What is the best platform for having a continuing conversation – would it be Facebook?

.

The short answer: It depends. It depends on what your trying to do, who you’re trying to do it for, and on what platform they’re on.

A better question to ask is, “What’s my reason behind having a continuing conversation?”

Will having a continuing conversation help you  create opportunities that you can seize to help others reach a goal, all the while, establishing and maintaining a reputation of being the best in doing just that? If so, then you should ask, “what platform is best for creating those opportunities?

Lets take an example of three known names and how they’ve approached communication platforms to create opportunities to accomplish business goals.

Zappos.com

Zappos.com’s brand promise is: free shipping, free returns, free 365 day return policy, 24/7 customer service, and happiness.

They do that mainly through the telephone. They have an active and responsive customer service platform with which they have their “continuing conversation.”

Seth Godin

Seth Godin’s goal is to share ideas. His most successful medium for doing that is his blog. You’ll notice that his blogs, whether it be his personal Typepad or Domino Project, he has comments disabled.

He’s stated on his blog,

I think comments are terrific, and they are the key attraction for some blogs and some bloggers. Not for me, though. First, I feel compelled to clarify or to answer every objection or to point out every flaw in reasoning. Second, it takes way too much of my time to even think about them, never mind curate them. And finally, and most important for you, it permanently changes the way I write. Instead of writing for everyone, I find myself writing in anticipation of the commenters.

For him personally having a “continuing conversation” on his blog would actually deter him from him goal of sharing ideas.

Park51 Community Center

When I was working with Park51 in January 2011, they were addressing a communication crisis. Statements were being said about the organization that just weren’t true and it was branded as “the ground zero mosque.”

When we launched the blog, we did it with the aim of engaging the public and joining the existing conversation. However, the decision makers decided against comments on the blog because of the perceived effort that would be required to maintain and moderate.

In my professional opinion, it was the wrong decision at the time in the context of the goal.

Many organizations want to have a medium for broadcasting, and sometimes treat social channels as a place for one-way communication. Generally, this isn’t wrong. However in the context of Park51′s goal, I believe this was the wrong decision.

I can understand at the time Park51 was receiving a substantial amount of opposition and the risk of having comments enabled on the blog could potentially lead to people expressing themselves using inappropriate language and even false statements. However, In my professional opinion it would have been a more strategic move to simply moderate such comments with a dedicated online community manager.

The biggest business benefit of having the ability to comment on a blog is the opportunity for readers to connect with the authors as well as the staff running the organization.

So, what’s the best platform?

The best platform for you or your organization depends on how do you measure success. What does success look like? Will a continuing conversation impact your success in the way you’d want it to?

I naturally like to keep a journal for my daily life and travels. I was thinking, why not benefit others by vlogging about it.

My question is:
What can I do to depict the various things going on a regular basis without having to do any editing — so I can just videotape and put it up online. Do you have any tips?

I have 2 tips that you might find useful, but first I need you to answer 4 questions:

Why are you doing it?

Meaning, what’s in it for you? Look at it holistically. How’s it going help you: spiritually, socially, financially, career wise, family wise, mentally, emotionally, educationally and professionally?

It’s important to know why you’re doing something so you’re driven to complete what you start. It gives your a deeper purpose.

What’s your end goal?

Once you know why, you need to know the what. What does this vlogging project look like when it’s done?

What’s your opportunity cost?

You will be spending some amount of time composing and recording the content. What would you not be doing as a result of it? Consider the financial cost as well.

Who’s your audience?

Think about what platform do they most likely perfer to be engaged on? This is the tactical aspect of reaching your audience. You want to tailor your media so it best reaches your audience.

-

To better understand the thinking behind these four questions, check out this episode of Marketing Moves that features an interview with Wisam Sharieff I recorded a little while back.

Click here to view the embedded video.

The two tips from the video:

Start simple.

The simplist form of video content is the talking head, which works well if you “perform.” Take for example Gary Vaynerchuk, John Stewart and Muhammad Alshareef’s Facebooks series as prime examples.

Maximize development and planning to minimize editing.

Decide how frequent will you release the video. Type out what you’ll say and think of HOW you’ll say it. Keep it under 5 mins.

