuine ScLoHo Media and Marketing Podcast.  It’s not about me, it’s about sharing with others lessons and observations about Media, Marketing, and Life from this dude who just turned 61 years old on his last birthday.

There are plenty of others that I know that started a blog and after a few months, they quit.  Plenty of others who attempted to do a podcast but after awhile, they quit too.

The significance of sticking with it, that’s important.

Sticking with it doesn’t mean that you don’t make adjustments.  You have to adjust because the world is changing and you and I are changing too.

Quit smoking, quit drinking if you want, but don’t quit on yourself.  You can give up on many things, but don’t give up on your dreams and don’t give up on those around you.

Do the right thing and do it well.

 

The Power of Persistence

The Power of Persistence

by | Feb 4, 2020 | Marketing and Advertising Insights, Really? The Personal ScLoHo, The Not-So-Secret Writings of ScLoHo, WOWO Fort Wayne Radio Advertising with Scott Howard

Today I have a personal story to share with you and I’ve titled it the power of persistence.

The audio version of this article marks a milestone of 150.

This will be the 150th episode of the Genuine ScLoHo Media and Marketing Podcast.

Since I do weekly updates, that means nearly 3 full years under my belt of writing and producing a weekly podcast.

If you are a new reader or listener, indulge me for a moment while I tell you the back story of the podcast.

I work for Federated Media in Fort Wayne Indiana.  I joined them in 2013 as part of their advertising sales team for radio station WOWO. In 2016, our company started a podcast initiative and a couple of our local managers approached me to ask if I would be willing to create a sales podcast.  Why me?  I’ll get to that in a moment.

Anyway, I said yes and in December of 2016 I created the first 4 episodes of the Genuine ScLoHo Media and Marketing Podcast.  However due to staffing changes, over the holidays, the launch of the podcast was delayed a few months until March 2017.  In about 6 weeks, it will be 3 full years that I’ve been doing a weekly podcast on media and marketing.

The reason I was asked to launch a podcast was because of what I was doing and what I had done in the past.  Around 2004, I started writing and publishing a few blogs including a couple focused on media and marketing.  In 2011, when I launched this website, I migrated over 10,000 articles that I had published and included them here.  Hang on, how did I end up publishing over 10,000 articles in 7 years?  I would sometimes write up to 4 times a day, 7 days a week.  This was just a hobby and passion, believe it or not.  It was not my paying job, I was working full time for another group of radio stations back then.

My online activity over the years has continued week after week, non-stop, even when I took a break from radio and worked full-time in the web world.  If you dig back into the 14,000 plus articles I have published you’ll see what I wrote about during my time in the digital marketing profession.

But there is more to my background, I also spent a number of years behind the microphone as a radio personality of sorts.  I have the technical background to produce a podcast.

The Power of Persistence in marketing myself has paid off.

Ten years ago, when I was cranking out 20 or more articles every week, I was also invited to teach some college classes.  I was also asked to lead a couple of workshops on social media, digital marketing and personal branding.  I was named one of Northeast Indiana’s Top 101 connectors by Leadership Fort Wayne and was also nominated a few times for some statewide awards in social media.

6 years ago, this website won another award for the content I was putting out every week.

I never did this for the awards, I did it and do it as a creative outlet and to help others.

A couple more examples of the Power of Persistence pertaining to what I do.  This year I have had more people come find me, seeking me out to offer advice, plan their advertising and marketing and spend money due to my expertise.  The other day I was contacted by a local medical group after they found an article I originally wrote a few years ago.

They said:

It is refreshing to hear of the integrity and passion you have for your work, that was conveyed through the article we read about advertising.

We are very much looking forward to meeting with you!

The other example is a frequent comment I get and my co-workers get about radio ads that I have running on WOWO offering marketing tips similar to what I write and podcast about.  Nearly every week, someone tells me that they appreciate what I am sharing.

The Power of Persistence can work wonders for you and your business too.  I have some fantastic advertising partners and friends who have seen the Power of Persistence pay off for them.  Some are in their first couple years of business, others are over 70 years old.  They have been doing the right thing, the right way and letting others know that they are available to take care of them with their business expertise.

My advice to you, is to first off be honest.  Honest in every way with everyone.  Do the right thing, and keep doing the right thing every day, every week, every month, every year, persistently. And don’t be shy, let others know about you and invite them to do business with you.

It really works.  If you want my help contact me.  You can also sign up for my free Sound ADvice business tips email newsletter in the box below.

 

 

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Don’t Be Social Media Stupid with Your Business

Don’t Be Social Media Stupid with Your Business

by | Sep 17, 2018 | Marketing and Advertising Insights, ScLoHo's Web World, WOWO Fort Wayne Radio Advertising with Scott Howard

If you don’t own it, you and your business are at risk.  Years ago, my friend Kevin Mullett and I had this discussion and it’s true. Don’t Be Social Media Stupid with Your Business.

