The Art of Being Personal While Sticking To Business Objectives

Social Media is Fun When There is No Pressure

No kidding. We all know how effortless social media can feel when we are doing it for personal reasons.  Think of how sites like Facebook is an addiction for some people.

When social media is done without expectations or pressure, we are in a different state of mind where our actions flow.  This is when sharing and creating posts is fun and effortless.  And we find a sense of fulfillment in being able to connect with others in a convenient and easy way.

Some people have been able to create sizable audiences because  of how much they enjoy creating content and having people respond positively to what they have to say.

So then, businesses started asking themselves, if social media is so easy and effortless, why not harness the power of online conversations for their own brands?

Social Media is Not So Fun When There Are Expectations

When social media becomes work and money is at stake, fun and effortlessness seem to really diminish.  What used to be fun becomes more of an obligation.

I’m sure you’ve had the experience of looking up brands on Twitter and finding that these companies might only have about 100 followers or so. And their last post was probably quite some time ago. Many companies really don’t have a dynamic online presence, the way we might imagine it to be.

Why Does Social Media Seem More Difficult When It Comes To Business?

There is a lot for brands to think about

• Using social media for business purposes does require strategy and direction.
• There are PR issues that need to be considered.
• Also the messaging needs to strike a balance between self promotion and personalized conversation.  Being overly promotional is a turn off for many people.
• Audiences need to be clear about how they can benefit from a particular brand’s offerings.  Quite a bit of strategy is needed to carry this off without sounding like a spam bot.

Quality social media strategies require a lot of small details. Collectively these add up to the  ideal outcome.

On a day to day level, they carry the illusion of being a waste of time, when there are so many other pressing obligations to handle.

A Happy Middle Ground?

How do we take the fun, carefree, connected, engaged online social personality and channel it into brand campaigns? I do believe that a happy middle ground can be achieved when we learn to shift our perceptions and trust in our inner resources.

A Frame of Mind for Social Media

Having the right frame of mind every as you work on a campaign might sound frivolous to most people.  But if you want your online presence to be better than those of most people, then give this concept a chance.

The social media frame of mind for business objectives requires:

• that you  get excited about what you offer and finding ways to be conversational about it
• putting  yourself in your customer’s shoes and relying on your gut instincts to hone in on the human aspect of how they relate to your brand

Instead of first turning to tangible solutions, like the latest new platform, app, or software product,  it is wiser to first  invest in truly effective strategies that focus on how customers think, feel and want.

Once you understand what your audience needs, then think about how technology can improve experiences for both you and your audience. For more ideas on this,  read  this article by Mike Corak, VP of  Tallwave,   “Content Strategy First, Shiny Objects Second.”

Keep this in mind. The things that have gone viral often did not start out with this intention, nor was there much strategy and direction in mind.  Most of the time, they are done with a free spirit and the enjoyment that ensued was able to compound and spread.

The ideal frame of mind is the one you are in when you are posting and sharing things without any type of pressure.  The challenge is tapping into this state to create quality business campaigns.  This is where brainstorming comes in handy.

For inspiration, do a search on successful social media campaigns. In most cases, you’ll find that establishing a true connection with people was the pivotal factor.

Once you have mastered the art of transitioning between the state of creative social nirvana and organized action, then you can have all the fun you want with selecting the right technology for your specialized needs.

With this balance established, your focus will be on giving to your audience through quality conversations and offerings. And likewise the people who follow you will have more reasons to reciprocate and support your endeavors.

Tool versus Solutions- An Illustration

One of my previous posts discussed the difference between tools and solutions.  Again, there are the tools themselves. And there is the result of using these tools. I thought it would now be fun to illustrate this distinction. Understanding concepts is a completely different experience from seeing actual examples.

Pencils

Pencils are cheap. They are readily available. Most of us think of them as a tool for writing. But they can also be used for drawing too.

Anyone can create this.

(image courtesy of JamesJean.com)

But what about something like this?

The Piano

Of course, the piano is considered an instrument, not a tool. But nonetheless, it is something that requires skill.