-

Links from the video:

• L2RQ (Learn to Read Quran)
• KnowledgeTravels.wordpress.com

If you go to any Muslim convention, you can count on one hand the categories 80% of the vendors fall into. It’s either traditional clothing, t-shirts, books/education, charity organization seeking money or decorative art. The vendors in these categories are all identical to each other, making business that much harder to acquire for anyone operating in that space in a similar fashion. Read on to learn how to succeed despite this reality.

During my late high school and early college years I’d always hook up with a bazaar vendor in order to get into the conventions for free. Year in and year out I saw vendors always either loosing money or just barely breaking even.

When I was in college I was blessed with the opportunity to study retail marketing for a year and then later observed that theory in practice by briefly taking up employment during the holiday season at a fast growing retail tea business called Teavana. - They have some amazing tea by the way, from all around the world!

Photo by headphonaught

In ICNA 2010 I got the opportunity to help a friend of mine, Faraz Khan, sell his unique style of framed calligraphy and apply what I had learned and experienced. There was a learning curve in which we didn’t sell much the first day. However, after adapting to the situation, we walked away with a profitable weekend. The following year Faraz applied the approach we took in 2010 and walked away again with a profitable weekend.

Through that education and experience I’ve concluded the following three tips are necessary to gain an edge in the retail market place.

1: Be Different

If I had asked people what they wanted, they would have said faster horses.
- Henery Ford

If you take an initial thoughtless observation about an existing category such as clothing within the Muslim convention marketplace, you’d assume they want t-shirts and thobes. However, you’ll realize that people actually want to adorn themselves in stylish quality clothing so they can feel good about themselves. If you look good, you feel good and that’s what people want.

Understanding this market desire, decide on what you’ll invest in to set yourself apart from others in the category. If for some reason you cannot come up with a distinct differentiation within the category your operating in, then either cut your loses and quit or create a new category that addresses an unfulfilled desire in the marketplace.

A good example of this is Baba Ali’s Half Our Deen.

This past ISNA 2011, during my observation I didn’t see any other matrimonial service vendor – other than ISNA’s own, which I hear is a sad excuse for a matrimonial service.

2 – Have a Relevant and Memorable “Fly Catcher” to Reel People In

In a retail situation, an effective fly catcher consists of a charming outgoing individual(s) calling people to get a delightful taste of what you have to offer. Something that is unique and attractive

Keep in mind however, if your actual product or service offering isn’t good enough to have them coming back then it doesn’t matter how effective your fly catcher is.

Teavana, the retail chain I mentioned earlier, is a privately owned business with about 150 stores nationwide and opening at a rate of 40 new locations a year gets only 30% of its business through sampling its tea (the fly catcher). The other 70% is from repeat customers.

The first sale is all about you making a promise to the buyer. The second sale is an indicator of you having fulfilled that promise. – This is more a business concept than a general rule of thumb. Which sale is an indicator of promise deliver varies from business to business. You need to figure out for your business how many times do they have to buy before they trust you to deliver the same desirable experience every time.

Take dry cleaners for example. Statistically if customers come once or twice, they almost never comeback. However those customers that come in at least three times over a brief period of time, that client is likely to keep coming back for the next 2 years.

An interesting flycatcher I saw in action was a personality test at the half our deen booth

The attractive thing about the test was first you were invited to take a 5 min test to see whether or not it was accurate. After you descover that it is, youre encouraged to wear your personality on your chest, prompting others to ask you about it, which then makes your curious to know the personality types of those you know.

3 – Create Path and Process to Follow From Entry to Sale

When ever clients say they want more exposure or traffic, I say thats the easy part. Question is, what are you going to do with all the new eyeballs? Once you get them into the door, how you gonna guide them to an experience that’ll keep them coming back?

You need a path or process for prospects to follow. Once you get a charming individual snare them into the fly catcher, then what?

When I was working at Teavana, all the people on the floor were “tea-ologists” and the idea was to expose people to a world of tea.

Photo by queenkv

We’d give them a delightful sample taste of some of the teas, to showcasing the top quality merchandise to tasing more tea samples, to next level merchandise to another tea tasting, to touring more stuff to finally bringing them to the tea counter, by which the prospect has tasted the different categories of teas and both the sales rep and the prospect has an understanding of what they like and dont like so then when we actually present the different loose leaf teas available for purchase, they’ll be better informed in their decision making.

