EPISODE 2

Tables of Contents

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Feature Of The Month04Creative Driver

Guy Kawasaki on Social Media

#DoingItRight:

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How to be a Successful Blogger

Jeff Bezos: $250 Million

New Clients

Letter From The Editor

Thank You!

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The Youzus Report• Social Media Advice •

• Interviews with Social Media Rockstars •

• Creative Articles •

Your one stop shop for all things social media.

Kuya Productions discussthe relationship between music and social media

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There is not a day that does not go by that I don’t think about what I can doto make Youzus better

than it was yesterday, and sometimes I get extreme anxiety in those moments I don’t feel as though I’m doing

enough. And then there comes those moments, just minutes before we are about to execute this magazine for example, that I get goose bumps. To think that I have a team that cares about the vision, mission and passion of this company as much as I do leaves me speechless....no....breathless.

They say it takes a village to raise a child, but I say it takes a solid team to raise a good boss. A few days a go a friend of mine said something interesting, “Rather than always trying to ‘manage’, ask to be ‘managed up’. Interesting right? It basically means that your team should be teaching you as much as you are teaching them. Just as a child can teach a parent about humility, your team can also do the same.

Thus that being said, I would like to encourage all of you leaders, founders, CEO’s and managers out there to commemorate your team, because without your team there would probably be no business.

To my team: You Rock. (Why thank you)

Sonya Gill

IN TER

VIEWS A M M Y A N D B O B B Y

GERONGCOG r a m m y n o m i a te d , m u l t i - p l a t i n u m mus ic p rod uc t ion duo f rom Toron to

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Q. Q.When people hit you up, how do you pick and choose who to work with?

What are your major turn offs when it comes to up and coming artists?

When people reach out to you, how do you choose who to work with?There are 2 ways really, I’ve been looking for their commitment. When we get emails through Twitter, Facebook, or direct emails, I look for how much they are investing in their career, we can see the difference between people who have just recorded a couple covers, versus someone who has already gone into the studio recorded their own demos and are already gaining experi-ence on their own and have a thirst for suc-cess, ultimately how invested they already are. How far they are in terms of creating their audience, how active they are on twit-ter, do they have the drive.

“I like to find artists who are hustling already.”

I also like finding raw talent. Artists just getting started, that have a unique tone or interesting songs , that makes a huge difference for me as well. Song writing is especially attractive since it comes across authentic when the songs are an actual ex-pression of their lives.

1. I hate looking at social media that seems fake, like artists that are constantly brag-ging, saying they’ve written a smash every day on Facebook or Twitter. If you’re going to spend all this time branding your content online make sure the product is amazing and that you are working on your craft rig-orously.

2. If they have a lot of friends but not a lot of material that’s a good sign they are not authentic. Too many artists will spend mon-ey to make it look official.

3. People hitting me up all the time, every hour, daily all the time. We do check our emails and messages and we usually get to each of them at our earliest convenience. I know it can be difficult to sit back and be patient, but negative or demanding com-ments won’t help either. The internet is a fantastic way to meet new artists so good communication is key. 4. Young artists are mentioning us on their page as if we have been friends forever as a way of promoting themselves. This really bothers me, because they falsely use our name to try and promote themselves.

S A M M Y A N D B O B B Y

GERONGCOG r a m m y n o m i a te d , m u l t i - p l a t i n u m mus ic p rod uc t ion duo f rom Toron to

Q. What are some qualities you think an artist must have to be successful?

Things are moving so fast, you have to be knowledgeable in everything.

There are 2 different types of artist, ones that are exceptional and have undeniable talent that speaks for itself, real vocalists and songwriters... real artists. They don’t need to hustle on social media, because once they have a product to release every-one is already excited. For instance I don’t go online to look for information on Adele. She has great music and really you want to buy her CD and hope to see her one day live in concert.

There’s the other type of artists called en-tertainers. For entertainers social media can do wonders. Artists like PSY that create big videos and new dances for online view-ers to watch over and over again because they want to learn the dance moves. Artists now need to be able to do a bit of every-thing, if they can write and sing, produce and direct their music video, they are al-ready ahead of the game.