Let me explain.

Facebook is the world’s largest Social Media platform and they offer a multitude of ways for people like you and me to start a business, promote and grow a business, even become independently wealthy with a business that lives on Facebook.

The problem is if your business relies only on Facebook, you are eventually going to be hurt.

Facebook is your virtual landlord.  Except when you have a real landlord relationship, there are contracts that you read and sign.  Promises made by both parties and some guarantees for a period of time.

That’s not the way it works with Facebook or any of the other social media platforms.

Facebook can make changes and you have no say in the matter.

Does anyone remember reading the “Terms Of Service” when they signed up? Over 98% of us blindly just click on the checkbox without reading.

NBC news recently featured an article that included this story about a small business owner that relied on Facebook.

Holly Homer, an entrepreneur from Texas owns the Facebook pages for “Quirky Mama” and “Kids Activities.” With over 3 million followers, Homer’s Facebook page had become so popular she hired five employees and her husband quit his full-time medical job to help with the business. Homer showed NBC News a chart of interactions with her Facebook page that shows a decrease in February when Facebook implemented changes to News Feed.

As you can see, she was all-in when it came to running a Facebook based business. And that is where the problem lies. I did some of my own investigating and her Facebook page is Quirky Mama, but her website where she makes money is KidsActivities.com .  But Holly is using another short cut that echos the mistake she made with Facebook.  Her KidsActivities.com domain isn’t really her own website.  Sure she owns the domain, but it’s actually just a sub-website on the Maven domain.  Just like Facebook can change the rules, Maven can make changes and Holly will really be up the proverbial creek without a paddle.

I know this is sounding technical, so let’s talk in everyday language.  When you lease a car, you don’t own that car.  There are some benefits to leasing over buying but because you never owned that car, the only value is the immediate value of having that car to use.  You can’t sell it, because you never bought it.

If your business is built on someone else’s platform, like Facebook or Maven, in Holly’s case, she and her entire company are at risk of losing it all.  Holly says:

One of the Facebook policy changes that kind of went under the radar and it went into effect in February was the branded content policy. And it decreased my income from Facebook by 60 percent, overnight. No explanation.

Facebook cares about Holly and doesn’t care about Holly. They walk the fine line of working for the greater good. Their priorities begin with #1, that’s Facebook itself. Second on their list is their stockholders and then we have the users.  Facebook users fall into multiple categories. There’s you and me as a couple of individuals in the total Facebook universe of over a billion active users.

Holly and her business fall into another category.  Facebook is free for you and me to use, but not so much if we are using Facebook to promote our business.  Holly and other businesses have to pay to get their Facebook posts seen by the masses. Same is true for any organization that Facebook believes has money to spend to promote their message.

In the summer of 2013, I ran the social media department for a $50 million dollar e-commerce company.  Our average sale was under $100, so we had a lot of customers to make up that $50 million each year. That summer, I saw Facebook make a change in their algorithm that reduced the number of people my Facebook post were reaching by 75%.  Fortunately, I knew what to do, move some of my budget around and spend a little more.

Facebook is constantly making changes. All you can do is figure out how to adapt.  But there is something else you really need to do too.

Own your own online presence. If your only online presence is a Facebook page, Instagram account, Twitter handle, LinkedIn account, Snapchat account, or a free WordPress or Blogger website, prepare to lose it all.

That was part of the lesson I learned from my conversation with Kevin Mullett in 2011.  I had made a name for myself with a few marketing blogs that were hosted free on Google’s Blogger platform.  They are living there, you can find them if you Google ScLoHo.

However in 2011, I also bought my own domain and website hosting service for ScottHoward.me  It’s where all of my content lives.  I update every week still with a new story and article like this one.

Facebook and all the other social media platforms have a purpose still.  They are being used simply as a marketing tool, not a place to host a business.  Websites were around before social media.  A website without any publicity is not going to get any visitors.  Use social media as a tool to draw people to your website if you want, but please don’t confuse the two.

One more item from the 20 year old in my family, Jake.  He posted this on Facebook the other day:

Hey friends and fam ,
I will be deleting my Facebook account or at least the app because I have been really wanting to change my daily habits and my phone is not a good one .. so I will not be on here for at least a couple months but I hope each and every one of you continue to strive to be the best you can be each and every day.

Jake is Gen Z.  He’s in college.  He and others of his generation don’t care about or even trust Facebook anymore.  This is a another warning sign. I have advertising partners on WOWO Radio that use WOWO to drive traffic to their website.There are other ways besides social media to drive people to your website and we’ll talk about that soon.  In the meantime please remember this: If you don’t own it, you and your business are at risk.

Want help in figuring all this out and creating something more stable?  Let’s talk.