Thinking is the hardest work there is, which is probably the reason so few engage in it
- Henry Ford

Implementing these three tips requires some thought and it isn’t easy. However, isn’t taking the time and energy out to prepare for success worth the cost, as opposed to just winging it and losing lost of money in the process?

The negative branding isn’t the problem. That’s just the consequence of a deeper issue.

The problem is the absence of an internal culture of discipline and excellence coupled with rigorous evaluation and measurement. Many people who are responsible for such organizations don’t keep score for what the company and personnel are doing.

By “keeping score” I’m talking about measuring progress with data and subjecting oneself to real quantitative evaluation so that the key decision makers can face the brutal facts as to where they currently are (Point A) and whether or not the current path and rate of progress will enable them to get to where they want to be (Point B) with the time and resources they have available.

No great marketing decisions have ever been made on qualitative data
- John Sculley (former president of PepsiCo and CEO of Apple)

Many people mistake slick marketing collateral such as a well done Superbowl commercial as great marketing. It would be great marketing if its working, but how do we know its working? Whats the quantitative proof?

If we don’t have numbers to back the value of our efforts then we’ll just continue to spin our wheels while not making any systemic progress.

A nonprofit that I believe has it’s marketing under control is AlMaghrib Institute. I know this because I worked with them for over two years, for most of which I’d produce advertising collateral such the commercials and trailers.

Click here to view the embedded video.

The fact that many trailers like the one above were produced wasn’t a demonstration of their marketing prowess. It was that they measured the effectiveness of it with real numbers.

When AlMaghrib expanded to the United Kingdom with a partnership with Islam Channel, the AlMaghrib staff conducted surveys to understand where the attendants heard about the seminar and what motivated them to register. The results stated that about half the students came as a result of having seen the advertising on TV.

In United States and Canada the staff looked at how many people would register for a seminar at promo events that didn’t showcase a trailer and compared that to promo events that did showcase a trailer. Results showed that more people would register in the latter scenario.

The decision to produce more trailers came out as a result of these findings.

I’m currently working as a marketing manager for a nonprofit called Higher Achievement. They’re one of the nation’s leading out-of-school time education organizations focusing on middle school youth. What sets them apart from other in their space and makes them attractive to several different classes of stakeholders from parents, volunteers, donors and foundations is that they’re willing to subject themselves to rigorous evaluation internally and from third party organizations.

They’re meticulous about data collection and analysis of the progress of students who are enrolled in the program to show how those efforts are impacting the communities they operate in.

The truth is however that subjecting yourself, organization or even personnel isn’t easy. It takes time to do and it does not come cheap. At the same time maintaining or even progressing an organization that does not have a culture of higher expectations nor the discipline to regularly evaluate itself is just as difficult, if not harder, drains resources and wastes valuable time.

Whether your operating on an organizational level or just individually and you want to systemically progress towards your goals, set metrics into place. One of the responsibilities I have at work is to help build and implement a digital marketing strategy.

When a digital strategy is tactically implemented, how will I know its working? I have a metrics dashboard that I’m using to measure. It’s basically an Microsoft Excel spreadsheet that’s used to gather and report on data, which is then analyzed to see where we need to make adjustments in our tactics.

Determine what numbers you’ll pay attention so that you can measure your progress. Make a decision on how frequent you’ll report on that progress. Finally take action with rigor and tenacity toward your goals. Set high expectations for yourself. Move forward with discipline and excellence.

Eventually you’ll stand out from the rest.

Video Cheat Sheet

Mahdi: This is a discussion on Muslims in entertainment and mainstream media. Cosby Show helped lift a lot of stereotypes about black people. Can we do that? What are your views?

Belal: We have a start in a niche as a means of standing out and differentiating ourselves. Eventually it can be integreated into the mainstream cultural. Take for example: B.E.T. and Amish. They’re without a doubt “American” yet niche. Black entertainment has mass appeal too. It’s happening with Muslim fashion. People are wearing the checkerd scarf more and more.

Mahdi: How do we dispel myths and misconceptions of Islam via entertainment?

Belal: Start with the character. It’s something that the audience will attach and relate to. Embed it into a story within a specific form of media. Whether that media is movies, television, news, books or anything else, understand the systems that distribute that media. The key here is to have a wide appeal but also be different from what’s already out there.

Mahdi: What would you tell people that are dying to see Muslims on media?

