For those who might not be familiar with Michael Hyatt, a little introduction might be in order. He was the CEO of Thomas Nelson Publishers, one of the largest publishing companies in the world, for a number of years. He currently serves as their Chairman. His blog is one of the most popular in the world. Michael’s posts on leadership, productivity, and social media consistently put him in the top ten most viewed blogs. He has built his personal platform for writing and public speaking to the point where he gets over four hundred thousand visitors a month. I figure anyone who gets almost half a million visitors a month is doing something right and I was thrilled when Michael’s new book, Platform was released.
The book
is a collection of many of Hyatt’s blogs on social media and creating a platform. They are expanded here and organized into several helpful sections. The first part of the book is about developing a “Compelling Product.” If we don’t have a product worth sharing or selling, we have no business creating a platform to market it. Hyatt quotes David Ogilvy, “Great marketing only makes a bad product fail faster.”
Assuming that I have a product, service, or cause that is compelling and needs to be marketed, the rest of Platform is devoted to creating a way to get my message to the masses, or at least to my tribe of followers. Hyatt understands that no one promotes my blog, my product, my message, or my service better than I do. One of the ways that this happens is through developing one’s on-line presence. Creating a significant on-line presence is the heart of Platform.
This starts with building a “Home Base.” Hyatt strongly urges the reader to make this the place where they focus most of their attention and energy. Hyatt’s Home Base is his blog. By creating a high quality, informative, and interesting blog, he has become one of the most visited websites on the internet. Platform provides some great practical advice on building a good Home Base. After one develops their blog or other type of Home Base, it is important that it be utilized and marketed correctly. Hyatt uses the illustration of putting a billboard in the middle of the desert. Just creating a great webpage is only half the battle. We have to get people to visit it. This is where learning how to properly use social media comes in. Platform gives some great tips for harnessing the power of Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn, Google+, etc. Used properly,they will help point people to our Home Base and give us a platform in a noisy world.
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