Video: Influencers to Brand Advocates Roundtable
Great video with key insights for students of new media.
Great video with key insights for students of new media.
Winning friends and influencing people is the heart and soul of social media. Individuals and brands are on a mission to capture audience attention, build trust, and turn fans into advocates. In "How to Win Friends and Influence People", American writer and lecturer Dale Carnegie offers readers several tips, tools, and strategies for making new friends comprising a relevant study for today's students of new media.
Six Ways to Make People Like You
Clearly, success is built on the art of personalization.
Connections keep the stream flowing and the water boiling. Our audience is an important stakeholder in our quest to cook up the perfect social media feast.
Content channeled through connections leads to amplification.
Get out there and connect!
However, some still forget about the ultimate shortcut to engagement and relevance.
Content.
Quality content can be the key that unlocks new doors of opportunity and influence.
Content matters.
Our environment is ripe with information, updates, entertainment, and a variety of media. Emotions lead to a strong desire to express ourselves. Oftentimes, we run to the internet to stake our claim, make our case, or just plain vent without considering the potential outcome of our digital rants.
We tend to forget that the internet is a massive vault in which our ideas, expressions, thoughts, and opinions are easily stored but not easily removed. The tasks involved with erasing a tweet, removing a blog post, or shutting down a website can be numerous and challenging making it important for us as content producers and social media participants to remember what we publish will make its way to the visual aperture of today's audiences. It is almost impossible to avoid the trap of disregard in the online arena.
Before you tweet...blog...or comment...think twice.
Kind of like measuring twice before you cut that last piece of lavish mahogany.
Right now individuals are sending out a tremendous amount of updates to their various social outposts such as Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn, and so forth. Blogs are being written and the comments are adding up. The vast amount of content available online makes for an interesting journey in exploration, accumulation, and separation.
The value of the internet lies in the ability to identify and aggregate worthwile information. Twitter deserves a mention here due in large part to its success as a stream of information and updates on things happening now. The microblogging site has opened up the floodgates of content. However, with this stream of constant information comes a huge responsibility and time consuming task of screening out the noise.
How do we do this?
By focusing on being a leader as opposed to a follower. Think too many re-tweets. Sometimes its easier to hit re-tweet or browse today's top news as opposed to actually taking the time to add value to the conversations taking place.
The number of actual creators versus consumers of content is eye opening. Take for instance, the number of active users on Twitter. Only 21% of users are active on the microblog platform. This tells me that maybe Twitter isn't the true conversational tool that we make it out to be.
Is it time to participate and add value?
Sure looks like it.
(Image: source )
What is twitter anyway?
An update stream where we find a collection of links, comments, shout-outs, tidbits of information, and random thoughts on a plethora of subjects. Yes, it's a social networking tool. We all know that but do we really understand the intricacies of how to use it? Some individuals are able to garner a large following and make a signifcant impact while others are still trying to pick up on the hidden rules of microblogging. (Let me add that a large following doesn't always indicate true success in using the service.)
Today's marketers understand that there are signifcant conversations taking place online. However, oftentimes they fail to effectively participate. The ability to use twitter as a true engagement tool is based on a solid understanding of its key benefits such as:
Let's stop right there and focus on that last key benefit. Rewarding conversations with customers and stakeholders. Hmmm...what does this really mean? There is a key difference between impactful conversations between brands and their customer base and random blurbs filled with obvious self interest and the always untimely sales pitch. Today's brands need to understand how to properly use twitter as an engagement and customer service tool.
Let's elaborate on the potential and power of twitter.
We've all probably walked through a store where someone comes on the intercom and makes a rather dull but rightfully important broadcast. "Spill on aisle 4."..."John, you have a call on line 2."...etc.
The potential of twitter as a customer service tool and conversation generator becomes clear when we compare the service to that of a P.A. system but the truth is that twitter is the ultimate public address system with an enormous reach.
There’s an old saying that “A picture is worth a thousand words”. You know it when you see it…those wonderfully crafted and delicately developed works of art that stop and grab your attention commanding your every thought and visual focus on the subject at hand. There’s art and then there are classic pieces of art that completely outshine the rest surviving the test of time.
In advertising, some ads lead to millions of dollars in sales and some…well, let me just say that they are a bit distracting. A good advertisement makes a clear call to action. Advertisers spend lots of dough trying to catch the attention of the masses.
Hollywood on the other hand is in the business of creating visually appealing and emotionally charged full length motion pictures in an effort to entertain. Of course, we each have our own tastes when it comes to the movies. Some films such as Titanic, Independence Day, Million Dollar Baby, and more recently Avatar explode onto the scene and make a huge impact taking home a nice chunk of change.
Are we just so in love with big boats, alien invaders, and the bold blue of the Na’vi that we rush to theaters in droves eagerly awaiting the opportunity to burn our hard earned cash? Nope. Don’t think so.
The success of memorable ads and movies is completely built upon the art of storytelling. The ability to capture our attention and take us to a place we’ve never been is a vital component of measurable success.
Let’s apply this to new media. What will happen if we take a moment to look beyond the vanity of social media and recognize the power of a good story? Making an effort to connect with others is wonderful and an essential part of being an online citizen. However, bringing value and authenticity to the table is completely hinged on our ability to tell a good story.
Engagement is built around the ease and multifaceted dynamic of making it easy for others to tell your story.
Where do you want to take us? Where are we headed? Down a boring road of the same old’ uneventful hogwash or are we headed towards a new arena of impact and influence?