Belal: The person who wants to get in needs: drive, passion and commitment towards making it. They need to be “hungry” and have that zeal to succeed. The person needs focus and purpose in life. When setting goals, be SMARTER about it. Make it specific. Set measures to track progress. Take consistent action every day. Be realistic about the expectations based on what you have available to you. Make sure it’s time bound. Set a date and stop doing that which doesn’t help you make progress towards it. Make sure it excites you. Have it recorded or written down so you can see it as a reminder every day.

Once your goals are SMARTER, understand the benefit to all aspects of your life. How does it benefit you: spiritually, with your family relationship, spousal relationship, financially, career/business wise, socially, emotionally – how will you feel?. How will if benefit your health?

See the reasons WHY you’re doing it and take action.

Madhi (closing): Dont just be smart. Do smart and act smart.

His advise was:

As a salesman, you’ll have a lot of opportunities to make money. Whenever you decide to work for a company to sell what they have, make sure they can deliver on what they promise.

Fast forward 4 years later to April 2011. My wife and I have just moved to the DC metro area from Northern NJ and are looking for a good deal to furnish our new home. We saw signs for store closing sale around town, so we checked it. Found a living room set we liked. Wife negotiated a good deal with the sales rep and paid for the furniture. The front desk person who took our order told us they’d ship that Saturday.

Saturday came and went and no furniture came. They said Monday. Monday passed by and then they assured us it be Wednesday. Wednesday, I came from work to find that the sofa delivered was the wrong color, the Chinese divider was the wrong color and the tables’ legs were assembled wrong.

You can imagine how upset we were. We called the store to tell to express our disappointment in the order only to be told that all sales are final and there “no refunds.”

Are you kidding me?! – You take the money and don’t even fulfill the right order? No wonder you’re going out of business!

After a week of back and forth, threatening a law suit on the phone and in person they took back the sofa and refunded our money.

Where did things go wrong?

Turned out that the store we purchase the sofa from initially was just a independent distributor of several brands of sofas. The fulfillment of the order was the manufacturer’s job and the delivery of it was outsourced to another company.

The manufacturer had run out of the color we wanted and decided to ship an alternative color – without notifying us (the purchaser). The delivery people wanting to fulfill their daily quota simply assembled the tables how ever they saw fit. When the legs didn’t match up they simply figured that it’s not their problem.

The retail distributor made a promise to us on something they didn’t have full control over.

Lets look at Zappos as a direct contrast to the company I dealt with. The promise they make to their customer is the following:

For the company I delt with, that would be an outrageous promise to make they dont control the manufacturing, warehousing or delivery.

Zappos understanding the remarkable nature of their promise, decided to have their own of fulfillment houses, instead of outsourcing, so they could have access their customers at all the touch points of their brand allowing for maximum exposure to a positive brand experience.

In reality most organizations don’t have the resources to have an army of competent customer service reps ready to answer your most trival inquiry. Nor is it easy to find or develop an organizational champion the would be the communications ringmaster, coordinating and managing client engagement at all major touchpoints in realtime.

However, where there is difficulty, there is opportunity. When you accomplish that which others cannot, then you’ve got yourself a brand.

Background For Context

In the past I’ve had a lot of people ask me a question along the lines of, “Why call your company ‘Leechon’? Won’t people associate negative emotions to it?”

When I was in high school I had this idea of starting a subscription online service like Napster. However, instead of downloading music, you’d be able to download movies and other like entertainment. The idea was that it would be an online system where I as the service provider enabled people to download full movies for a nominal token fee which they could watch to their enjoyment and fulfillment and the file itself would disable or self-destruct within a given time.

The service would be called “Leechon.”

On the Internet, a “leech” is someone who benefits, usually deliberately, from other people’s information or effort but doesn’t offer anything in return, or they make only token offerings in an attempt to avoid being called a leech.

- Wikipedia

The idea behind the name “Leechon” is that it’s a command. Meaning, go ahead and benefit without the concern of whether or not you’re sharing as well. There’s plenty of bandwidth for me to share, you don’t have to worry about having to share yours.

I went ahead got the company registered, but I soon found out that my idea was well ahead of its time and the technology available wasn’t going to be able to make it happen. Its only recently that companies have been able to offer such entertainment on demand via multiple channels of distribution through services such as iTunes, amazon.com, Netflicks, Blockbuster, etc.

The concept however still remained in my mind.

