Monthly Archives: October 2012

In our previous post, How to Create Buzz – Listen First, we continued our series with a discussion on why listening first is the key to fostering buzz.  In this post, we take a look at important aspects of buzz, and more importantly, how to kill your own buzz.

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Important Aspects of Buzz

While we can’t pretend that we have a foolproof way to create online buzz (if we did, we’d be lounging on our own tropical island drinking umbrella drinks right now), there are a few very important aspects of buzz you should pay attention to.

Like most things social, creating buzz has to be genuine. Social media users can smell a fake a mile away.

Your campaign to create buzz must have the following qualities:

• Trust — As soon as your community feels you’re trying to sell them something using old-style push marketing or that you’re not treating them as individuals, you’re sunk.
• Accountability — You must deliver on all promises, with no exceptions. All your activities must be aboveboard and visible. See Trust.
• Credibility — For effective buzz creation, you must first be seen as credible. Don’t do anything to compromise that credibility during your campaign.
• Transparency — Let people know what’s going on. If you need to change any of your promises or any of the rules, be forthright about it. See the ASUS entry in our Social Media Hall of Shame and previously in the blog post Social Media and Online Branding Campaigns.

Buzz Killers

While it’s hard to say exactly what creates buzz, it’s pretty easy to list what can kill it.

• Banality — The concept has to be interesting, not mundane
• Self-promotion — Don’t make it about yourself or your products or organization
• Old, hard-to-use, non-Social-Media-aware Website — If you’re successful, lots of new people will be coming to your site. Make sure it’s ready to receive them.
• No call to action — Sure you’ve got a cool/funny/weird/attention-getting YouTube video, but what do you want us to do?
• Controversial Topics — This can cut both ways. You can create buzz by being controversial, but not too controversial. And some topics — and treatments of topics — should be off-limits.
• Overload — Don’t overdo. If people get sick of seeing your campaign, the buzz is gone.

Buzz, and Buzz Killers is the 78th in a series of excerpts from our book, Be a Person: the Social Operating Manual for Enterprises (itself part of a series for different audiences). We’re just past page 233. At this rate it’ll be a long time before we get through all 430 pages, but luckily, if you’re impatient, the book is available in paper form at bit.ly/OrderBeAPerson and you can save $5 using Coupon Code 62YTRFCV

Get our new book, The Infinite Pipeline: How to Master Social Media for Business-to-Business Sales Success online here. You can save $5 using Coupon Code 62YTRFCV

What Others Are Saying

“Infinite Pipeline offers practical advice for using social media to extend relationship selling online. It’s a great way to get crazy-busy prospects to pay attention.”
—Jill Konrath, author of SNAP Selling and Selling to Big Companies

“Sales is all about relationships and trust. Infinite Pipeline is the ‘how to’ guide for maximizing social networks to find and build relationships, and generate trust in our digital age.”
—Sam Richter, best-selling author, Take the Cold Out of Cold Calling (2012 Sales book of the year)

“Infinite Pipeline will be the authority on building lasting relationships through online social that result in bottom line business.”
—Lori Ruff, The LinkedIn Diva, Speaker/Author and CEO of Integrated Alliances

Next up: Buzz Creation Techniques

In our previous post, Supporting Online Evangelists, we continued our series with a discussion on how to support your brand evangelists to help spread the word.  In this post, we take a look at buzz; what is it and how to create it.

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Buzz can help attract evangelists and other community members. Buzz is excitement; it’s a feeling that people want to share. Buzz is required to make anything online go viral. Buzz is spread by word of mouth (WOM), and word of mouth is a phenomenon as old as communities. Social media removes the friction from buzz/word of mouth and, like a lot of other kinds of communications, greatly accelerates it.

Although we prefer the term buzz, much of the social media industry uses the term word of mouth as if word of mouth was always positive. Many things can be spread rapidly by word of mouth online, including misinformation and negative information. Buzz, on the other hand, is almost always positive.

Professors Del Hawkins of the University of Oregon and David Mothersbaugh from the University of Alabama define buzz as “the exponential expansion of word-of-mouth” communication.[1] You need more than a cute idea to create exponential expansion. You need to connect with the current zeitgeist[2] or with a common need. And you have to make it easy for people to tell one another about you.

What Creates Buzz?

