A Bridge From Industrial to Post-Industrial Communications

Any company planning to use social media in a systematic way to support customer service, sales, or any other business function needs every employee on board from the start. It’s a corporate culture shift that won’t work with a traditional management approach.

But using the right combination of educational and information-gathering techniques, presented in a stimulating and memorable way, will get you the data or feedback you need at the same time that you’re preparing employees to get involved in the transition.

And there’s no need to make this project very complicated or widgety. Here’s my suggestion of how you might get off on the right foot. It’s an original idea I came up with in response to the request for help from a member of marketingprofs.com.

1. People get involved in social media because they want to feel connected and engaged with other people, and hopefully learn something in the process.

2. Technology has changed how we engage with each other, but not why we feel that need (especially Americans, the world’s most avid association junkies).

3. The more AUTHENTIC the initial online engagement–the more relevance, proof, and value in first interactions–the more a person wants to stay in touch with another individual or group.

4. So divide your employees and other stakeholders into three or four random groups and have them read several posts, communications, messages etc., each of them written in a style similar to one of the major social media platforms (Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, YouTube etc).

5. Then have everyone complete a survey with 20 or so questions, each with five multiple-choice answers. This will help determine how engaged respondents felt with the writer or presenter: how interested they might be in meeting that other individual in person, post a comment, refer it to a friend, etc.

6. If you’re clear on your project objectives, it wouldn’t be very hard to make sure your survey also gathers some data about specific execution or transition issues you expect to face.

7. Before starting have each respondent indicate how often they already use the various platforms in order of frequency, so their answers can be weighted accordingly.

Good luck and let me know if I can help!

25 Reasons You Don’t Sell Snake Oil

1. You’re a leader because you offer everyone more value; snake oil salesmen think they know how to manipulate others.
2. You accept responsibility; they avoid it with lies, damned lies and statistics.
3. You compete against yourself daily; they always sell the same tired two-dimensional idea.
4. You always make yourself useful; they seek only short-term personal gain.
5. You respect creative people; creativity confuses and scares them.
6. A problem intrigues you; they hope it will go away if they ignore it.
7. You encourage humor in yourself and others; they promote only drama and trivialities.
8. You welcome synergy and diversity; they want everyone to line up behind them.
9. Numbers are a tool for you; the same numbers serve as their “invisibility cloak.”
10. You enjoy ideas and new perspectives; they tend to feel threatened and afraid about anything different.
11. You encourage stakeholders to become leaders; they tell their stakeholders to buy more snake oil.
12. You prefer success over control; they think one is the same as the other.
13. You recognize that people are the key to success; they see people as consumers and commodities.
14. You strive for universal, ongoing improvement; they seem to know they’re perfect.
15. You offer stakeholders frequent success; they just sell repackaged products or services.
16. You motivate us with recognition and appreciation; they think that’s too much trouble.
17. You help stakeholders grow to their full potential; they print coupons and special offers.
18. Your company’s culture celebrates quality and inclusion; they engineer disengagement.
19. You see the cost of doing everything better as a challenge; they consider quality a sales ploy.
20. You explain in a few words WHY you’re in business; they keep telling you what they do, and how.
21. You share your canoe with great people; their yacht is reserved for rich friends.
22. People tell you what’s really going on; they find it easier to just gather statistics.
23. You always have a plan B; they’ll stick to plan A and keep their fingers crossed.
24. You prevent problems; they ignore them . . . until panic is their only option.
25. You know joy is in you; they think it’s hidden somewhere inside things, numbers and process.

Bend It Like Guy Kawasaki

World Cup fever and the game of soccer is in the headlines. It’s almost as popular as social media. But unlike Facebook, it comes with a championship.

So why is “the beautiful game” suddenly so beautiful to Americans?

Maybe it’s partly the result of our social media lifestyles.

Consider the similarities between the low-tech, democratic game of soccer/football and the high-tech, democratic “game” of social media. Great soccer players:

* Can react quickly to the unexpected
* Can switch from offensive play to defensive and back again in an instant
* Can focus completely on the ball, yet remain conscious of everything around them
* Often started to play without the benefit of training, equipment or specific skills

And the same goes for great social media marketers.

