Storytelling Sells

According to Seth Godin, there are eleven criteria of a great story:

1. Great stories succeed because they are able to capture the imagination of large or important audiences.
2. A great story is true. Not necessarily because it’s factual, but because it’s consistent and authentic. Consumers are too good at sniffing out inconsistencies for a marketer to get away with a story that’s just slapped on.
3. Great stories make a promise. They promise fun, safety or a shortcut. The promise needs to be bold and audacious. It’s either exceptional or it’s not worth listening to.
4. Great stories are trusted. Trust is the scarcest resource we’ve got left. No one trusts anyone. People don’t trust the beautiful women ordering vodka at the corner bar (they’re getting paid by the liquor company). People don’t trust the spokespeople on commercials (who exactly is Rula Lenska?). And they certainly don’t trust the companies that make pharmaceuticals (Vioxx, apparently, can kill you). As a result, no marketer succeeds in telling a story unless he has earned the credibility to tell that story.
5. Great stories are subtle. Surprisingly, the fewer details a marketer spells out, the more powerful the story becomes. Talented marketers understand that allowing people to draw their own conclusions is far more effective than announcing the punch line.
6. Great stories happen fast. First impressions are far more powerful than we give them credit for.
7. Great stories don’t always need eight-page color brochures or a face-to-face meeting. Either you are ready to listen or you aren’t.
8. Great stories don’t appeal to logic, but they often appeal to our senses. Pheromones aren’t a myth. People decide if they like someone after just a sniff.
9. Great stories are rarely aimed at everyone. Average people are good at ignoring you. Average people have too many different points of view about life and average people are by and large satisfied. If you need to water down your story to appeal to everyone, it will appeal to no one. The most effective stories match the world view of a tiny audience—and then that tiny audience spreads the story.
10. Great stories don’t contradict themselves. If your restaurant is in the right location but had the wrong menu, you lose. If your art gallery carries the right artists but your staff is made up of rejects from a used car lot, you lose. Consumers are clever and they’ll see through your deceit at once.
11. Most of all, great stories agree with our world view. The best stories don’t teach people anything new. Instead, the best stories agree with what the audience already believes and makes the members of the audience feel smart and secure when reminded how right they were in the first place.

As more and more companies jump into the social media pool they need to ask themselves what story they want to tell. I think the best story is a chose your own adventure.

Image by Idris Mootee

Facebook Tips for Brand Managers

I just came accross this on Facebook's Marketing Fan Page. It is one of several reference papers published by Facebook to help marketers and business owners use Facebook effectively.

Check it out:
Using Facebook to move your business forward

Find Facebook on Scribd

How to get started in Social Media Marketing: Start Listening

The following is a list of activities I've learned from personal experience, as well as, reading books such as Web Marketing for Dummies

Unlike other forms of advertising and promotions, social media marketing is not interruption based, but permission based. We have been social creatures since the days of cavemen and one of our earliest inventions was language development. Knowing how to effectively communicate begins with active listening.

In order for your strategy to make an impact it needs to follow trends, know where your target audience spends their time online, and how to communicate about your products and services without spamming people or getting blocked from networking platforms.

Step 1: Become open-minded.

Understand that assumptions are not facts. Most businesses end up speaking to their existing partners and co-workers online. This is great if your goal is peer-building, but it’s not going to increase your online presence. Do not use offline data to market your brand online. Do not assume that everyone is like you. Do not treat your online activities as a waste of time or insignificant. (Most people can pick up on negative or passive-aggressive attitudes and it is not a good first impression.)

Begin your research understanding that you know nothing- that way your current opinions can’t cloud your judgement and lead you down the wrong path.

Step 2: Put your ear to the ground.

The easiest way to start listening is to create a listening desktop. I recommend that you use iGoogle to manage all of the blogs and RSS feeds you follow in relation to your company and category. If you don’t have a gmail account it’s easy and free to set one up. Once you’ve logged into your iGoogle homepage you can start adding blogs and RSS feeds to keep track of on a daily basis. You can also add keyword searches to iGoogle.

Other examples include: competitor names, individuals in your company, product names, etc.

Other things to track include:

• Twitter feeds or search results
• News search results
• YouTube
• Flickr
• Yahoo Answers

Step 3: Keep a log

Using Excel, create a worksheet that tracks audience data and social media sites where your brand and category is being discussed or commented on.