Beginners start off learning simple tunes like Twinkle Twinkle Little Star. With practice and a sincere passion for music, it may be possible to sound more like this.

There are countless examples beyond the ones I gave above. But I didn’t want to let this post get too long.  The lesson is this.There’s more to the advanced levels than just technical prowess. It takes imagination and inspiration to come up with results that make us go, “wow!”

Back in February, I wrote about a company called Threadless as an example of a social media campaign to learn from. They harness the power of collaboration with their customers to create products that sell.

And if you follow my tweets, you will also learn about other successful campaigns. Cultivating the intangible in an extraordinary way is how you get the most out of tools and instruments. It’s an inner game.

With this said, I’d like to leave you with a quote by Spike Humor, a speaker, author and consultant.

“Great things come to great people who create great value.“

How To Come Up With Great Content Ideas

 

Great social media campaigns  provide quality and engaging experiences for audiences on an ongoing basis. This is different from just shoving out (whatever) messages to as many people as possible.

 

Providing these ongoing and engaging experiences requires creativity. My last post was about social media being more of an inner game. Creativity is certainly a part of it.

 

Creativity can seem like a daunting, unattainable, fleeting quality to some.  Others might feel strange or intimidated if they have never thought of themselves as being creative. I’ve seen people get pretty competitive and egotistical over it, as in, “who’s the most creative of all?” Creativity is not a source of power that puts you ahead of everyone else. As kids all of us had easy access to it. It’s the conditioned adult mind that covers it up.

 

For now, let’s just focus on your campaign. If you are interested in coming up with fresh, ever evolving material practice these tips.

 

 

Brainstorming

 

Brainstorming is a great way to access ideas that normally don’t occur during the course of your regular day. There is no right or wrong way to do it. This is why I am noting the points below in bullets as opposed to numbers.

 

 

I personally like to use blank sheets of plain paper. But if you’d like, you can use a journal instead.

 

• Clear your mind of any thoughts and feelings centered on obligations (e.g. I have to come up with the greatest ideas and insights in order to be successful at this, or I am just going to get this over with)

• Write your question or focus at the top. Don’t pressure yourself to come up with great ideas. Simply jot down whatever comes to mind, no matter how unconventional or strange it may seem. Many times little epiphanies don’t even have words attached to them. They occur as little blips of insights that you need to translate into words. These are often more valuable than actual statements that come to mind.

• Pay attention to how these ideas feel to you in your gut. Do they feel like something that has been rehashed from another source? Do you experience a strong sense of conviction about them? It’s important to really be genuine and honest about how these ideas genuinely feel to you.

• Put away your paper or journal and let the ideas marinate in your subconscious. Revisit the ideas again the following day and again, see how these ideas and insights feel. You may come up with a flurry of other enhancements and new possibilities.  It’s really important to refrain from judging yourself or feeling fearful and constrained by other people’s opinions (i.e. “what will they think).

• Practice jotting down ideas and revisiting them as many times as you can. The more you do this, the easier the process will become. It’s really important to go back to what you have written down so that you can see it with fresh eyes and make any refinements and adjustments as needed.

• Enjoy the process. Try to put yourself in the exploratory frame of mind of being a kid as opposed to an adult trying to get to the next level. The more you can put yourself in this flow, the better the results will be.

Ideas for Tweets, Blogs and Other Content

 

Use the tips in the above to create new material for your campaign. As you’ll notice, my second bullet was about clarifying and writing down your focus. For your social media objectives, ask yourself what your audience would genuinely be interested in hearing or knowing about. New media is a two way dialogue, as opposed to just pushing sales driven messages.

 

Go ahead and practice the brainstorming tips above. See what ideas come about.

 

Another angle you can take is to go through your saved bookmarks and links. Write down, or note what qualities you liked about these materials. Are they humorous? Unique? Daringly honest? Ask yourself how you can incorporate these qualities within your own content strategies.

 

Maybe even start a compilation of links and sites you don’t like. Practice what you preach and use these insights in your own campaign.

