Developing a platform is not easy, that is why Platform by Michael Hyatt was written.
Read this post to see how I put 5 out of the book’s 60 insights into action.
Book Table of Contents
Introduction: All The world Is a Stage (00:09:14)
1: Create a Compelling Product (00:05:51)
2: Baking a WOW (00:08:21)
3: Exceed Market Expectations (00:09:55)
4: Beware of The Obstacles (00:03:27)
5: Don’t Settle For Less Than Great (00:06:06)
6: Give Your Product a Memorable Name (00:05:06)
7: Wrap The WOW In Style (00:06:03)
8: Accept Personal Responsibility (00:03:57)
9. Think Bigger Know Bigger (00:05:25)
10: Define Your Platform Goals (00:03:21)
11: Create an Elevator Pitch (00:05:48)
12: Setup Your Branding Tools (00:05:31)
13: Assemble Your Pit-Crew (00:06:07)
14: Secure Raving Endorsements (00:05:57)
15: Get a Great Headshot (00:03:50)
16: Develop an Online Media Kit (00:10:39)
17: Understand the Model (00:02:56)
18: Focus Your Efforts Online (00:03:20)
19: Beware of Self Proclaimed “Social Media Experts” (00:02:33)
20: Start a Blog or Re-Start One (00:08:50)
21. Create the Content Yourself (00:02:47)
22. Use a Blog Post Template (00:02:58)
23: Develop a List of Post Ideas (00:05:11)
24: Write Blogs Faster (00:04:51)
25. Create Video Interviews (00:04:16)
26. Don’t Hire a Proofreader (00:02:15)
27. Protect Your Intellectual Property (00:05:20)
28: Avoid Common Blogging Mistakes (00:04:38)
29: Create an About Page (00:06:37)
30: Develop Your Landing Pages (00:05:44)
31: Building a Speaking Page (00:08:30)
32: Forget About Metrics for Now (00:02:00)
33: Kiss Marketing Goodbye (00:04:43)
34: Understand What’s Not Important (00:02:30)
35: Generate More Blog Traffic (00:06:53)
36: Build Your Subscriber List (00:05:58)
37: Promote Your Older Posts (00:04:26)
38: Write Guest Posts (00:04:05)
39: Give Stuff Away (00:03:50)
40: Stop Losing Readers (00:02:35)
41: Watch These Metrics (00:03:41)
42: Embrace Twitter (00:04:44)
43: Understand Twitter Basics (00:11:39)
44: Don’t Write Off Twitter (00:05:17)
45: Devote 30 Minutes a Day (00:01:46)
46: Get More Twitter Followers (00:07:46)
47. Keep from Getting Unfollowed (00:05:23)
48: Use Twitter to Promote Your Product (00:05:46)
49: Setup a Facebook Fanpage (00:05:05)
50: Employ Consistent Branding (00:02:14)
51: Be Prepared for Intentional Media (00:07:39)
52: Get More Blog Comments (00:03:41)
53: Don’t Respond to Every Comment (00:01:43)
54: Keep the Conversations Civil. (00:03:16)
55: Develop a Comment Policy (00:03:12)
56: Practice the 20 to 1 Rule (00:02:36)
57: Monitor Your Brand (00:03:32)
58: Protect Your Brand (00:11:24)
59: Don’t Feed the Trolls (00:02:32)
60: Monetize Your Blog (00:03:49)
Conclusion: Take The First Step (00:04:14)
Decision Process
In the previous book I summarized – Superfans, there was a referal to this book, which reminded me that I have already listened this book because of a referal – and so I decided to re-listen to it and summarize it this time.
Book Attributes
Author
Michael Hyatt is:
-The author of 5 international bestselling books.
-The owner of michaelhyatt.com which is a part of Inc.5000 fastest growing companies 3 years in a row.
-The former CEO of a 250 million $ Corporation (Thomas Nelson Publishing).
And also
-Has a strong following on Twitter (269.9k), Facebook (342k) and Website/Blog (133k visits for August 2021).
Length
Physical/Audio : 288 pages/5h 13m
Reviews
It has 884 reviews on Amazon.com 90% of which are 5 and 4 stars as of 18.09.21
Introduction
As Michael says in his introduction – All the world is a stage. Even if we do the first part of our marketing journey which is creating a WOW product which exceeds the consumer’s expectations and really helps people, we still need a platform to bring it to market and sell, just having the product is not enough. This book concentrates on exactly that.
5 Ideas from 5 Parts of the book (Out of 60 Ideas)
Part 1 - Start With Wow - Idea 1 - Create a Compelling Product
"Great marketing only makes a bad product fail faster"
According to Michael, before starting to build a platform, we should start with an amazing product that will create word of mouth marketing, the product should create such an amazing experience that people will just not be able to withstand the temptation and will have to share it with their friends!
In Practice
I subscribe to first building an audience and then building a product. Meanwhile, I may try to setup affiliate products and advertising. This is what John from Bulldog Mindset suggests, and it appears to make sense to me.
Though I consider my product for now to be the blog reviews and the animation videos, and those should definitely be WOW, that’s why I shall put creating a “Putting Ideas into practice” video in addition to the animation video summary to the queue of Improvement tasks. Would love to hear your thoughts on this.
Part 2 - Prepare to Launch - Idea 14 -Secure Raving Endorsements
Endorsements provide validation and authority – It is essential to have some to launch a platform well.
You may get either User or Celebrity endorsements in 5 steps. 1.Creating a Great Product, 2. Making a prospect endorsers list, 3.Getting one endorsement and leveraging it for more, 4. Asking for the endorsement without beating around the bush. 5. Providing a deadline for the endorsement.
