Reading time: < 1 minute

The day I wrote the post on the Canon HFS100, I had the highest amount of readers in one day ever. However, the following days lead to a HUGE drop off. As you can see in the pic below this isn't normal.

The web traffic hasn’t been affected. Only the RSS readers. Anyone know what would cause such a drop after a over six months of consistent rising?

Reading time: 3 – 4 minutes

Okay, so the title is slightly misleading, considering this post is about bringing the Ilm Summit documentary to film festivals and there aren’t any tier 1 film festivals in Hollywood that I know of. However, there is a tier 2 film festival in LA!

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WHAT’S GONNA HAPPEN NOW?

Imagine the names Sundance, SXSW, Cannes,  Toronto, Tribeca, or Berlin. Now that would be exciting.

Considering that I practically shot and edited a feature film because of Ilm Summit, I found myself asking,  “What’s keeping me from going all the way with this?”

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A question regularly being asked of the people who attended Ilm Summit was, “What will you bring back to your community?”

I believe the above question is at the core of the AlMaghrib business strategy.

After the tawfeeq of Allah it’s the internalization of this question combined with the systemization of its operations that has led AlMaghrib to grow at the exponential rate that it has.

I honestly believe an organization, company or brand becomes socially successful only when it becomes selfless. Making it’s existence for the betterment of community. Giving to the people before asking for their hand.

I believe what needs to be recognized by people who attend these seminars and are active participants is that initially people don’t care about the company, organization or brand.

Whether it be AlMaghrib, Bayyinah, etc, they initally only care about the potential benefit that can be brought to themselves and their community as a result of them being there.

Only after a relationship has been established will people become loyal.

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WHAT’S THAT GOT TO DO WITH FILM FESTIVALS?

In order for an organization or brand to be successful they must build solid relationships with their market.

One of the quickest ways to build a relationship with people is through stories and characters that pull your emotions. That’s why producing films with those elements can be a major asset to an organization’s marketing strategy.

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Imagine seeing the front page of your local entertainment section covering the screening of this Ilm Summit documentary.

The purpose of putting a film into the festival circuit is to give it exposure and to build its pedigree by getting as many media outlets that are covering the festivals to also do a story on the film.

One of my objectives is to recut the episodes and put them together to make a “feature film version” of the Ilm Summit 2009 experience.

It should be fun submitting this to film festivals and exposing AlMaghrib to an audience that would never have heard of it otherwise.

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How many more new people would be exposed to the dawah?

Think of people attending the film festivals, people in the documentary ending up on IMDB, as well the possibility of getting a distributor to buy the film and air it on television.

I ask again, How many more new people could be exposed to the dawah that would never have otherwise been exposed.

None of us are responsible for the outcome. Just sincere work. The rest is up to Allah.

Comments and criticisms are welcome

Reading time: 4 – 6 minutes

I’m sure a lot of us have heard of twitter, but most don’t have a clue what it is and what’s so great about it.

Twitter is the key that allows you to work you online social network in an automated fashion so that you can continuously build relationships and engage your people while not being chained to a desk or a computer.

Blogging, bookmarking, video, text, photo, and networking in a social sphere are all what we’re exposed to so much these days, yet many of us are resisting adopting and embracing these technologies.

I joined twitter back in April 2009 (see sidebar for my latest tweets). I knew of its existance since early 2008 but never joined because I was still getting my head around all these new social media technologies and figuring out what ways to use utilize them for marketing as well as general communication.

After having used twitter for about three months, I can confidently say it is a total Godsend! In all truth I wish I joined up sooner.

WHAT IS TWITTER?

• It’s a (micro)blog – “micro” because it’s got 140 character limitation.

• It’s public SMS – you can SMS people directly to their twitter accounts which ideally should be hooked up to their cell phones and they can respond to you. You can also follow the conversations of other who peak your interest and others can follow your conversations as well.

• It’s a networking tool - It allows you to follow and connect with new people you want to know more about through people you already know and it allows others the opportunity to connect with you. People you probably would never have connected with through normal circumstances.

• Most of all it’s a mobile synchronization tool for social media. - It allows the sharing of photo, video and text not only in the twitter crowd, but you can set it up to distribute to places like YouTube, Facebook, LinkedIn and MySpace – exponentially reaching out to a large network of people simultaneously just by simply pressing the “send” button on your cell phone!