 

Alternatively, you can also note all the links you chose to share with your friends or associates. What was it about this material that compelled you to do this? Does your existing content reflect these qualities?

 

Practice, Practice Practice!

 

If this all seems new to you, you might feel a great deal of resistance to these suggestions. The practice of brainstorming may frustrate the heck out of you. If this is the case, just put away whatever you’ve written. The important part happens each time you revisit your ideas and continue to refine them and align yourself with your gut instincts.

Commitment

 

Don’t just keep these ideas in the back burner. Incorporate them into your work process. Turn them into tweets, blogs, videos, podcasts, or whatever outlet you feel is important. You might find it necessary to schedule out your ideas. And once they are out, brainstorm some more!

The Inner Game of Social Media

I think most of us know how fun it is to go online, post or share content and connect with others who share our interests.

 

If you really look at those who are successful at building actively engaged audiences, it’s pretty evident that they truly enjoy what they do. Social media gives them a chance to share their perspective. They can show others who they are and what they do best.

 

The other day, I posted a tweet about how some of the most recognizable names that we hear on the internet are actually kids- like Justin Bieber and Tavi from Style Rookie.

 

Kandee Johnson is a popular make up artist on You Tube. She joined You Tube in January 2009. As of now, her video channel  has received 11,315,075  views. And she has 415,919 subscribers.

Tools and Solutions Are Two Different Things

 

“Social media innovation will no longer be limited by technology. We will see a move to leverage existing assets, turning information to wisdom and insight to action.”- ReadWriteWeb

Technology is cool. It has created numerous new possibilities for us. However, let’s keep in mind that these innovations are just tools. Tools are good. But skill is even better.

In the area of social media, many professionals are enchanted by fancy technology. Before they even have an audience, they are wondering how they can track and measure conversations around their brand. Before they have a thriving community around their brand, they are wondering what implementations would really pimp their social network.

Losing sight of the big picture is not the best scenario. I’ve seen many instances where clients spend a fortune on the technological side of their marketing and have no budget left for a solid marketing campaign. A few months down the line, they are crying and upset that their plans are not going in the direction they intended.

Tools and solutions are two different things. Besides social media, I also love music and art. Being able to play or compose riveting music and art pieces requires passion, skill and talent. Anyone can buy a piano or violin. Anyone can buy a paintbrush and a paint set. But its skill and the desire to produce quality performance that drive these tools and instruments.

Going back to the world of social media, it’s important to think about how technology can be used to help deliver quality messaging about quality offerings. If you really think about it, social media itself is really just a tool to help brands reach their audience. It cannot replace the need to evolve your offerings and create effective messaging. If you are not excited about your brand and how it’s different from everyone else selling the same product or service, then no one else will be either.

Threadless, A Social Campaign to Learn From

When people first start to consider social media as part of their marketing efforts, the first thing they think of is “money.” This is natural tendency of course. But thinking of dollars every minute throughout the duration of your campaign will only stifle it instead of moving you towards increasing returns.

A healthier perspective is to ask yourself, “how can I interact with my market and build a stronger relationship with my customers?” A name and a logo don’t give people a strong enough reason to choose one company over another. A personalized engagement is. Aren’t you more likely to choose a company whom you’ve had a positive personal interaction with. Or would go with one because you liked their name, logo and tagline?

“People will forget what you said. People will forget what you did. But they will never forget how you made them feel.” I used this quote in another post by Maya Angelou. But since it is an important lesson to keep in mind, I thought to include it again.

Threadless is an example of a company who executes social media successfully by prioritizing quality interactions above everything else. In case you are not familiar with the name, they are a youth culture T-shirt company that lets their target market participate in designing and voting for shirts. Here is a video with Bob Nanna of Threadless.

As you can tell, their social campaign is quite thoughtfully done. It’s a great example that illustrates how returns will follow with consistent quality engagement.

What Marshmallow Can Teach You

Success is largely determined by one’s ability to delay gratification. This applies to just about any endeavor. Being the kind of person who likes to observe things, I noticed that social media and online marketing are no exceptions.

