Anyone running a business or non-profit knows how important are one’s personal drive and skills if he wants to survive. Christopher Columbus, a man who overcame overwhelming obstacles, is often forgotten by today’s cultural elite, which often denies achievements key to Western civilization.

Columbus wouldn't quit.

Called by some the greatest navigator of his day, Columbus combined the qualities of long-suffering and smart network connections to achieve the discovery of the Americas (whoops, “European awareness of the American continents,” as Wikipedia says).

He was probably only 19 when he became a mariner, and got his idea of sailing west to reach the Far East when he was only 20 or 23. Some say the idea was suggested by his brother Bartholomeo, who was maker of sea maps. It took Columbus twenty long years to get the financial backing of King Ferdinand and Queen Isabella of Spain in 1492 for his historic voyage.

After appealing to royalty and nobility through a network of friends in Portugal, Spain, France and England, he was traveling away from the court in Spain, where his idea had been again rejected. At a poverty level, he stopped at a Dominican friary with his son and asked the porter to allow his son to rest overnight there. The head of the friary, Friar Perez, overheard the conversation and questioned Columbus.  The Dominican priest, who was the queen’s confessor, liked Columbus’ plan and went quickly to the Spanish court.

An important fact here is that the Moors, who had occupied Spain for some eight hundred years, lost their last battle to the Christian forces at Granada, perhaps a few weeks before Columbus’s visit to the friary, thus freeing up the attention of King Ferdinand. Friar Perez then persuaded the queen to support the enterprise. Columbus was then called to court (he received some money up front for clothes since he was dressed almost like a beggar), and the rest is history.

Columbus was persevering. He kept trying, even after many rebuffs. It all shows what networking, perseverance and - how important here - good timing will do. Oh, and if we’re talking success here, he never reached his goal of finding a trade route to the Indies. He just achieved something entirely different, but certainly good.

Facebook has gained a lot of attention lately as a marketing tool. It was recently announced that 300 million people worldwide now use this social media tool. That’s the entire population of the United States.

The Chicago Tribune last week recounted the story of Tim Ireland, a Chicago area real estate agent who uses Facebook to attract new clients. The agent is happy with social media and says he cannot afford a website (whoops - since I’m a web designer, I guess I shouldn’t say that).

“For me, Facebook works,” Ireland said. “I don’t post listings [of homes] there, but I do talk to 60 to 70 percent of my clients there.” He gets to know people there and builds a relationship of trust.

Another person interviewed, Patrick Shaver, a builder of custom homes, was invited to a Ferrari unveiling through his LinkedIn account and met several people there who became clients. The article talked about other real estate professionals and builders who use these two sites, as well as Twitter.

Another realtor, Kim Kerbis, says her monthly postcard mailings are still worth the expense, but her website is still her deal clincher. “I tell enough about my background so a client might see that we share an interest such as film,” Kerbis said of her site. “That starts a relationship.”

Website Decision

If you had to choose only one, is a social media presence more important than a website? It depends on your industry and your resources. Which do you have more of - money or time? If you have money, you can afford a website. If you have more time, then spend it with social media.

Most businesses need a website because they must display a large amount of information about their product or service in an organized manner. Real estate agents often do not have their own website, since they usually have a profile as part of their franchise’s website. Other businesses, however, would leave a bad impression if they didn’t have a site.

We at TreeFrogClick can help you with your social media and website needs.

How can you make your blog jump off the page and make readers’ eyeballs pop out? After all, lots of other people are saying just what you are, so what’s different about your stuff?

This problem was addressed by Paul Roberts, a 1950’s college English teacher who no doubt kept Folgers stock high due to efforts keeping awake while reading students’ lackluster essays.

Roberts wrote the famous essay, “How to Say Nothing in 500 Words,” and said, “Can you be expected to make a dull subject interesting? As a matter of fact, this is precisely what you are expected to do. This is the writer’s essential task.”

He says that all subjects are dull until somebody makes them interesting. “The writer’s job is to find the argument, the approach, the angle, the wording that will take the reader with him,” he says. Thus, instead of writing an essay about why college football is bad, and lapsing into a lot of tired old arguments, Roberts suggests zeroing in on a concrete image to give the idea some legs:

Picture poor old Alfy coming home from football practice every evening, bruised and aching, agonizingly tired, scarcely able to shovel the mashed potatoes into his mouth.  … What will he look back on when he graduates from college? Toil and torn ligaments. And what will be his future? He is not good enough for pro football, and he is too obscure and weak in econ to succeed in stocks and bonds.

