Posts Tagged ‘communication’

The four truths of social media: It’s about dedication

Tuesday, May 25th, 2010

Semper Fidelis: Always Faithful.  As a Marine, I heard these words all the time.  They were not just a motto; they were a call to action, a call to remain faithful to our fellow Marines, the Corps and our country.

As I left the Corps and started running social media campaigns, the words kept creeping up in the back of my head.  I couldn’t put my finger on why I thought about the motto so much until it hit me: to be successful at social media, you need to be Semper Fidelis.

As social media has quickly become a dominant power in the business world, more and more companies are jumping on the bandwagon.  This is a great thing but it will make it more difficult for you to be successful due to all the other companies going after the same piece of pie.  Even if you put together a great campaign, it will take time for things to get off the ground.  Although it can be frustrating that you are not seeing a return on the assets you are investing, you need to always be faithful that the results you want will come.

That said, all the time in the world will not help you if you are not always faithful to your followers.  Although social media may appear free, time is its true cost.  In order to be successful you will have to dedicate a good amount of time to creating content, finding new followers and interacting with your community.  If you do not put in the time to foster and interact with you community, you will not see a return on your investment.

As I have said, the only reason a company should implement a social media campaign is to see bottom-line growth or to hit strategic marketing objectives.  Assuming that is the return you are looking for, it will take the dedication of being always faithful to see that kind of return.  As long as you use the words as a call to action, you’ll find the success you are looking for.

This is part four of five in the four truths of social media series.  To catch-up on the posts you have missed, or to sign-up for the remaining posts, we invite you to visit timeforarebel.com/blog and put us on your RSS feed.

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The four truths of social media: It’s about communication

Friday, May 21st, 2010

Social media is a lot like polygamy.  Now, before you write me off for the loony bin, hear me out for a second.  I’m a huge fan of Big Love on HBO and, in the show, one husband has several wives that he must care for and attend to.  He must communicate with them and encourage them to communicate with each other in order to ensure the marriages work.   Personally, I have trouble keeping my one girlfriend happy so I can’t imagine doing this for multiple women at once, but that is for another day.

The fact of the matter is that social media is set-up much the same way as a polygamist marriage.  Whether you are promoting yourself, or a brand you represent, you play the husband role.  As you grow your community, which we talked about in the previous post, it becomes your responsibility to care for and attend to your followers.  Each one of your followers is a “wife” with their own needs and desires.  It is your job to foster each one of those relationships to ensure you meet their needs and desires.

As just about any relationship expert will tell you, the key to a good relationship is communication.  You have to be able to start conversations, listen to what people are saying and respond accordingly.  If you do not start conversations, it is not communication.  If you don’t listen to what people say, it’s not communication.  If you do not respond to what people are saying, it’s not communication.  And if you’re not communicating, you’re not going to have those relationships for very long.

Now, I’m a realist and I realize that businesses are not going to use social media to simply build relationships.  As I have said all along, social media is a tool to grow businesses, which is exactly why communication is so important.  If you are properly communicating with you followers, you will be able to address any concerns that would prevent them from buying from you.  If you are properly communicating, you will enable your current customers to encourage other followers to buy from you.  If you are properly communicating, you will have proven to your followers that you are the business they should buy from.

Proper communication starts by simply addressing the problems your community has that you fix.  If you don’t know what I’m talking about, I invite you to checkout last week’s blog.  Once you start communicating with your community, it is a simple matter of dedication, which will be covered next week.  Until then, start communicating with your wives, it’s what a good husband should do!

This is part three of five in the four truths of social media series.  To catch-up on the posts you have missed, or to sign-up for the remaining posts, we invite you to visit timeforarebel.com/blog and put us on your RSS feed.

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The four truths of social media: what it’s all about

Thursday, April 29th, 2010

I recently heard someone talk about the “rules” social media and it really rubbed me the wrong way.  First off, despite what all the “experts” will tell you, there is no right or wrong way to use social media.  There is only what works for you to achieve the goals you want to achieve.  Secondly, if there were rules, as a Rebel, I would have to break them.

While this may make social media seem like a lawless domain, incapable of providing bottom line growth, it is in the ambiguity of social media that you will find its strength. Although I cannot offer you a how-to guide, I can offer up the only constraints you will need to creatively grow your business.  These constraints are not the highbrow thinking of academics; they were simply created by the very users of social media.  All I have done is observe these users, over the course of working with dozens of different companies, and now present you with their truths:

It’s about community: The first thing I have my new clients do is describe their ideal customer.  I don’t care about the normal demographic listings; I want to know what makes them tick.  What keeps them up at night, what do they think about all day, what problems or desires do they have that you can solve?  As you start to answer these questions you will know what kind of community to create.  From there its about finding how to create this community by offering value to your audience.