I DON’T HAVE TIME TO LEARN THIS!

I’m a major advocate for social media and here’s why:

It’s a gold mine to meeting new people. Not just for the purposes of business but to enrich your social life as well.

Social media is a TOOL and specifically it’s a MAGNIFIER. Like money and power it will magnify what’s already inside of you. Truth is that social media is here to stay and you will be assimilated. Resistance is futile

I WANT TO PROTECT MY PRIVACY

I understand that there is a concern of having a balance of privacy and publicity. I also feel that people aren’t exercising comon sense when it comes to the issue of privacy and publicity online and this is where proper education and awareness needs to be brought into the fold.

I’m in the process of developing some material via MessageMastery.com which I’ll be putting out as a gift for all of you laying out the basics to get you going on using these amazing social media tools.

Using social media is just like real life – Its all about extending one’s influence through the building of relationships.

Fact of life: generally people don’t care about you, me or anyone. They care about themselves, and more importantly – what others think of THEM.

In order for us as entrepreneurs, organizational leaders, entertainers, or even as individuals to get people to do stuff, we need to touch a heart before we can ask for a hand. This is where leadership skills and compassion comes into play.

Everyone wants something. They’re trying to get somewhere. When we help someone get to where they want to go – a relationship forms.

When the heart is touched multiple times, those individuals make your their leader/celebrity/etc – obviously we as Muslims don’t attempt to touch the hearts of people to become their leader or celebrity – we do it for the sake of Allah-swt alone, but the natural process is that this is what happens.

The more hearts we touch – the greater our influence becomes – This is social media.

The tools that are out the like – YouTube, Twitter, Facebook, WordPress, etc – are all there to do just that.

WHAT DO YOU WANT ME TO DO?

I want you to give some of these tools a try. Specifically twitter.

Go ahead to twitter.com and create an account, start following me and we can start sharing ideas with each other right away

Reading time: 1 – 2 minutes

I’m looking for people who have YouTube accounts (and who actually use them) to upload Message Mastery Videos inshaAllah.

Also, I’m requesting people make Stumble Upon accounts – http://www.stumbleupon.com – and Digg accounts – www.digg.com -That way when we submit our articles, our websites, etc. the more people who “digg” a page (or review a page on stumble upon), the more hits we’ll get.

Whoever has accounts on these sites already, please contact me. We’ll agree to “digg” or “review” your site if you do the same for us (provided there is no haram content.)

This marketing stuff is getting to be a lot, and so I’m also looking for more volunteers to split the work. I must say it’s a lot of fun, but I definitely need more help. The last people to volunteer turned out to be awesome and they are doing a great jog, mashaAllah (that’s why you guys see Br. Belal literally everywhere.)

We’ve made a Google Group for marketing and PR purposes (or as my mom with her accent calls it, “RP” lol), let me know if you want to be on team and i’ll add you to the group inshaAllah.

leave a comment, add me to your Facebook, or email me at media [at] leechon.com

Barak Allahu feekom,

Shirien

Reading time: 2 – 2 minutes

Dear Facebook,

If you were a person I’d heckle you. All of my hard work you destroyed. My 50 minutes of adding random people to my list is gone. I want my 50 minutes back. You disabled my account because in your opinion I was “Spamming too much.” But I disagree. I was not spamming too much, I was spamming just the right amount. What you call spam, I call dawah. You are a kaafir, and I call you to the oneness of Allah.

Love,

Shirien

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For all of you who want to use Facebook as a marketing tool, don’t try to add 100 people to your list in one day. Me and Facebook had our odds before. I’ve always hated it and it hates me. I had to start anew by creating a new account again for the public relations work for Leechon.

Anyway, I’m looking for as many people as possible willing to help me with some of the PR work. (this is pretty effortless work, so don’t think I’ll be asking you to do something hard or time consuming) If you support Leechon Films and (preferably) if you already have an account with Facebook or YouTube or Myspace, then you can either leave a message in the comments section saying you can help me or email me at media @ leechon.com or add me (Shirien Elamawy) to your Facebook friends list and send me a message.

So who’s going to help me?

(and no, I didn’t actually send that message )