This is what grips the reader — how to begin with a general argument and give it flesh with specific details. In the essay, Roberts offers a lot of good writing advice as well, such as how to avoid “padding” your essay with non-essential words, how to avoid trite expressions, and how to get right to the point.

Paul Roberts never saw a blog, but he’d be able to pen a whopping good one today.

A new study says that Americans’ trust of the media is the lowest it’s been since at least 1985, and that’s not surprising considering what happened this past weekend.

The large grass-roots conservative groups that marched on Washington, D.C. on Saturday went underreported. The Chicago Tribune said that “tens of thousands” came to the protest, which consisted of people unhappy with threats of a growth in socialism, spending and left-wing policies in the government.

WLS Radio’s Don and Roma, conservative talk show hosts in Chicago, however, said today that hundreds of thousands had come to the demonstration.

People have a sense that their news is sometimes pitched in a certain way. A Pew Research Center survey released Monday, reported in TechNewsWorld on media credibility, shows that now just 29 percent of Americans surveyed believe the media gets the facts right, the lowest since 1985.

“Those downward trends may intersect with rising chart lines for the use of Web sites and blogs as news sources,” TechNewsWorld said.

It’s all the more reasons why small businesses and non-profits should utilize even more their websites, blogs and videos.

Videos Watched More, Too

Also, Americans are watching internet videos more than ever, according to a recent report. Time spent watching these videos increased 46% in the second quarter, compared to a year ago, according to a Nielsen report, as reported in the Chicago Tribune Sept. 11.

Another recent report found that people are using the internet to relax and get their minds off the recession. “This fits within a broader trend of the internet increasingly becoming a go-to source for people to relax, take it easy and have fun,” said Aaron Smith, of the Pew Internet & American Life project.

Check out the solemn, prayerful scenes in the new video produced by TreeFrogClick about the Poor Clares of Santa Barbara, CA. They’ve gotten 88 views in less than a week.

Or listen to the grand-sounding Bach in the background of the video we just made for the Benedictines of South Texas.

Daniel Gutierrez was a young manager working late at night to prepare for the grand opening of a huge Best Buy store in south Los Angeles. His newly-hired staff, many of them recruited from that poor neighborhood, were hustling in a mad rush to open. But many of them were so stressed from the pressure that they rebelled in an angry manner and threatened to leave.

Gutierrez, not knowing what to do, hopped up on a sales counter and told them in a loud voice that they could go but if they did they shouldn’t bother to come back. Then he calmed down and said that they would work for two more hours. He also gave them a preacher-like sermon on how, if they worked together they would accomplish something monumental. The employees walked back to their work.

Difficult Family Life

This example of leadership is one of the exciting moments of the life of a popular motivational speaker whose roots were that of a difficult family life that included divorce and drug use, but who grew into a successful leader who now gives back to his community. As President and CEO of Pinnacle Achievement Group, Gutierrez calls himself “the world’s #1 Latino motivator,” and is a consultant to Fortune 500 companies, providing inspirational management coaching.

“I refuse to give up,” he says in his book, Stepping Into Greatness. “Not because I’m proud, but because I believe in my dreams, and I know that what God has begun in me, He will finish.”

This Texas native is another example of an entrepreneur and motivational speaker who has overcome personal adversity through an outgoing personality and incredible drive. What impressed me was his wide swings between his religious experience as a preacher-in-training to drug use and other immoral behavior.  And yet the good in his life triumphed.

His life shows how the use of one’s God-given talents for the good can lift a person above temptation of any kind. His website is at danielgutierrez.com.

Is social media really all that it’s cut out to be? I have to admit, I am skeptical when I read about the promises of tremendous success in selling a product or service just by chatting now and then with people you have never met. Who has the time to do all this?

I’m going to review several ways that I use social media and what kind of results I get. And I’ll try to be honest.

First of all, this column is sent out both to a newsletter list, and it is posted on my blog at SpunkyBiz.com, so I get double results for a single effort. Most of our clients at TreeFrogClick are on the newsletter list, so it’s a good way to keep my services on their mind, as well as to inform them on how to use the internet. It takes me about an hour and a half to both post the article on the blog, get the artwork, and send it via email. Occasionally I post it on one of the free press release sites.