Footballers visit http://www.soccer-training-info.com/soccer_strategy_tactics.asp because they want to teach themselves how to “bend it like Beckham.” Might it help us look differently at social media success, too?

Here’s hoping that some day you’ll play social media as well as the pros play football.

Marketers, Ghosts and Memories

Only a few years ago, most of us believed our professional and corporate worlds were here to stay; institutions were permanent and immutable.

Back then a few overachievers could gain market traction by introducing revised versions of last year’s applications as “new paradigms,” or by promoting their disruptive technology. But our safety nets and systems were so securely in place, marketers could focus on traditional niches, and keep tweaking their tested techniques.

The good old days.

Today’s successful entrepreneurs go to sleep with iPads on their stomachs. Restaurant chains extend their digital glad-hands straight into our pockets. Each of us is a solo market niche, living in a permanent state of self-education and preparing ourselves to become tomorrow’s persona.

Yet most companies continue trying to guide consumer crowds into their dusty corrals. That’s because it’s easier to market to ghosts and fond memories than to moving targets like you and me.

New studies conclude that technology promotes fractured thinking and lack of focus. A generation of chronic multitaskers, experts tell us, loves to lap up “irrelevant” information even when we’re offline.

It’s time to wake up and hear the mouse clicks. Ghosts and memories can’t be pushed or pulled; only laid to rest. Marketers should appeal instead to what won’t be changing for many years: our ages-old need for companionship and validation, tribal values and cooperative effort. Touching us where we’re unique is the one way to spur us into action–even those of us who still reminisce about how the world was, way back in 2007.

Live with it.

Timeless Art, Timeless Marketing

Great marketers and advertisers build memorable conversations with audiences. Their messages and images connect us to people, narratives and solutions . . . then hopefully to their product or service.. .

They probably don’t realize that a great artist’s technique was doing the same thing centuries ago.

Scientists studying Rembrandt’s “eye guiding” technique and skillful use of “lost and found edges” believe they’ve decoded the magic of his art.

His most famous portraits naturally guide our gaze to the subject’s carefully painted eyes. That gives viewers a calming, memorable sense of personal connection.

For the study, scientists followed the eye movements of volunteers as they looked at new photo portraits that copied Rembrandt’s technique.

“When viewing the Rembrandt-like portraits, viewers fixated on the detailed eye faster and stayed there for longer periods of time, resulting in calmer eye movements,” UBC researcher Steve DiPaola reported

More recently, iconic advertising pioneer David Ogilvy’s ads also used expressive personal images as emotional hooks. He guided our attention comfortably around the ad step by step, until we’d reached his call to action. The best advertisers and marketers continue to adapt his version of Rembrandt’s “eye guiding” technique for compelling narratives and calmer viewing experiences.

Tell an affecting story in your ads and marketing. Incorporate images that use Rembrandt’s principle–and remember to add content that’s rich with relevance, proof and value.

Market it like Rembrandt!

Results, Yesterday

Not having enough time to take care of business isn’t your biggest problem. Neither is a lack of authority or decision making power.

The real issue is a lack of reliable results. Get your “results yesterday.” This quick payoff will be your reward for what you’re doing right, or how you’re getting it done. Don’t look now, but the faster our wired world moves the longer it takes other businesses to get their payoffs.

Few business people realize how simple it can be to achieve great results–not always easy, but simple. First identify and cultivate your business’ key moving parts. Then put them into positive motion with a simple process that’s built around easily acquired and proven business development tools. A process already being used by businesses like yours.

Stop reinventing the wheel. Discover and tap into the remarkable results your employees, team members, customers and stakeholders have already achieved. With this process in place, make good things happen:

1. Keep your eyes on the (bigger) prize and dedicate yourself to winning it, every working minute of every day
2. Correct your course when you lose focus on your company’s “One Thing”
3. Prepare the best employees to move into the lead on projects, and show the others the door
4. Make your new focus on stakeholders’ dreams, needs and agendas the foundation of your corporate culture
5. Identify the best person to make every decision; be confident enough to let them do it; and follow up to make sure it was the best decision
6. Consistently transform objections, hurdles and frustrations into opportunities–you might even learn to appreciate them!
7. Accept full ownership of every working minute, weeding out as many time wasters as possible

Got results?