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Social Media
By Willow Baum-Lundgren, Small Planet Partners
I've loved Steve Martin since the arrow through the head. Martin's 1993 play, Picasso at the Lapin Agile, holds a witty and wise lesson for marketers in the digital age.
The play imagines Albert Einstein and Pablo Picasso, before their fame, meeting in October 1904 at a bar in Montmartre, Paris. As the play unfolds, the waitress Germaine engages Einstein about the book he's writing, The Special Theory of Relativity.
She fires questions about the book's marketability: What's it about in one sentence? Does it make you laugh? Have a catchy title? Could it have illustrations? Einstein's responses: discouraging. Then, the kicker.
Germaine: Okay, in your field, how many people do you figure have to read your book to have some impact?
Einstein: One.
Germaine: No, no, no. In order for your book to have impact, you've got to have a lot of people read it; every man in the street has got to have one.
Einstein: No, only one. Max.
Germaine: Max?
Einstein: Max Planck, a German physicist, very influential. If he reads it, he makes my reputation.
Germaine: Well, you're lucky. If your market is one person and you know his name, you can put a limit on what you're going to spend on advertising.
If you're a classically trained marketer, you may be accustomed to thinking of demand generation primarily as a funnel through which we marshal magnitudes of prospects from awareness through consideration to purchase.
Einstein's unconventional approach of earning the attention of one vs. buying exposure among many is apt for today's digitally amped, socially networked BtoB environment.
- Let's Get Small
Formal influencers—press and industry analysts whose role is to share information with the public—have long been the province of the PR department. Social media has given rise to a new breed—informal influentials—with exponential potential reach.
Many industries have their own variety of Max Planck(s). (Relatively speaking, since Planck is considered the founder of quantum theory, thereby one of the most important physicists of the 20th century.)
Informal influentials are subject matter experts with a megaphone. They write blogs, post comments and participate in online forums. Influentials—formal and informal—shape thinking and behavior of others.
On the Internet, people tend to congregate around shared needs and interests. Your industry likely has networked opinion-leaders with social media mojo. Find them. Visit a free blog search engine such as Technorati or Blogpulse. Search for your company, products, competitors. Repeat on YouTube and Flickr. Or search for relevant online message boards. Who has authority? Who posts most frequently? Which speakers are connected to others? What are they saying? Listen. Learn.
- Share Real Value
Marketing in a noisy, on-demand world is becoming less about telling people directly about your products. It's more about being remarkable. Literally.
Few products are quite as gripping as Einstein's theory of relativity. So, what to do?
Share your unique knowledge and expertise. Simple Human designs trash cans and other tools for efficient living. Their blog is not about that. Nope. It's about useful, interesting stuff: life hacks. Hints and strategies to live more efficiently like How to Avoid the Freshman 15 or Flattering Ways to Wear a Tunic. Perfect for this brand—and worth sharing, if you or your friend owns a tunic.
Ask yourself: What will my Max Planck find valuable enough to pass along?
- Give People a Reason to Talk
Word of mouth marketing is about giving people a reason to talk about your stuff, and making it easy for those conversations to take place.¹
People talk to exchange ideas, learn, make better decisions, become more helpful and interesting. Organic word of mouth occurs naturally when people become advocates because they're happy and genuinely desire to share their enthusiasm. And when they're super unhappy.
Do something thoughtful and modest: produce a provocative white paper, downloadable and easy to pass along from your Web site. Ensure your Max Planck can't resist talking it up in her social sphere. Or, go big. Like global real estate advisor DTZ.
In July, DTZ and Think, a think tank for construction industry professionals, partnered to launch a social networking resource site designed to spark discussion around sustainability, among professionals and academics from the built environment. The industry soft launch alone produced more than 1,000 sign-ups.
- Make It Easy for People to Talk
How might Albert Einstein earn attention today with sharing and social media tools? Why not publish a white paper, and simply e-mail it to a few influentials for comment? Or publish a series of blog entries that relate different elements of The Special Theory of Relativity to Planck's work, using tags to enhance search findability—by Planck himself. Or participate in an appropriate Web-based scientific community, as Innocentive is to R&D, and incent scientists to perform and post verification experiments.
¹ Word of Mouth Marketing Association
About Willow Baum-Lundgren
Willow Baum-Lundgren is founder and managing director of Small Planet Partners, a new school marketing consultancy that helps authors, filmmakers, entrepreneurs, brands and non-profits earn growth, build word of mouth and cost-effectively connect with stakeholders in a networked, on-demand world. Specialties: Word of mouth marketing. Community-building. Fresh ideas. Integrated strategy.
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