Boiling Point - Episode 013 - Mike Brooks

Mike Brooks is a podcast pioneer and marketing guru coming to the Boiling Point from Southbury, Connecticut. Our host, Greg Hemmings, met him and Dino Dogan at this past NMX (New Media Expo) and soon was on Mike and Dino’s Road to TED podcast. Check out the episode of Boiling Point with Dino Dogan here.

Mike studied IT and worked in the business for 10 years when a taekwondo school he attended was about to close up due to hard times. Mike saw this as a perfect opportunity and quit his day job in IT to help rebuild and market the martial arts school. Mike put a great deal of effort into the school and specifically its digital footprint. This was at the leading edge of when the internet was really starting to mean something for small business.  Mike created content for the school in terms of blogs, social media, videos, podcasts, etc. and soon the school at six times the number of students it had when Mike first started. Others in the community started to notice and within six years other business owners would hire Mike to consult for them and duplicate his great results. After 10 years of being involved with the martial arts school, Mike sold his share back to his partner and already had a full fledged marketing consultancy firm. He hasn’t looked back since.

Mike is the owner of Nuclear Chowder, a marketing firm that designs and hosts websites, search engine optimization, guides business in social media, develops apps for mobile devices, and something we were very interested in, reputation management. So why would someone come to Nuclear Chowder to have their reputation managed? Well, imagine you get arrested for a crime you didn’t even commit. The media writes about how you may have committed this crime and its all over newspapers, television, and the web. A few months later, the case is thrown out or you are found innocent, but all that media coverage is still out there. When a client googles your name, all they see is all sorts of bad stuff, and anything positive about you is down three pages in the results. This scenario could be disastrous for people in business and can be financially crushing. However, if you contact Nuclear Chowder, Mike has a process that can bring back more of the positive content about you and drop the negative stuff. Namely, Mike would start to flood the internet with the clients own content including websites, blogs, posts to social media, pictures, videos, etc.

As mentioned before, Mike was a pioneer in the podcasting game, starting back in 2006. For Mike, podcasting is another form of marketing. Consumers on the internet want content in every medium. The more content you put out to the world, the more credible you become, and things like podcast allow you to build a rapport with your customers without ever meeting them. There are millions of blogs on the internet and endless videos on the internet, but only around 250,000 podcasts (plus or minus). Consider as well that podcasts are more intimate and personal, and it is the next best thing to actually having a conversation in someone’s living room. Mike’s suggestions for podcasters are simple. Sound like you are smiling when you are talking, try to post at the same time each week, have charisma, and be authentic. Having engaging guests is important as well as being consistent. 

Return on investment may not seem apparent from loading the internet with content, but it works. Mike has been hired because of his podcast, but more often its a combination of all of the content he puts out into the world. Content can be just as good as a business referral because people truly believe you are an authority and your content builds trust.

Links

Mike's Social Media/Contacts

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