Creating Trusted Relationships using Social Media...

Why do people want to read what you write? Why do people focus in on some and not others? Why do people share something with others through word-of-mouth? Why are some people like magnets for their content while others are passed over? The answer……their “STORIES” are stronger.

The internet today is full of content – more than we could ever need in our lifetimes. There are facts and figures and charts and graphs and descriptions and “how-to’s” and just about everything we ever need to answer a question or solve a problem. And thanks to search engines like Google, Bing , Yahoo, and others, we can now find it more easily than ever. This is not “social media content” and is not the content the audience is drooling over today. We know the facts (or where to get them), but what about the “story” behind the facts.

The “content” the audience wants more of today is “stories.” Stories about experiences – yours and others that cause the rest of us to “emotionally connect” with the characters and situations in the story. People want to know what experience someone had while using this product or service, or what was an unusual story that would demonstrate whether I should engage or purchase or participate, etc. This is the content the world wants to see today and in the future – not more facts!

I’ll give you a secret about word-of-mouth. People don’t talk to others about all the facts and figures as a normal course of conversation, unless they are used to back up their story about whatever it is they are talking about. A simple example – If you went to a party and stood in the middle of the room, what do you think would draw a crowd faster? Standing there reciting all the facts and details about a product, service or event OR starting to tell a story about how this product, service or event helped change your life or your business?

This is how social media should be used and is how it will get spread through word-of-mouth and cause someone to check you out again and again and again – building a trusted relationship. So think “stories” not “facts” and social media will start to make a whole lot more sense to you as you build loyalty and advocacy with your audience.

True "Word-of-Mouth" - at an individual level

Thousands of people, millions of stories, and when you look at it from this perspective, it doesn’t really mean that much.  But when you look in the eyes of one person, as I did with Loa Griesbach, you see a different story and this one has a face, a beautiful face at that.

I met Loa at the Redmond Rousers Rotary meeting last night when she was telling her story and it hit me.  Not that she was a quadriplegic who had been in a terrible car accident.  Nor was it about how a great organization, Pushing Boundaries, was there to help her along the way with her exercise and health needs.  No, it was something else…

It was Word-of-Mouth.  Here was a beautiful young lady, a ballet dancer as a matter of fact, who had a life changing moment one day when she was in a car accident at age 17 and her spinal cord was injured.  Life was never going to be the same.  But even with being on a ventilator she told her story about hope and accomplishment.  She is confined to a wheel chair but still managed to finish high school – no wait, she finished college at Seattle Pacific University with a degree in history – no wait, she is thinking of applying to medical school – unbelievable!

Then I thought, “What could “I” do for her, after hearing her story?”  I could donate, I could empathize, I could even volunteer – but only as one person.  But wait, what business am I in again?  Oh, yea, social media and creating Word-of-Mouth on Steroids for companies.  So it hit me – why shouldn’t Loa get the same treatment?  What if we could spread the word “virally” to my networks of “followers” and they spread to their network and so on until tens of thousands of people know Loa’s story.  Bingo.

So rather than going out and campaigning and fundraising (although that would probably be appreciated by Pushing Boundaries since they are a non-profit), my goal was to just get people to say HELLO to Loa and give her some words of encouragement – virally and via social media.  Get the Word-of-Mouth working to just let her know someone thought about her today and said HI.  So if you are reading this, simply leave her a comment on this post and “MAKE HER DAY.”  Let’s do it…spend 1 minute and create a smile – that’s word-of-mouth on steroids.

How much is your "BRAND" worth?

I have to admit - I"M SHOCKED! This past week I was talking to a lady in charge of social media marketing for a software company about who they were using/hiring to be in charge of their social media strategy and planning.  With my background in corporate strategy, naive Blaine thought they were actually talking about "real strategy" instead of which social media "tools" they should be using.  Boy was I off base...

Turns out they are looking for $40/hour people - maybe an $80,000/year position to take the lead and develop a social media strategy and execution.  I just about fell out of my chair!  So my question was pretty simple, "I guess your Brand and reputation are worth less than $100k - at least you've put a price tag on it."  When you have someone at that level in charge of the messaging to your customers, prospects, partners, advisors, vendors, etc., is that who you feel understands your business well enough to entrust your Brand?

Your Brand is what you live and what you engage about with your audience - it's that simple.  It isn't slogans and signs, it is the dialog and the message that your audience receives.  Putting this message in the hands of someone who doesn't really understand your business nor the strategy or markets you are trying to reach is simply committing "marketing suicide".  We are just starting to see more cases of this hitting the air waves - and there will be more.

Just because someone understands the "Tools" of social media does not give them permission to "own your brand" through the messages that are being sent.  If you are the CEO or Owner or someone in charge, I would challenge you to ask some tough questions of your management team in this area.  Just because someone knows facebook or twitter or LinkedIn or a host of other tools doesn't mean the understand your business and your customers.  STOP risking your Brand - it is worth more than $40/hour.

Beware of the "Low Barrier to Entry" consultant

Over the past 9 months we have been seeing more and more so-called "Experts, Gurus, Ninjas, Mavens" and a host of other names pop up in the world of Social Media.  Is that a bad thing?

Not if you don't mind putting your BRAND in the hands of a recently laid off traditional marketing person, or a web developer that has lost most of his clients because no one wants to pay exhorbetant fees for websites any longer, or an ex-real estate agent that finally figured out the market was dead and they knew how to use facebook and twitter, or the ad agency guys that are trying to figure out how to salvage their "cash cows" of traditional media, or even long time traditional marketing person/firm that figured out marketing budgets at their clients have been cut in half, etc., etc.

BL Ochman, a true marketing expert, wrote a great piece called, "Self-proclaimed Social Media Gurus on Twitter multiplying like Rabbits", where she gave some incredible numbers of how fast this space is growing with so-called "experts" in the field of social media. When you have a low "Barrier to Entry" you have to expect a lot of people jumping in the pool - it goes with the territory, regardless of whether it is social media or anything else.  With Social Media, there is by default a low barrier to entry.  The "tools" are all free so the investment to start up and "hang a shingle" is easy - thus the problem.

Eric Weaver of Tribal DDB had a great slide in one of his recent presentations that I thought as a great graphical representation of what BL Ochman was talking about.  For example, the estimate is an increase of 4X in less than a year. 

The bottom line - before you decide to trust your brand, your company or your reputation with thousands of customers and potential customers who are checking you out through the internet, do your homework.  Don't get lured into the trap of the "Tool Experts" (more on that in a later post) - work with someone who understands business first and you can avoid a lot of "re-work" and "brand erosion".  Find someone who understands STRATEGY and your BUSINESS and your GOALS and your CUSTOMERS.  If they aren't willing to ask you these tough questions, your RISK just went up...