I also have a profile on FaceBook, which for me has put me in touch with a lot of old friends and school chums. With most of these people, I have to admit, the renewed relationship really doesn’t go anywhere, but I did get a message from a friend recently who is putting me in touch with a potential client whom I’d like to serve.

Another popular approach, Twitter, is a very fast-moving message board, and the advantage here, so far, is that I find good business writers that I follow that provide an education in my field of online promotion.

In our YouTube channel, at GodCalls, which is for single persons looking for a religious vocation, our  seven videos have been viewed 1,100 times in about four months, which is a lot of exposure.

Yes, It Takes Time

The big difference between social media and paid advertising is of course, social media takes a lot of time. It means building relationships with people rather than simply paying a fee for a static ad somewhere.

“Social media is all about sharing, opening up, being transparent, providing real value to our customers. It’s about long-term relationships, not short-term campaigns,” says marketing expert Mark Ivey.

Since many small businesses and non-profits don’t have a lot of time to converse with others, or the time to learn it all, this is where our services at TreeFrogClick come into play.

Advertising is changing. Social media is worth it  — and it may help to hire an expert.

A smiling elderly lady in a hospital bed grasps onto the hands of two sisters clad in white. The patient seems to draw energy from the two sisters, who smile at her. This is one of the many images of the Daughters of St. Francis of Assisi in Lacon, IL, seen in their new video, “Images of Franciscan Simplicity.”

“This video draws the viewer into a deeper life of meditation and service to God,” said Sr. Adriana, the community’s superior. “I hope that it inspires prayer and commitment to the Franciscan way of simplicity and love.”

The sisters wear a traditional habit and have regular times for Mass, Divine Office and adoration. The video has drawn 30 views already in less than two days. It can bee seen on YouTube. Visit the Sisters’ website at www.LaconFranciscans.com.

The video was produced by www.TreeFrogClick.com, our web promotion company that works with religious communities.

In the movie, 2001: A Space Odyssey, HAL, the spaceship’s computer, says, “Dave, is something wrong?” Dave, in fact is thinking about pulling the plug on the computer, which controls every aspect of the ship, and HAL senses this.

This is what ran through my head while testing the online software of ArticleVideoRobot.com, an ingenious service that brings together text, sound, music and a synthesized voice to make videos. There is something wrong — we need the next generation of the voice synthesizer to make that part of it work well.

The software’s strong point is that video production is very quick and efficient. After playing around with it a bit, I uploaded a short article I had written on website promotion (see the PDF, Seven Proven Ways to Drive Visitors to Your Website) and made a three-minute video in 13 minutes. Much shorter than the 10+ hours it takes me to make a two-minute video. Of course, I would want to edit it too, but that was not allowed with my free two-week trial of the service.

Pulls It Together Quickly

ArticleVideoRobot breaks the article into individual slides, puts in headline text, and you simply add pictures and music. The problem is that the automatic speaking voice sounds stilted. I chose the voice “Brian” over “Dave” because it seemed better technically. There are two women’s voices to choose from as well. Some words don’t work well. The voice “Katherine” did a hatchet job on the pronunciation “Wikipedia.”

In all fairness, I have to say that you can upload your own voice-over, as well as photos. You can choose from their stock photos and background music selection, or you can use your own. There is a lot of flexibility. You can choose one or two pictures per slide, and can play around with which text is displayed. The transitions are chosen for you, and it all fits together nicely. I guess you could spell out the unusual words phonetically to get a good pronunciation.

The software can grab articles you have already published, and it can push the video out to 17+ video sites. A real benefit is that you can also download the video as an AVI or Flash file, something that YouTube does not allow. ArticleRobotVideo packages start at $47 per month for 50 videos, so if you plan to make a lot of videos and can figure out a good voice-over solution, it’s a good deal. It’s clear that we are moving toward more online video, so we need to keep up to speed about it all.

Just a few months ago, a federal court ordered the FDA to lower the age requirement of the potent Plan B birth control pill from 18 to 17. Touted as “emergency contraception,” it is taken in one  or two-pill doses. Unlike the regular birth control pill, Plan B is available without a prescription.

Furthermore, Plan B is 10 times stronger than the average birth control pill. Do you want your 17-year-old daughter to taken this without your knowledge or permission? Hmmm…. Read our article on the WomanCare Services website.