Audience data:
What kind of people are in your audience?

• Age
• Gender
• Income
• Children
• Regions
• Ethnicity

Other notes to log: Why are they participating in the community or group? What communities or sites do they most often use? How big is this audience? How often do they participate? Who is most influential? Who has the most followers and participants?

Keyword data:

• Phrase
• Age
• Male/Female

Examples of online communities to research:

• Google Groups
• Yahoo Groups
• Facebook
• Digg
• Blogger
• Wordpress

Other resources for free research:
adCenter Labs http://adlab.msn.com
Quantcast www.quantcast.com

Other resources for paid research:
Nielsen Online www.nielsen-online.com
Hitwise www.hitwise.com
Compete http://compete.com
Comscore www.comscore.com
Forester www.forrester.com

Step 4: Start asking questions

There are many free tools to help you ask questions. Yahoo Answers allows anyone to ask and answer, but they don’t necessarily reflect your target audience. LinkedIn allows you to specify the category of your question and narrow down whom you’d like answers from within the LinkedIn community.

Another great resource for creating a free online survey is Google documents. If you’d prefer to have a more professional service conduct a survey on your behalf is to use something like www.surveymonkey.com.

Step 5: Review Google Analytics

Look at how visitors are behaving on your site. Note which pages are popular and visitors spend time on. Begin to think about how the topics of these pages can be incorporated into your social media marketing plan.

Step 6: Compile findings

Take all of the data and research collected and decide how to start engaging in social media to extend your brand presence online.

Step 7: Design a Digital Social Media Policy

Your social media policy serves, in its simplest form, as a guide to how a business, its employees, and anyone else speaking on behalf of the business should share opinions, beliefs, and recommendations with customers online. It is important to have this in place before you engage your staff to represent your brand. Learn more from WOMMA (Word of Mouth Marketing Association).

A CMO's Guide To The Social Media Landscape

via cmo.com

Steps for Implementing an Online Marketing Strategy

I’m very organized most of the time- not always, but my partner calls me the ‘keeper of all things’. I like knowing where all my stuff is and how to get at the small things at the back of the cupboard.

At work, I’m positive that I annoy most of my co-workers with my need to know everything. It’s not that I want to control everything or everyone- it’s just that I feel lost not knowing the bigger picture and it’s through the organization of the smaller things that I’m able to stay focused.

At home, if I want to try a new recipe from my favourite cookbook I don’t want to spend 20 minutes hunting for all the ingredients. I have a designated place for everything. All of my baking tools are in one drawer with all of the ingredients I use to bake.

Professionally, I apply the same principles to organizing strategies for my clients.

Here’s my list of actions and steps to keep a new project on-time and orderly. I strongly encourage you to leave a comment if you think I’ve missed anything or failed to explain something. I also encourage you to share this with anyone who might find it helpful.


Interview the client to obtain:

• What are the business objectives?
• What is the USP (unique selling proposition)?
• What is the marketing budget (on-going and current)?

Research category to define:

• Who are the direct competitors (online and offline)?
• Are there any gaps in the market?
• Are there any potential partners? (Cross promotions, affiliates, add-on services)
• What is the best brand positioning strategy?
• What are the top 40 search terms?
• What available digital technology compliments the product/service?

Outline a project strategy to define:

• Best method to achieve business goals.
• Online brand positioning tactics.
• Cost of acquisition via online promotion(s). (On-going, seasonal, special offers)

Content inventory assessment to define:

• Is there enough call to action messages?
• Are the calls to action messages strong enough and clear?
• Are Images rotated and updated on a regular basis?
• Is there a unique message for returning site visitors?
• Can the sitemap be improved to increase traffic (SEO)?
• Do people know what to do on the site? (Are the conversion paths smoothly transitioning the user through the flow?)

Work allocation to ensure:

• Developer(s) understand what needs to be built and /or improved.
• Designer is clear about the direction of the brand positioning.
• Promotions are scheduled and prepared well in advance.
• Copy is given a “fresh coat of paint” by a professional copy-writer.

On-going Analysis to obtain:

• Report on performance translated into action (are people doing what we expected, is the number of conversions increasing?)
• Explain the trends (annotate data with the wisdom that explains the results).