Most people are consumers. I am someone who wants to benefit people by understanding what they want or need and be able to say to them, “Leechon! There’s plenty more where that came from!” (marketing simplified). Similarly I want to enable other like-minded people to stand up and say the same to their people and deliver.

From the perspective of being a marketing services company, I’m working with companies and organizations that have a lot of offer society on a local, national and even global level. They want help in getting their target market to leechon to what they have to offer and that is where my company comes in!

Evolution of Leechon

Back when I registered the company in and realized that I wouldn’t be able to achieve what I wanted to achieve at the time, the corporate entity sat around for a little bit.

I started doing other creative projects ranging from online marketing to graphic design and video production. When I started making money from it, that’s when I decided to dust off the old corporate entity and start doing my work professionally.

Initially since most of my commissioned marketing worked was in the form of video, I naturally opted to name the company “Leechon Films.” However as time progressed and more and more of my work was focused less on video and more on digital marketing in general. I realized that I’d need to adjust the way I’m presenting Leechon.

Re-branding Thought Process

I needed to understand where I am and where I want to go and define my branding as such. The question for me was, which one of the below represented Leechon most accurately?

• “Independent” production studio - ie: NewsCorp -
  Self financing, producing and distributing my own content through multiple established channels of delivery. Past projects that could possibly fall under this category are: The Strangers, Darkness2Light, Browntourage, Free Parking (fail), Love Noted (never produced), Tufaan (incomplete), MessageMastery.com

• “Dependent” Production Studio - ie: Warner Bros. -
  Either producing and distributing your own content and brands with the help of financiers such as Relativity Media or Summit Entertainment — or — Producing distributing content/media commissioned by other entities such as Walden Media. I haven’t done any projects that fall under the first part. However, past projects that could possible fall under the second part are: The Opener (Faraz Khan), Abdullah Puppet (Minbar Media), Back2School Giveaway (ICNA NY).

• Private Equity Fund – ie: Relativity Media or The Carlyle Group -
  Financing projects via private equity with your own risk and business analysis systems in place. I wish I had this.

• Advertising Agency - ie: WPP or MediaCom -
  Producing video and print media for advertising purposes — and/or — Having digital ad services in place that can be digitally monitored and accurately measure reach and impact. When it comes to adsoftware and systems, I don’t have any of my own propitiatory stuff. However, I have leveraged Google Ad words and Social ads for clients on several occasions. Regarding production design material in the form of print, digital and video for the purposes of advertising – projects that can fall under that category are: AlMaghrib Trailers and other graphic work I’ve done for them, DawahCorps and AlMishkat.
• Public Relations Firm - ie: Edelman Digital or Fleishman & Hillard -
  Levering contacts in traditional and/or social media to bring forth positive publicity and third party trust for a project over an extended period of time to in the process of building and establishing a brand. I personally haven’t done much in terms of leveraging traditional media. However client projects that I’ve helped in leveraging social media are: AlMaghrib Institute with the use of GemReel.com and IlmCast.com coupled with activism and social networking. iAmAmmar.com and Bayyinah with the initial launch of the Divine Speech seminar.

Having gone through the above I realized that the work I do would be better categorized under “digital marketing” as opposed to “films.”

–

“I guess extremest have rights too.”

- Seminar Attendee

–

This statement explains why its not that easy combating “recruitment” from extremists.

About a month ago Farhad Chowdhury from M100 Foundation sent me an invite to attend a seminar organized by New America Foundation in Washington D.C. hosted at Google’s office

The intent of the seminar was to train leading Muslim non-profits in the tools and processes of online marketing, covering tools provided by Google, YouTube and Facebook as a means of combating increased extremist online activity.

A big part of being effective in marketing online and building a loyal following has to do with continuously giving value to the community you’re targeting.

The challenge with combating content posted/uploaded by post-prison Anwar Alawlaki fans is that they have the same rights and privileges and access that we all have.

Anwar Alawlaki is one of those individuals who has plenty of beneficial content from his pre-prison days that continuously builds social capital. So if someone were to post a video of him saying attack certain people and how its an obligation for all Muslims, it has potential of pulling some people in the wrong direction.

Muslims here in the west have the interesting challenge of not only having to combat religious extremists, but also combat extremists on the other side of the spectrum too. The likes such as Robert Spencer, Asra Nomani, Irshad Manji, Daniel Pipes, Newt Gingrich, Pamela Geller and others.