“You can really see the success of these younger artists now because

of their social media presence.”

Soulja Boy is an example of a YouTube sen-sation. Drake also really capitalized on that, he really embraced social media and put out music that the world could get with a single click.

5. People sending friend requests over Facebook with no message.

Q.

Q.

What are some out of the box ways to get noticed, and go viral?

What are some of your top avenues for the most current information?

It really comes down to the music first, it should really speak for itself. Make sure you have something you are extremely proud of; strong music. And how does your brand connect to the music and vice versa.

If it’s a mix tape then you should have some professional visuals that go with it, once you have an online campaign you can use those pictures maybe even create lyric videos. Anything that brings added value.

There’s many ways that are effective. If you are an artist who is great live, you can con-tinue to do YouTube videos, if that works for you. Some people are great at putting up videos and can get people to keep com-ing back. Like Karmin and their Chris Brown Look At Me Now cover. Or like the Weekend was all about mystery, but the music was exceptional. The thing is that its not going to connect if the music isn’t that good.

But sometimes you might need a co-sign like Drake and Lil Wayne. But when you have the support the music better be good.

Billboard music, that’s me trying to get information on the music industry, Twitter feeds, Facebook feeds, that’s where I get most of it. Various music bloggers.

What sound is viral right now?

How do you think artists should use social media com-pared to the average person?

An average person usually says everything on their mind. Artists need to be strategic with what they are putting out. But at the end of the day if an artist wants to put out personal stuff and connect with their audi-ence, there’s nothing wrong with that. I like how Rihanna is out there, it seems real. I feel like I get glimpse of who she really is and as fans you want that.The media grabs every little thing out there so careful what you put out there.

In general, you do want to roll out slow and effectively. Little bits of info sent out in an interesting way will definitely make me stop and check out an artist page.

House music has been the thing recently, I also feel things are changing and is more of an organic style. Pop music is really big right now, anything that’s pop is going viral, dance has gone pop, and Hip Hop went pop. Disco seems to be in right now also.

Q.

Q.

JRDN Canada’s #1 R&B/pop ArtistThe first act to be released under the Kuya Productions label.

We Believe in Celebrating our Milestones! As a growing company, sometimes it’s hard to see your progress and we highly suggest

you take a moment and look back at your achievements. So... mid month, our team took

a field trip to Toronto Island and snapped this awesome picture of the city skyline.

...stop and smell the rosesv

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Guy Kawasaki is social media gold dust. In 1984 he was responsible for marketing the Macintosh at Apple and in the 30 years since has published a series of tech-relat-ed books, founded a venture capital firm and launched news aggregation service Alltop.com. He has 1.3 million followers on Twitter and 210,000 on Facebook, all glued to his updates.

He explains how he organises profiles that connect with large audiences: “When it comes to Twitter, my success stems from providing interesting links that people share. These ‘retweets’ put me in front of new people who follow me too. There is a group of sources that feed my account, including Alltop, a website I founded to aggregate and summarise great stories, linking to the original source. “I also repur-pose posts from Google+ and Facebook for tweets and I use Tweetdeck to respond to ‘@-mentions’ of @GuyKawasaki and direct messages; these are always me and never ghost written in my name. “Google+ is the core of my social media existence.

I see it as the Macintosh of social media, it’s better, used by fewer people and con-demned by ‘experts’. My posts here are di-verse and, like Twitter, I call on a range of sources. “I have three main tips for build-ing a community on Google+: only post when you are cogent.

I wake up in the night and check the ‘What’s Hot’ feed from Alltop, but I don’t post until the next morning when I’m alert and able to write an engaging post. “The second tip is schedule your updates so they are well-spaced. You can do this through ‘Do Share’, an extension for Google Chrome.