In Practice
So, 1. My product is mostly Animation videos, and not the blog, because I consider this blog not to have a strong USP (for now).
2. Those may be either the book authors or anyone else from the “Dream 100” who wishes to help his audience learn marketing through books.
3. I have just sent my first request, upon writing this sentence. (Will let you know in the next post if it works out)
4 and 5 do not require further explanation I believe (I only used 4 in my request though..)
Part 3 - Build Your Home Base - Idea 18 - Focus Your Efforts Online
Michael Advocates for online advertising, because he claims that for example in TV, only a small amount of the people are your potential customers and know your brand. On the contrary, online there are people who are eagerly waiting for your next communication. And of course marketing is a must, having a great product is not enough.
"If you build it they won't come"
In Practice
All I do is digital marketing, since I don’t have a product yet, as explained in part 1. So, I guess there’s not a lot to apply here.
One thing I got reminded of though is that my main CTA is to get newsletter subscribers, and I don’t measure those by video, rather I have one landing page for all the youtube videos, I shall create a new page with a new form for each video from now on, to measure each video’s main CTA individually.
And I’ll be able to see in ConvertKit from which video I got the most subscribers. Just like the image below but with 1 unique form, page and link for each video.
Part 4 - Extend Your Reach - Idea 40 - Stop Losing Readers
If we want to grow our blog – Michael describes us the mail that he would like us to receive.
This mail is written by a fan who informs us that sadly he stopped reading our blog because of these 6 reasons.
1. Our titles are boring, 2. We don’t use examples or metaphors, 3.We don’t post with frequency
4. Our posts are too long, 5. Our posts have no central idea, 6. We don’t reply to our comments or mails.
In Practice
1. Will try to evoke more emotion with the titles, though I’ve already been doing that.
2. I started writing these “In practice” parts – Seems like a good start 🙂
3 and 4. Well, either I reduce the length of the posts and the thoroughness of my summaries or Perhaps it is acceptable for a book review blog.
5. Niched down to Marketing instead of Self-Improvement as a result of reading laws 5,12,13 of the 22 immutable laws of marketing and other books that advised on it earlier.
6. After the idea “Return Every Handshake” from Superfans, started paying more attention to that.
Part 5 - Engage Your Tribe - Idea 52 - Get More Blog Comments
Comments have kept Michael going through the tough times for years, here are 7 strategies to increase them
1. End your post with a question, 2. Use a comment system that allows users to reply to each other,
3. Display your comment count in a visible place. 4. Allow for guest commenting
5. Reply to your comments, 6. Reward Your Best Commenters 7. Don’t Overreact to criticism
In Practice
1. In this post: Is this post too long?, 2. Installed, 3. Have updated the related articles sections in all posts to display comment count (See first Image below) 4. Done ( See second image below )
5. No comments yet, hope that will change soon.. 6 + 7 let there be comments first.. 🙂
Comments are allowed without a requirement to fill Name/E-mail/Website
My General Experience of Platform by Michael Hyatt
I’m not sure that I’m able to count how many takeaways did I just Implement, but that is more than the average book…
While reading the book I noticed a lot of resistance on my part to the contents, I.E. start Twitter, reduce the length of posts and increase frequency.
Nonetheless, from what it seems, Michael really went all out and explained all of his tricks as transparently as he could, and, well, it seems that a lot of it is still relevant 9 years after the book was published…
Rating (6 Parameters)
Narration
Clarity of Speech
Fluency
Were there any gulps, voice jumps? Recording interruptions? The higher the score – the less interruptions.
Answer: I only remember one interruption in which he just kept speaking instead of re-recording 6/6
Expressing Emotions
Plot
Is there a storyline? How connected is one Idea to the one before it?
Answer: The parts are in an orderly manner mostly, but that is not really the only order it can be done, and the Ideas within each part are mostly standalone, so they could be applied in any time sequence.
Plus this is a marketing book so there’s no plot to be expected. N/A
Heading Distribution
When I read the headings, can I recall the contents?
Answer: Even though there are so many chapters I was able to recall most of the contents after reading the headings 8/10
Drive For Implementation
How much does the book push you to apply it’s contents?
Visuals
Does it use images or other resources to transfer it’s message?
Answer: Though there are some redirections to resources like his speaking page and other examples, I believe he could have done better with a PDF or some other supplementary image resources. 3/6
Direct Calls to Action
How often does the author prompt you to apply the ideas in the book?
Answer: Though Michael does not call you to action all the time, the book itself is written as a sort of step by step guiding manual which as of itself drives to application. 5/6
Providing Actual Specific Details
Examples
How often are examples provided to explain a point, and how well do they portray the ideas?
Answer: Michael does present some great examples, but a lot of the Ideas are presented just as step-by-step guides, therefore, have no story-like examples. 14/20
Content
Final Rating
Narration – 20/20
Plot – N/a
Heading Distribution – 8/10
Drive for Implementation – 15/20
Examples – 14/20
Content – 25/30
Final Rating – 82/100
Conclusion
Michael says that we have 2 choices, 1 is take the first step, and the second is just rewind and live our lives thinking “What if I followed-through”. Let’s keep fighting the good fight Improve Mentors, take over our fears and the voices that say “Social media takes too much time” or “I have to write longer posts” and just give Michael’s advice a try… What is there to lose anyway?
"You just have to take the first step, the rest will take care of itself."
Was this post too long for you?
Will be waiting for your response in the comments below.