Marketing Monday: Lil Wayne

Every Monday, I feature some cool marketing, be it something that a person, business, or organization is doing. Please tip me off if you have an idea of what the BE Blog could feature!

Lil Wayne, courtesy of NPR.

Except for listening to the rap/hip hop on occasion (usually while driving or on a treadmill), I hadn’t thought much about Lil Wayne until last week. The rapper was busted for having a concealed weapon, and while they had initially talked about him possibly going to jail for multiple years, it looks like he’s going there for a least one.

But this guy is no slacker. Here’s what Lil Wayne is doing right, post having done something wrong:

He recorded nine music videos in two days. According to a commenter on the NPR story, Elvis did the same thing before going into the Army.

He has twenty songs pre-recorded and ready to go. Yup, that’s an album’s worth. Sure, if some get leaked, he might have to think of more (the hype alone might be worth leaking a few on purpose) but all this groundwork is part of the plan. According to NPR:

“He has a label, Young Money Entertainment, that’s going to keep him front and center while he’s in jail. They are moving from their headquarters in New Orleans to New York, to be close to him while he’s at Rikers Island…His label has made every effort to make it seem like he isn’t gone while he’s actually gone. When he gets out, he may be bigger than he was when he left.”

These Two Weeks In Business: The Great Idea Edition

Do you even have an idea, and wonder “Why haven’t I thought of this before?”

Sometimes inspiration strikes when you least expect it, and then actually works out. Here’s what happened the last two weeks at BEC:

I had an idea for a workshop.
One of the littler known things about me is that I have a teaching certification, and I really do miss helping people learn things.

It was while I was sitting in a talk about websites that I had an idea about how I could combine teaching with what I’m doing now. What if I gave a class to help people set up a blog?

Partnering with my much more tech-oriented friend Matt, he could give the technology portion of the talk (how to install Wordpress on your domain name, basic setup, etc.) and I could do the content part (what to put on the blog/website, how to promote it once it’s set up). We would help registrants of the class buy their domain names and hosting the week before so that the day the class met, we could actually set up the website/blog. Charging $50/person would allow us to pay for our time and the room and give those just starting out a chance to have a website on their own domain in just a few short hours of work.

Matt is down for it and we have a venue…More on the progress of all this next week. In the meantime, let me know if you have any interest in attending.

After the talk, I answered people's questions and even had time for a few clever staged photographs.

I gave a presentation to the Ellsworth Chamber of Commerce.
It turns out that double the amount of people registered for my talk about social media. I was a bit worried about getting through my material and also being able to answer questions so I tightened up my presentation. The other good thing was some of the people who attended gave me an idea of what they’d like to ask me, and the Chamber director was kind enough to send me a list of those who registered.

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