People on both sides of the spectrum are using online marketing practices to get their message across quite effectively.

The thing with Muslims in the middle is that they have a lot of beneficial content to share but don’t understand technical tools or practices of getting their message out and its for that reason this seminar was held.

One of the prime examples that a Google instructor presented was MPAC. When you type “MPAC” into Google, you don’t find MPAC. Instead you find either a “performing arts center” in some city or you find content written by right wing extremists. If you’re going to search for your name on Google, YOU should come up. If you don’t then you’re not marketing yourself appropriately.

MPAC also has a decent YouTube page with over 100 videos, but due to bad SEO, no one gets to see it.

The following is an outline of what Google presented to the seminar attendees.

Some of these tools are quite powerful if you know how to use them. I was intrigued to find out that Google has a program called “Google Grants” where if you’re a tax excempt 501(c)3 while not being either a political party or a religious institution such as a church or mosque, then you can be eligible for free Ad Words credits between $100 – $10,000 a month.

In addition to Google, YouTube and Facebook were there presenting their systems too and how to effectively read the metrics they publish for their users to reach out to specific target audiences. Below is the YouTube insights view.

Personally, while most of the stuff was a refresher, some of the Google content was new.

I personally don’t like to get into the politics of extremeism. However, I do find that the content presented in the seminar can be useful in dawah and depolarization of views on Islam.

Rather, campaign success when using video comes from a systematic production of consistent SHAREABLE QUALITY content to a specific SOCIALLY ACTIVE target audience, how ever local or global they may be, over a set specific period of time, usually over a time span of 8-12 months. All the while ACTIVELY engaging the people you’re connecting with.

The other day I finished a GemReel in an effort to get some of the more socially active and technically savvy members of the AlMaghrib student community to slowly start getting involved in a new social marketing campaign.

In this this post feature the GemReel and a break down from a social marketing perspective.

Click here to view the embedded video.

–

FOUNDATION

Regardless of how you want your brand to be perceived, the perception that people will have of you or your company will always be define by news and social media. People generally give trust and credibility to the third party. It’s for this reason, advertising – a message that comes for the organization – isn’t appropriate and publicity via news and social media will drive the marketing.

Understanding this principle, I decided to lay down a concept that would be socially viable and would allow for the students themselves to communicate how they felt about their experience with AlMaghrib attending Western Sunrise.

–

CONCEPT

The presentation approach needed to be as technically and financially simple as possible so that even someone with no experience can knock out a similar video.

I used the following equipment:

• Two consumer HD cameras with mic input ($250 – $300 each – used via ebay)
• Two generic tripods ($30 each via BestBuy)
• Sennheiser Shotgun Mic ($150)
• Beachtek DSA-2S Audio adapter for levels control ($180)

Getting your hands on a couple cameras and tripods should by easy. The mic and adapter is where you may have to spend some money.

In addition to the visual concept, the idea was to get “local focus with global appeal”.

In an ideal setup, the people you capture on screen are diverse, emotionally engaging and socially connected. Although it’s a a great target to shoot for, it’s difficult to hit on the dot.

Everyone has a story to tell. Emotional engagement will be directly related to the questions asked. With that in mind, I focused on cultural and national diversity so a wide array of viewers can relate with the people on screen and to the stories told.

When it came to finalizing the concept, I didn’t want to have to spend more than an hour shooting and no more than a few hours editing.

–

PRODUCTION

Part of your preparation has to do with making sure the people who will be on camera are prepared.

The idea of shooting a testimonial based GemReel with a documentary flare, the people themselves have to be very familiar with the content of what’s being presented. Since I filmed the GemReel on the Sunday of the first weekend of the seminar, the people being interviewed have to:

• Have attended the seminar from the beginning – Fri & Sat
• Give their permission to be interviewed on camera and for what reason
• Be given the questions before hand so they know exactly what will be asked of them and can formulate answers.

Spending the first couple of breaks in the morning is ideal to scout for subjects. By the time lunch rolls in, you’ll have about five to six people to interview. Some you’ll be able to interview before lunch, some during and some immediately after. Make sure you schedule accordingly.