Lastly, get rid of trolls. Think of your Google+ account as your swimming pool; if people pee in it, throw them out. “I have two perso-nas on Facebook, one is my personal profile and the other is my brand page. I operate them differently. My assistant monitors my Google+ account and manually adds many, but not all, to Facebook. Some are not ap-propriate for Facebook and there’s no way to tag ones that are. “I monitor comments and respond to them as time permits; my assis-tant never acts as me so I either respond or there is no response at all. I do the same for LinkedIn, but I rarely respond to comments as there are fewer here. This could be self-fulfilling, but I have to draw the line some-where.

“In total, the above plus managing my Pinter-est account is the work of one full-time per-son. In addition, I spend three to four hours per day creating my own posts, commenting and responding. This is how I manage my so-cial presence as of June 2013, but stay tuned because my procedures are ever-changing.”

Following Social MediaINTERVIEW: How does a social media superstar

perfect his profile? Dan Matthews finds out

This article is property of the Raconteur written by Dan Matthews.v

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Increasing consumer interaction by 110% is not easy. It’s damn right gold medal wor-thy if you can pull it off. That’s why for this week’s #DoingItRight list we are highlight-ing the genius behind Oreo’s Marketing campaign. They have taken their brand to entirely different social level, a powerhouse if you will, with some of the most innovative marketing campaigns in the industry. Here are some the reasons why Oreo is #DoingItRight:

They don’t sleep!Well at least it seems that way. Oreo’s mar-keting executives took full advantage of the power outage at the Super Bowl this year with a tweet that was recognized glob-ally for its timing and wit. While most of us were bantering about the power outage or gossiping about Beyoncé’s performance, Oreo marketers wasted no time in gather-ing up the team, and creating a simple yet effective tweet on a dimes notice. This kind of real time marketing is what makes their strategy hard to beat. Exceptional.

They are current and relevant!This is one the golden rules of the market-ing industry… actually, scrap that, it is the golden rule. Last year Oreo created a Daily Twist Campaign from June 25th to October 2nd , everyday a cookie would be designed to show the significance of that day.

Their ability to reach a mass audience dem-onstrates the simplicity and effectiveness of this campaign. The company states that this campaign alone boosted 5 million likes dur-ing its run. Whoa!

They twisted out some fun!The main purpose of social media is to en-gage, and it’s even more engaging if you’re making people laugh. The deal breaker for us would have to be the sheer enjoyment we get from reading the stuff! Oreo’s campaigns literally made us laugh out loud!

On Twitter, they wouldn’t limit their engage-ment with just their followers, tweets that would ruffle the competitor’s feathers were also skillfully and tastefully done. You can’t help but giggle at the responses they gen-erated!

Oreo’s social media mastery should be used as an example of being sharp, timely and engaging. I’m excited to see how they will inspire even more creative runs at tapping into the unlimited potential of the social me-dia landscape.

Oreo’s definitely #DoingitRight!

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t’s an old belief that by studying every book, paper and post-it writ-ten about one particular topic will catapult you into success. It’s the

reason why people spend years in school to master one particular subject, in hopes of a job waiting for them on the other side. It doesn’t usually happen that way.

In the world of social media, just knowing one thing won’t guarantee you success in reaching the masses. It’s frustrating, we know. But you have to take a step back and honestly ask yourself “am I able to adapt quickly and with ease” most will answer yes, but are not ready. Here are some tips for those of us with an academic background and are itching to share it with the masses!

1. You’re Not Writing A Paper

One key thing in academia is the ability to write what you know. The hardest part about getting into blogging is to adopt a particular style of writing that will draw in a bigger variety of readers. We’re not saying to write your blog in a conversational fash-ion, like most. However, you want to keep your language borderline academic but not chaotic with complex language.

For example, you see the difference: The epitome of deep sea diving and its psycho-logical weight OR How Deep sea diving ef-fects a diver’s ability to mentally function?

Why “Just Knowing Your Stuff”

Won’t Make You successful Blogger

2. Keep It Short And To The Point

I know you’re passionate about what you’re writing about and everyone has to know every detail and blah blah blah blah blah! STOP! LOOK and DELETE!

