Joel - Six pixels of separation: everyone is connected: connect your business to everyone

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Copyright 2009 by Mitch Joel

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First eBook Edition: September 2009

ISBN: 978-0-446-55814-3

Cells before Pixels

Ali and JulienI love you with all of my heart, soul, cells, and pixels. You are my inspiration.

Since 2003, I have been putting my thoughts, ideas, inspirations, and frustrations into a blog called Six Pixels of SeparationThe Twist Image Blog.

Admittedly, this was never my intention or plan. From the mid-1980s on, my career was in journalism. Sure, I would write the occasional piece for free to build credibility, prove that I could write for a well-respected editor, or get into a publication I admired, but the cardinal rule was: Never write for free. After all, what kind of business could I possibly generate if I was giving away the final product?

When I joined my fellow business partners at Twist Image in 2003 to build our vision of a modern-day digital marketing and communications agency, I took one look around our closet-sized office space and asked, How are we going to build this business and get our name out there? At the time, we had one employee and a client list you could count on one hand of a bad high-school woodshop teacher. The prospect of building Twist Image was daunting. Then it struck me: I have a lot of thoughts about the marketing, communications, and advertising business as it currently is. I have a passion for helping others to achieve their business goals, and I was still more than slightly interested in writing.

FROM PAID TO FREE?

But I ran into an immediate hurdle. No marketing industry magazines would let me write for them. I was unproven. I was a part of a start-up. They could not give me valuable pages in their magazines to wax poetic about the power of new media. Around this time I heard about a new online service called Blogger. Blogging was still very nascent and it was much more about being an online journal than a commercial and viable way to grow your business.

My first posts were pretty embarrassing, but slowly I began to find my voice. I began to realize that the process I had used to publish my own magazines (several years before joining Twist Image) was now extinct. In the old days (about two years before 2003), you would write an article, it would go to the editor, he or she would send it off to the production team, they would mock it up onto a page, sell some advertising, produce final films, print it, and distribute it, and by the time it hit the streets I had forgotten what I had written. But now I could type my thoughts on a word processor, copy and paste them into Blogger, hit the publish button, andvoilmy words were available to the world (and those who were interested in finding them). Slowly, the blog started getting the attention of mainstream media. Between offers for speaking gigs and being asked to be a source in print publications and in mainstream media, I had a realization that writing for free was an amazing way to build community and get clients in the door.

YOULL NEVER KNOW UNLESS YOU TRY

People are constantly saying things like Okay, Mitch, we get it, but can you show me someone who has really grown their business by doing all of this stuff? Most people see my company as it is today: multiple offices, over seventy employees, and world-class clients. They wonder where I find the time for all of this social media stuff. Heres the truth: All of my past and current personal successes in life, from the growth of Twist Image to the mass media attention to the publishing deal that put this book in your hands, has been because of these online channels. Nothing more. Nothing less. Its sometimes hard for me to say this because I dont like using myself as an example. The reality is that my business partners and I have built a multi-million-dollar business by doing everything youre about to read on the following pages.

ITS SERIOUS

The advantage is that most businesspeople still see the digital channel as a joke. They dont take it seriously. They think its nothing more than a time suck. The good news is that the more people think like that, the wider the opportunity is for you to do your thing, make your own noise, and grow your online community and business while they look around wondering whats happening to their market share.

Most businesspeople still dont read blogs. They dont listen to podcasts, and theyre not even thinking about smartphones and Netbooks. This book is meant to break the fishbowl. It is meant to give the entrepreneur, the business manager, the vice president, the CEO, and anyone else in the business world who is not engaged in these channels a better understanding not only of what they are and why they are important, but also of how to use them. Not in technical speak and not in online jargon, but in business talk. Six Pixels of Separation is filled with stories of individuals and personal anecdotes of people who have used these channels and what they did to make their mark.

Whether the economy is still in a slump or clawing its way back to life by the time this book hits the shelves, one thing will still be for certain: all of us are going to be doing a lot more with a lot less. The digital channels were meant to do just that. Your business has been forced to change over the past couple of years. As a result, there has never been a more important time to understand the myriad digital channels and free publishing tools that are right here in front of youat your fingertipsand are relatively cheap, or free, and easy to use. By using these tools, you are going to learn how to do more with less.

By understanding how this information flows online, by being engaged and connected, and by creating your own content, you will begin to unravel how much more efficient you can be as a business. I wrote this book to explain how I did it, so that you can do it too.