–

The strength of the emotional engagement you’ll get from your subjects will depend on the strength of your questions. The following six questions is what I asked:

• Were there any obstacles that would have prevented you from attending [seminar name]
• What did you find as a result of coming/attending?
• What specific feature did you like most about this class?
• What are three other benefits you’ve gotten out of this seminar?
• Would you recommend [seminar name] to others? If so, why?
• Is there anything you’d like to add?

I want to give a shout out to Sean D’Souza for Six Questions to Ask for Powerful Testimonials article on Copy Blogger.

These questions are inherently story driven. At the end you’ll get a simply yet unique character’s from each of the subjects you interview.

–

REFLECTIONS

In the future, I’m thinking it would make sense to have sisters also give their interviews where they share gems and stories. Women do make up majority of the AlMaghrib community student base. Also, it would be a good idea to shorten the video to be under five mins.

For those who decide to make their own GemReels, it’s very important that there is a level audible ambiance. Not only does the speech have to be clear (captured via mic) but it’s a good idea to bring up the ambiance with some subtle audio in the background.

I accomplished this via some of my vocal beatboxing (yes that’s my rhythm in the background) and layering that with a softened humming which I ripped, cut and stitched together from the AlMaghrib WebTV promo video.

Click here to view the embedded video.

Does anyone know where I can find the original audio that was used in that video?

–

FURTHER READING

I’ve written a blog post over at MessageMastery.com laying out a Facebook strategy for local social marketing titled “How @AlMaghribHQ Student Tribes Can Extend Their Community Influence“

Some gems from the conference:

__

Brands need to UNDERSTAND & RESPECT Islamic values and demo it in their communication and behavior. Be sharia friendly. Have values like humility. Brands also need to have Fearless PUBLIC SUPPORT for these values. If a brand takes our side, we’ll need to take theirs too.

- Nazia Hussain (OgilvyNoor)

__

How we engage the western media has to change. We need to re-present Islam. The commercial arena will allows us to do this.

In the mainstream perception, “halaal” and 9/11 have a very small gap. The fact that we have to defend this position is a loss in perception for us. “Terrorism” and “barbaric” aren’t part of our language. When they make negative statements about us, they automatically put themselves in the “good guy” position. If we follow the sunnah, we will claim the moral high ground.We need a proactive language. The truth is Muslims need coaching on how to talk as well as coaching PR.

The marketing language that will emerge from the western world will have ripples around the world.

Friedrich Nietzsche said God is dead. He meant that Christianity failed to give Europe what it needed. We need to approach Economics and Business from the Quran and Sunnah to be the commanders of this market.

- AbdalHamid Evans

__

If you want people to commit to your brand/character, you have to connect with them on a human level. If they dont believe in your humanity, they wont believe your fantasy.

- Farhan Tahir – Actor (Iron Man, Star Trek)

__

In the US you have fear due to ignorance but its not like the Netherlands where a political party comes to power due to islamaphobia.

Globally Muslims are a 1+ trillion market. We cannot ignore it. The values of Muslims (Sharia) needs to be embraced by brands: transparency, sincerity of intent, humility,  modesty, ect.

For Muslims to be recognized they need to be strong in art and design. It does well to diffuse fear because art connects at an emotional level. Muslims today aren’t known for art of design. Brands are an emotional thing owned by the customer. Products are owned by the company that sell the emotion.

Muslims need to understand that halaal is a brand ingredient, not a brand itself. We need to find a narrative and define the emotion, imagery and design that goes with it.

- Miles Young, CEO of Ogilvy

The following video of Adnan Durrani with some advice for aspiring entrepreneurs – recorded by @SaadMalik

Click here to view the embedded video.

One of the treats of AMCC for me was meeting actor Farhan Tahir (Iron Man, Star Trek) and learning about the entertainment industry from his perspective.

One of the advices he gave me was:

Hollywood is a cut throat industry and it isn’t for everyone. You cannot have a glass jaw. People will hit you hard and knock you down. You need to have some sort of support system of buffer you can fall back on so that you can get back up and keep moving forward. Without that buffer you won’t be able to continue. You need to decide or find what your buffer will be.

Farhan will be starring in a few upcoming films in the next year, one of them being a movie titled “Jinn” – one of the lead actors is this film is Ray Park (Heroes, Star Wars Episode I: The Phantom Menace, X-Men)

Click here to view the embedded video.

Photos from the conference The following photos are from last year’s AMCC (courtesy of @SaadMalik). This year’s haven’t been uploaded yet. Will post it when its up.