It’s about communication: As any good relationship expert will tell you, communication is a two way street.  If you’re the only one talking, you’re not communicating.  For anyone that has ever been talked at, instead of talked with, you know how annoying this can be.  Luckily social platforms make it very easy to ignore the people that simply talk at you.  If you don’t want to be ignored then find a way to talk with your community, not at them.

It’s about dedication: Social media is quickly becoming a cluttered space, as every business under the sun jumps on the bandwagon.  This means two things for you.  First, it’s probably going to take longer than you think it should to grow your community.  Even if you are providing great value, don’t expect things to take-off over night.  Second, you will have to pay even greater attention to the community that you do create.  If you don’t provide the value and responsiveness that your audience desires, they’ll gladly and easily go elsewhere.

It’s about flexibility: As I said at the beginning, there are no rules to social media.  What has worked great for some of my clients has absolutely tanked for others.  Not only that, there are constant changes and adaptations that you’ll have to stay on top of.  To stay ahead of the game you will have to constantly test, measure and monitor your campaign.  Find what works for you and then find out how you can make it even better.

Over the next several weeks I will be covering each one of these truths in detail.  If you have any questions before then, just let me know.

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It’s not about you

Wednesday, March 3rd, 2010

A friend of mine recently sent me a great article by Joel Spolsky on why he was shutting down his blog.  It appears Joel had great success in creating a blog about programming but he felt it was time to focus his time on taking his business to the next level.  As he prepares to shut down the blog, he reflected back on what made the blog such a great tool in growing his business.

What Joel did, without even trying to, was create a community of programmers that were highly interested in his product.  He did this by not focusing on himself or his company but rather the industry as a whole.  This allowed him to draw-in over a million unique visitors a month that may have otherwise not had an interest in his company.  While he admitted it was hard to not give into the impulse of self-promotion, he saw it as the key to his success.

As Joel shuts down his blog, he does so having used it to grow his company from a single person, bootstrap company, to over 30 employees and millions in revenue.  Not bad for a man with a vision and a blog.  What interested me in the story though was HOW he did it.  Time and time again he pointed out that the only reason why the blog worked was because he didn’t focus on himself or his company, only on his industry.

This is an important lesson to take away.  Even as a seasoned blogger I sometimes succumb to the temptation to self-promote, although the times are few and far between, they show how easy it is to do.  All too often I run across blogs that have aired on the side of self-promotion and they immediately seal their fate that I will not return.  Even if the writer is amazing, witty and captures my attention, it is not worth sifting through the sales pitch.

This is even a problem that I will run into with my clients.  They will love the traffic and response they are getting and decide they want to through in a quick pitch for one of their products or services.  I try to warn them against the move but it is ultimately their blog and their company.  And although the results of this quick pitch might not be immediately felt, it is evident that repeated self-promotion leads to stagnated growth.  Even an expert in growing a blog’s reach, like me, can do little if the content is not what people are looking for.

I guess my mom was right; it’s not all about me.

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The mother filter

Tuesday, February 23rd, 2010

My mom doesn’t approve of most of the things I do.  Since the seventh grade I have seemed to make it my life’s mission to act in a way that she finds unacceptable.  However, after over 20 years she has learned that I am going to do things my own way and that is (usually) okay.  So as I go through my life I am happy to share with her all the details that she may or may not approve of.

When I started participating in social media several years ago I thought about what information I would or would not share.  I looked back to my relationship with my mother.  Beneath the disproval of my actions, there seemed to be a genuine appreciation of the honesty.  And so I applied that open book policy to social media.

Yes, I do and share things that some people may not agree with.  I am a young man and I like to work hard and play hard.  There are no apologies about that.  But even after years of allowing an open book approach to my life, I occasionally cringe at the thought of sharing certain information.  However, I take a deep breath and remember that even the worse of me, is still me and even if people one hundred percent disagree with me, they can at least appreciate my honesty.

So when people object to the thought of sharing information, I instinctively wonder what it is they have to hide.  Don’t get me wrong, I get where people are coming from.  I understand the desire for privacy and not wanting certain people to know certain things about you.  Believe it or not, I am a fairly private person that doesn’t generally like to mix my business and personal life.  However, I am me, one hundred percent of the time.

For the people that do question about what they should or should not share with the social media world, consider the mother filter.  Would you share the information with your mother?  If so, I say go ahead and let the world know about it.  If it is something you would not want your mom to know about, it is probably best kept off the internet entirely.  Once something is posted to the internet you should assume the entire world, your mother included, can see it.

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Do I have to use social media?

Wednesday, December 2nd, 2009

Well, if you are reading this, then yes.  Eighteen months, or maybe even a year ago, I would have considered an argument that social media is meant for a specific target demographic.  However, the breadth and depth of social media today is so consuming that it seems naive of any company to not fully delve into social media.

