This coming Thursday, April 12, at 1.00pm Eastern / 12.00 noon Central / 10.00am Pacific / 6.00pm GMT, there’s going to be a special interactive Question and Answer session here on the blog.
Using the interactive features of the Livefyre comment system, my special guest will be Erika Napoletano, author of the new book The Power of Unpopular.
Erika is one of the smartest writers around today, and brings both smarts and a very sassy attitude (read – what you need to hear) to the business world.
Her new book has been praised as one of the best around when it comes to really resonating with the truly important people as far as your business goes, no matter how unpopular that may make you with certain decision-makers and audiences (hence the title).
Instead of me writing “just another book review” (although the book is that good, I’ll be breaking my “no book reviews” rule here again soon), Erika has agreed to be a “live guest” on this blog on Thursday.
So how’s it going to work?
Watch the video below, and let Erika give you a small overview of what Thursday will be about. Then, start thinking of questions you would like Erika to answer – on social media, branding, how unpopular can you be before you have no friends left, how to really connect (not just listen) and why it’s important, what part bloggers play in the new business landscape, and much, much more.
Seriously – if you have a question about “unpopularity” and its ramifications for your business, Erika is the gal to ask, and now’s your chance.
And to make you really get your thinking caps on, Erika will kindly be giving away a signed copy for the best question based around the book’s premise and your own business goals (or professional ones).
The difference is, this will all happen in the comments section.
Because Livefyre offers real-time live updates, it’s more like a chat system than your normal blog commenting system.
The cool thing is, when a new comment has been posted and you’re on the page, a little alert box pops up to say there’s a new comment (or several, if more than one new comment has been posted as you read).
You can then click on each alert, and it takes you directly to the new comment, so you can see what questions and views are being shared as soon as they’re posted.
So all you need to do is ask your question for Erika via the comments, and she’ll be spinning her fingers all over the place to respond. You can then reply to Erika, or anyone else’s comments, and really make it an interactive book overview and discussion like no other.
To take part, all you need to do is the following:
- Choose your profile. Because Livefyre is a profile comment system, you need to either have a Livefyre account (which you can create here by using the Get Livefyre option), or sign in to comment using your Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn, Google or OpenID profile. You’ll see these options under the Comment As option to the right of the comment box.
- Set yourself a reminder (I’ll be tweeting and using Facebook to send out occasional reminders) to be here between 5-10 minutes before 1.00pm on Thursday April 12 to watch the video again as a reminder for the chat.
- Get your questions ready, and fire away with your questions in the comment section from 1.00pm onwards.
- Be interactive – if you use the little “@” function when commenting, you can bring your friends from Facebook or Twitter into the conversation too. So if you think someone specific could be a great addition to the chat, invite away!
Like any live chat, there could be some technical gremlins, but hopefully not. The Livefyre guys are working behind the scenes to try and make it as smooth an experience for you as possible. And Erika has her gremlin-slapping gloves ready, just in case.
Hopefully you’ll join us on Thursday and have a bunch of great questions for Erika. I think this could be a lot of fun, and something to show how blog comments can really come alive, as well as learn about your business from a truly smart hostess.
Look forward to seeing you here – cheers!
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