Another great idea when developing an online marketing strategy is to look at previous examples, 6 Lessons We Can Learn From Barack Obama’s Online Marketing Strategy.

Teach Me How to Tweet

First of all, you don't need to be 'taught' how to tweet - be like Nike, 'just do it'. The notion that you need to acquire new skills to use Twitter or social media is buying into a manufactured sales pitch. Someone is trying to sell you their services or their products - if you want to buy into it that's ok, but know what you're buying into. Formulating an online marketing campaign or interactive promotion requires thinking and skill - just like any other type of campaign, but you're personal involvement in Twitter is not to make a pitch.

There are approximately 16,926,015 Internet users as of Feb. '09, which is roughly 79.6% of the Australian population, according to ITU. As marketers, it's our job to reach them with messages; however, Twitter is not the place to broadcast sales of products and talk about how great a company is - Twitter is a place to exchange contextual information; meaning, information that is specific to what people are asking questions about or talking about already. My involvement with Twitter is not to talk up the company I work for or the clients I represent - it's to engage with people who share the same interests as me. It's personal and entirely about my indidivual opinion. The best use of Twitter is Zappos, a company that empowers their entire workforce to engage in real time.

I spend a lot of time thinking about social media, reading about social media, talking about social media and writing about social media. It’s very hard to not get lost in the semantics, misinformation and negative assumptions surrounding the topic of web 2.0. It isn't hard to get started - there are people out there who want to scare you for their own benefit. Fear is one of the most powerful selling pitches around - look at George Bush's presidency if you need an example of how it's possible to manipulate popular opinion through fear tactics.

One of my biggest pet peeves is the negative taste some have developed for the use of the term. I can remember several instances where a person scoffed or raised an eye brow or simply discarded the concept as ludicrous. I believe people have this reaction because they are confused. 'Experts' tell them that they need to be careful, that involvement is dangerous, that once you say something you'll be held to it forever and no matter how hard you try, you'll never be able to live down your mistakes.

There are lots of reasons why people have adverse reactions to the concept of social media. I’ve blogged about it before, and will continue to blog about it again and again because it is the pervasive darkness that lingers in my daily existence. I cannot escape the constancy of negative barrage against change- regardless of the person’s age, gender, life position; everyone seems to carry large amounts of doubt with them. There is something incredibly threatening about social media for most people and it is because of these individual fears that my job can be incredibly challenging.

I don’t know what it is that makes some people open to the idea of sharing their knowledge, opinions, creative talents- or lack thereof; I’m not a Sociologist. I assume there is something within our survival instincts that tells us to communicate with our fellow human beings. It’s our learned behaviour that teaches us to fear each other and fear strangers. Insecurity keeps us safe in a mute state. We fear judgment. I’m sure there are tons of theories and philosophies about open communication, but it is a very new thing to be able to cross over so many physical barriers and reach out to people on the other side of the world.

To me, the role of Marketing within the context of social media is to listen and communicate. Build relationships and treat people as individuals. Perhaps what is most scary about social media is how incredibly simple it is and does not require degrees to master. Social media breaks down convention – and that is a huge reason as to why it appeals to me. I don’t take it anymore seriously then I take myself. If I make a mistake or I’m misunderstood then I learn from it and move on. And most importantly, maintaining the ability to laugh at oneself is important. Social media can become a reflection of the persona we project out into the world – and sometimes it’s very humbling to see yourself as others see you. It’s not about tricking people with smoke and mirrors- you don’t need to learn a heap of “Twitter rules” to engage. Do what feels natural and I guarantee that you will enviably connect with like-minded people.

In conclusion, next time you see a post, article, comment about the 'rules' of online engagement - don't waste your time with it. Would you buy a book to learn to swim? Not likely, you'd find someone who knows how to swim and practice with them. Don't buy into the wrongful thinking that you need to learn a ton of new terms or abbreviations - just jump in and splash around. It's fun and everyone is allowed to play in any pool they like. Whatever technology or platform works for you is perfectly ok - old fashioned email works just fine.

Source of cartoon: Outraged Comics

How Deep Focus Created a Social Media Strategy for HBO

Flight of the Concords Case Study


At the May 2009 Social Media Bootcamp in New York, Ian Schaffer (CEO Deep Focus) shared a great case study on how brands can leverage Social Media.

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