Why must you use it?  Although my mother would tell me this is a horrible excuse, everyone is doing it.  Even if you are a staunch resister of the social media title wave, you have undoubtedly dabbled, looked or tried.  Most of you will have favorite sites and think that others are stupid or a waste of time.  I understand all of these perceptions.  But let me assure you, if you want to continue to see serious growth in 2010, you need to go all-in on social media.  It has been, and will continue to be, the medium that changes how we communicate.

Yes, yes, I am well aware that this sounds like a scare tactic from a social media expert that has much to gain from a slew of companies jumping into the social media game.  The reality is that I have more to gain from a gradual social media acceptance than I do a massive onslaught.  Already people that I taught how to use social media are labeling themselves experts and trying to take a piece of the social media pie.  If suddenly there is a lot more pie to go around, more “experts” will follow.

Not only that, I am far from the only person to suggest that social media is now a must.  In his book “Crush It” Gary Vaynerchuk tells his reader that they should be on every social media site possible.  Although I would not go to this extreme, it has become apparent that a strong social media presence is essential to continued growth.  Gary doesn’t just point out the necessity for social media, he also points out that social media has leveled the playing field in business.  Now, any size company can connect with an unlimited number of consumers.  No longer do the gatekeepers of large media dictate where the public devotes their attention.

Not only is social media a must, it is a great opportunity.  If you are a small company you now have the opportunity to connect with limitless consumers and over take the goliaths of the world.  If you are a large company you have the opportunity to connect with consumers and turn them into life long buyers.

So yes, social media is a must but you should consider it the greatest opportunity your company has ever been given.

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I hear Facebook will be dead in 5 years

Wednesday, November 18th, 2009

I was reading an interesting blog post awhile back that was discussing whether Facebook will even be around in five years.  It seems that social networking sites are unable to find a business model that translates into profits.  Being that my business revolves around social media, this started to concern me.  But then I realized: who cares!

My epiphany came in the realization that social media is not at all a shift in technology; it is a shift in the way we communicate.  No longer are we dependent upon a single source to push out a message through a given medium.  Although television, radio and magazines will almost certainly continue in some form, their impact has already begun to dwindle.  Large conglomerates no longer dictate what information we should know; we have become a water cooler society.

What I mean by water cooler society is that our information is now distributed casually from person to person, just like rumors at the office water cooler.  Yes, we can learn about the Iraq war from the massive amount of television coverage or we could read the blog of a soldier fighting on the front lines.  Yes, we can get a recap of yesterday’s news from the newspaper or we can hear it from our friends in our news feeds.

Although it may seem like it, this water cooler society did not arrive on our doorsteps overnight.  Since the advent of the internet we have been moving in this directions.  Forums, chats and groups paved the way for what we now call social media.  Forms of blogging have been around since the mid-nineties and modern social networking sites since the early 2000s.  Granted, this is a quick timeline in the sense of changing how information is passed from person to person, but is by no means instantaneous.  Society has been striving for a new way to communicate for sometime now.

Even if Facebook, MySpace, Twitter and LinkedIn all fall off the face of the earth tomorrow the way we communicate is unlikely to change.  In their void will come new technologies that allow us to continue our water cooler society.  Gone are the days of one-way communication and here to stay is an era of word of mouth conversation.  So, die if you must Facebook, it wont effect my business none.

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Advertising goes archaic

Tuesday, July 21st, 2009

Words are nothing more than agreed upon symbols and sounds meant to convey feelings.  They are a simple, antiquated invention that has somehow lasted through time.  But now, with all of our technology and endless innovation, words have become our crutch.  A word, phrase or sentence has become the most powerful tool we own. 

Technology brought us pictures which are said to speak a thousand words.  Innovation then brought us moving pictures that streamed constant action into our lives.  But even with all of these improvements, we still fall back on words.

When we think about it though, words are really what define us as humans.  Our ability to communicate, discuss and educate is really what separates us from the rest of the animal kingdom.  So it should be no surprise that words carry such weight.  They have been a powerful tool for some time.

Word of mouth.  Everyone knows it is the most powerful way to reach new customers.  For years advertisers worked on recommendation and referral programs meant to harness its power.  And then another innovation put the power right into our laps.

Social networks burst onto the scene and into our lives within a matter of a few short years.  With their rise in popularity, the power of words has increased.  Now, instead of telling our neighbors and friends about a product we love, we can reach hundreds of millions within seconds.

This is a powerful tool.  As I logged into my social networks this morning, I calculated over ten thousand people that I can reach in a moment’s notice, just as soon as a company gives me reason to spread its message for them.  Those ten thousand people then connect me to tens of millions of people that will get the message, should a company give us a reason to spread its message.

Perhaps you are catching a trend.  Companies must give the consumer a reason to spread their message.  Call this buzz, guerrilla, groundswell or viral. I call it word of mouth.  As social networks continue to become an integral part of our lives, word of mouth becomes an integral tool to reach new consumers.  This is archaic advertising and this is the future.

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