The Marshmallow Test & Delayed Gratification

Walter Mischel, a Standford psychologist, conducted a delayed gratification study in the 1960′s on a group of kids. He gave each of them a marshmallow. They were told they could earn another one for being patient, if they refrained from eating it (for 20 minutes) until the instructor came back.

Some of the kids ate their marshmallow right away. Others resisted their impulse and waited. Mischel followed up with both groups 14 years later.

The kids who immediately ate their marshmallow were described in these later years, by parents and teachers as “stubborn, prone to envy and easily frustrated.” (fitzvillafuerte.com)

The kids who waited were “more self-motivated, educationally successful and emotionally  intelligent.” (fitzvillafuerte.com) They even scored higher on their SAT’s. You can read more details  about their career success as adults in newyorker.com.

Here is a reproduction of the marshmallow test:

Gratification Delay and Online Marketing

There are 2 ways to acquire new business/ traffic. Please note, I am not saying that one is better than the other. I am  just saying that there are 2 routes for marketing. Ideally, both should  be done for optimal results.

1. short term tactics
2. long term tactics.

Patience for number 2 is obviously needed.

The Short Term Path
Examples of short term tactics include:

• email marketing
• pay per click
• SEO

Short term tactics give you fast  results. But guess what? They are done by practically everyone. Eventually, these do hit a point of diminishing returns. When you rely too heavily on them, you lose opportunities to develop and differentiate your brand. In the eyes of your target market, you are just a name in a sea of comparative companies.

The Long Term Path
What I call long term tactics are those things that strike most companies as frivolous, fluffy, nice to haves.  At first, they seem like a waste of time. But they are all ways to present unique philosophies & perspectives.  And they allow you to entertain, engage and develop quality relationships that motivate brand loyalty & greater visibility and recognition. Sounds fluffy? Maybe at first. But long term strategies are certainly not fruitless.

Examples:

• regular blogging
• team brainstorming
• white papers
• person to person networking
• professional photography
• thoughtfully produced video content
• feedback gathering to evolve your offerings
• podcasts
• social network tools, community building etc

Oh I can hear the groans and moans already. After all, most businesses just want to eat their marshmallows RIGHT NOW. Many of them don’t want to wait for more candy at a later point in time.

When done correctly with the needs of customers fully in mind, these kind of strategies build valuable sentiment. I can just imagine some readers vehemently resisting this concept. What does touchy-feely, sentiment have to do with business?

Here is a quote by Maya Angelou which sum up the answer really well.

I’ve learned that people will forget what you said,  people will forget what you did, but people will never forget how you  made them feel.

And if the sentiment is strong and compelling enough, they might even refer you to their friends. Remember, this is where word of mouth, viral marketing starts.

In the eyes of prospective customers, users, members etc, do you want to be remembered or forgotten?

Again, I am not saying you should ditch all short term marketing strategies. They just need to be balanced out with the foundation building that long term strategies require. When you reach the point of diminishing returns, there will be no need to worry if you’ve laid the groundwork for increasing returns to come your way.

On this final note, here are more words of wisdom by Maya Angelou.

“All great achievements take time.”

 

Peppermint Bark and the Social Experience

Last year, I had my very first taste of peppermint bark. I’m not a big fan of candy canes, so the idea of peppermint+ bark was not particularly appealing to me. I decided to take the plunge and try the one by Trader Joe’s. I’ve never been so wrong about a candy in my life! I fell absolutely in love with peppermint bark.

The stuff is seen everywhere during the holidays. Martha Stewart has a recipe for making this yourself. And as with all her projects, she showed a really pretty picture of the final product on her website.

Here is a picture of the Trader Joe’s brand.