The average attention span of today’s generation of computer users is 8 seconds, and if they use that 8 seconds to figure out what the blog is about, there’s a fat chance that they will read it. Sadly, it could be the best written, clearly articulated and thought provoking blog ever, but if you can’t get people to read it, it might as well be a banner ad that no one pays attention to.

Keep it under 500 words MAXIMUM, but 300 is better (ain’t no body got time for’dat!)

3. You’re Not Competing

Don’t think of blogging as a competition, and don’t treat your readers as such. Don’t be ice cold. Invite your followers for a beer (figuratively speaking), talk about their lives, gossip a bit, and make them feel wel-come. You want them to feel as if they are interacting with a real person, not many people get turned on by a textbook.

Do all of this virtually and you will grow your following organically.

I

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Hence why this shocking move to buy out the Washington post could be seen as an act of mental instability to most. However, Bezos is no stranger to market-ing techniques that capture audiences, Amazon.com does it beautifully. Amazon was able to develop a culture of e-books, they strategically moved with the customer when book sales were suffering. Re-invent-ing how we consume literature electroni-cally. As Bezos puts it, “you are planting the seeds” that is to say that some will sprout with proper nurturing, did the Kindle.

So the question is, how will this experi-enced internet conglomerate turn around the Washington post?

As speculation builds, it will be interesting to monitor the changes to come in the Post, as they will be imperative to the papers survival in this digital age. With increased competition, perhaps a new innovative way to relate to the news content is hiding un-der Jeff Bezos’s blazer sleeve.

Jeff bezos “$250 Million...in Cash”

That’s how much American internet entrepreneur Jeff Bezos paid for the Washington post. Cold. Hard. Cash. And that’s the way to do it.

But why the Washington post? It’s not sur-prise that with the rise of the internet came the fall of the once “conventional” methods of information transmission, more notably Newspapers. Newspapers fell to the back-side when it came to providing the most up to the minute information compared to the internet. Therefore it’s not surprising that newspapers are lacking when it comes to addressing the constant shift in audience needs.

The Washington post, and newsrooms around the world have been described by journalist Robert J. Samuelson as “job graveyards”, newspaper revenue has been on the sharp decline since 2003, falling

from 44.9 billion from print adver-tising to 18.9 billion in 2012, ac-cording to Pew Research Centre.

newclients

Omar Borkan Al GalaKicked out of Saudi Arabia for being too sexy... we’re proud to add him to the Youzus lineup.

Derrick RutledgeMake Up Artist of Oprah Winfrey is proud to annouce his new line of salon care product,

called OOH Lifestyle

KPMG EnterpriseOne of the biggest accounting firms in Canada. Helping entrepreneurs and small business owners grow their business.

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Apps That Make Your Life Easier

Mint.comCardMunch

Airdroid Jott

Instapaper

Editor-in-Chief

The wonderful thing about being surrounded by cre-

ative people is that your mind is always blown! It has been an

incredible experience working with the team to stay up to date on all the

latest trends in social media.

Many think that social media skills are uni-versal, well one th ing you should get from

this issue is that like everything, success takes time, hard work, and persistence; this includes

social media. We are here to offer you all the tools and tricks to be successful, ones that work for

us.

"Be the change you want to see in the world." - Ghandi

We are diligent in scoping out the most current and effective ways to grow your social media and become successful. We are on the way to be-

coming the go-to resource for personal and business development.

This issue has grown from the last and will continue to grow, we are happy to have you along for the ride.

Success is a state of mind, get on that and ride it out to the stars.

Courtny Vaz

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Editor-in-ChiefCourtny Vaz

~Creative Director

Lisa Tyldesley~

PublishersSonya Gill

Kristen Rubisch

Special thank you to Sammy and Bobby Gerongco for being our feature this month.

It’s better than Christmas for us and it’s just around the corner! Ladies and

gents, Social Media Week! We’re excited

and we hope to see you there :)

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