 

(image courtesy of houseoffowler.com)

I was so enamored with Trader Joe’s peppermint bark that I decided to Google it. Lo and behold, a lot of other people were also inspired to talk about peppermint bark online (particularly Trader Joe’s versus the William’s Sonoma version)

Here is a partial list, in no particular order

1. Waterowl.blogspot.com
2. Chowhound.chow.com
3. Typetive.com
4. Gothamist.com
5. Epinions.com
6. TraderJoesfan.com
7. Gigi-Reviews.blogspot.com

Heck. Even Amazon sells Trader Joe’s peppermint bark for about $14.95. It may seem pricey. But you are getting a lot of candy.

Lesson of the day
If anyone is still asking about how they can get people to talk about their product online, the answer is to make it good and worth talking about.

When I was on LinkedIn, a title caught my eye, “Are You Creating  Evangelists?” What a question! Most people…and this even includes major corporations will reluctantly admit that the answer is no. It’s so easy to get caught up in short term seemingly urgent details. And we brush aside the things we need to do to create brand advocates. Rochelle Moulton, the author of this post, gives some great advice on how to do this.

I doubt that the people behind Trader Joe’s sat around and asked how they could create evangelists. More likely than not, they were just concerned with providing quality food products & trusted that people would be happy to spread the word. Without direct effort, they got like me to be their evangelist!  The other day I did some tweets about their baklava.And today I am publishing this blog about their peppermint bark.

This is just one example. It may not apply in this exact form to every business. It might be best for you to make deliberate efforts to create brand advocates as Rochelle Moulton suggests.

Regardless of what industry you are in,  you  need to make deliberate efforts to make your customers happy.
If you are not sure what to do, reach out and get direct insight from them.

The Spirit of Engagement

Social Media & Common Sense

Some things in life happen through the right attitude or frame of mind.  Remember when Jack Skelington used equations to analyze and figure out the Christmas spirit in Nightmare Before Christmas? Pretty silly isn’t it? Check out 9:30 in the video clip below

Likewise, analysis can only get you so far when it comes to social media. Many people really miss the point when it comes to engaging online audiences. It has become needlessly complicated.

Getting people to talk about your brand does not result from sheer technical prowess. And nor should it happen automatically just because you’ve built an awesome site.

Believe it or not, there are a lot of people out there who seem to believe this.  It’s not that they are foolish.  There is a lot of pressure when money and projects are at stake.

The Business of Online Marketing

Professionals in social media need metrics. Numbers provide a way to forecast outcomes.  They offer a sense of security, although there are many instances when relying too much on quantitative data can be detrimental to innovation.

Business is a serious indeed.  But it doesn’t need to be that serious, especially if it makes brands less appealing to audiences. Formalities shouldn’t result in rigid overly conventional practices. If they prevent “outside the box” thinking, it’s time to restructure outmoded & ridiculously linear ways of doing things.

Providing Experiences

Engaging your audience is about capturing their interest. And just as you can’t come up with a formula for capturing the Christmas spirit, you can’t come up with a formula for online engagement.

Yes you can look at behavioral data to see what types of content get the highest numbers. But anyone can do this. But if you don’t care about the quality of your selection, then no one else will either.

Behavioral data can be used as a general gage to see what your audience is interested in. Take this information and add your own personal touch. Then honestly ask yourself if this is interesting to you. And ask others for help as much as you can for their feedback.

If this sounds fluffy, think again. Social media is about sharing and being social.

With methodology aside, the spirit behind online engagement is about providing fresh and exciting experiences to audiences. All of us are inspired to share and talk about web content that is striking to us in some fashion.

So why not provide the same quality to your own content? Why not become focused on providing great experiences for people who come to your site? Either find a way to do it yourself, or get someone to do this for you.

Sound Advice

If you haven’t noticed, I love to quote Jack Trout. I think a few Troutisms  are relevant here.

* Common sense is your guide
* Research can obscure the obvious. A flood of data should never be allowed to wash away your common sense and your own feeling for the market
* When presented with a simple obvious strategy, many clients are not impressed. They are often looking for some clever, not so obvious idea.

Especially with the economy as it is, now is the time to really consider the importance of creating balanced right brain/left brain strategies.  There really isn’t a formula for tuning into your core audience.  But we all have it in us to connect with each other.  Tapping into this should not be underestimated.