It’s one thing to understand what buzz is, but understanding the phenomenon doesn’t really answer the question “What creates buzz?” Here are three answers to this question from respected sources:

• A good experience, says Forrester Research[3]
  According to a survey of 4,500 consumers, when asked about companies in 12 industries, more respondents reported talking about good experiences than bad experiences in eight of the industries. Forrester found that consumers reported positive word of mouth about retailers and banks while TV service providers have the most consumers saying bad things. Although there is a trend toward sharing positive feelings, consumers tell more people about a bad experience. GenX’ers and Older Boomers most frequently shared news about a negative experience. Word of mouth cuts both ways.
• An offline relationship with peers, says BIGResearch[4]
  According to a survey done for the Retail Advertising and Marketing Association, 20.6 percent of social media users say they regularly seek advice from others when purchasing products or services. More than one-third (34.7 percent) give advice about purchases, compared to 28.4 percent of all adults. Offline relationships remain more important, however, with 71.8 percent of social media users spreading the word about a product or service in face-to-face conversations, while more than one-third (34.7 percent) do so over a mobile phone conversation.
• A purple cow, says Seth Godin
  In his book, Purple Cow,[5] Godin defines the remarkable bovine as, “Products, services and techniques so useful, interesting, outrageous, and note-worthy that the market will want to listen to what you have to say. No, in fact, you must develop products, services, and techniques that the market will actually seek out.” The idea is to stand out from the other, boring cows. But to do so you need more than a regulation cow and some purple paint, or even a brilliant idea. You need to execute. In a Fast Company magazine article,[6] Godin flips an old superlative — the greatest thing since sliced bread — on its head:

Otto Rohwedder thought he had invented the greatest thing because he invented sliced bread. He thought that if he got a patent on sliced bread, he’d be rich. What Otto forgot was to ask a very important two-word question: Who cares? No one knew about sliced bread. No one cared. It wasn’t until Wonder Bread came around and marketed it that sliced bread took off. It wasn’t the bread that won, it was the packaging and distribution.

Ideas that spread, win. What we’ve been living through is the greatest culture of spreading ideas that there’s ever been. At one level, that’s great because it’s easier to spread your ideas than ever before. At another, it’s harder because we keep raising the bar.

How to Create Buzz is the 76th in a series of excerpts from our book, Be a Person: the Social Operating Manual for Enterprises (itself part of a series for different audiences). We’re just past page 230. At this rate it’ll be a long time before we get through all 430 pages, but luckily, if you’re impatient, the book is available in paper form at bit.ly/OrderBeAPerson and you can save $5 using Coupon Code 62YTRFCV

Get our new book, The Infinite Pipeline: How to Master Social Media for Business-to-Business Sales Success online here. You can save $5 using Coupon Code 62YTRFCV

What Others Are Saying

“Infinite Pipeline offers practical advice for using social media to extend relationship selling online. It’s a great way to get crazy-busy prospects to pay attention.”
—Jill Konrath, author of SNAP Selling and Selling to Big Companies

“Sales is all about relationships and trust. Infinite Pipeline is the ‘how to’ guide for maximizing social networks to find and build relationships, and generate trust in our digital age.”
—Sam Richter, best-selling author, Take the Cold Out of Cold Calling (2012 Sales book of the year)

“Infinite Pipeline will be the authority on building lasting relationships through online social that result in bottom line business.”
—Lori Ruff, The LinkedIn Diva, Speaker/Author and CEO of Integrated Alliances

Next up: Create Buzz – Listen First

[1] From JPL Creative’s blog: bit.ly/ahXmEB

[2] Zeitgeist is the spirit of the times or the spirit of the age. It’s what people are talking about now.

[3] Forrester’s How Customer Experience Drives Word Of Mouth: bit.ly/a4yMkH

[4] RAMA’s Social Media: An Inside Look at the People Who Use It: bit.ly/d0jGuq

[5] Godin’s Purple Cow: amzn.to/cmUk2g

[6] Godin’s Purple Cow article in FastCompany: bit.ly/dbv15X

In our previous post, Defining Evangelistic Styles, we continued our series with a discussion on various evangelistic styles, and how to recruit the right style for your brand. In this post, we take a look at how to support your brand evangelists to help spread the word.

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Supporting Online Evangelists

We’ve talked about the specific ways to support the different evangelism styles. Here are some general ideas for supporting your evangelists. Remember, not all will work with each type of evangelist.

• Give your online supporters tools to identify themselves
  • Avatars for Twitter
  • Badges for Websites and social network profiles
  • Create specialized mailing lists for them to join
  • Create a special online forum exclusively for evangelists
  • Create fan pages and groups on Facebook and other social networks for them to join
  • Enable evangelists to invite others to join
  • Offer stickers, T-shirts, fabric badges, other trinkets
  • Create contests with prizes

In the end, you’ll need to ask your evangelists how you can best support them. Be sure to devote enough time to their care and feeding. They may be the most important people in your organization.

The Importance of Stories

Here’s a good example of online evangelism and it comes from a non-profit.

I’ve known my friend Les LaMotte for a decade, but we hadn’t talked in about three years. One night, Les opened a chat with me on Facebook and told me his story. I knew that he had been working with a non-profit he founded called Sudan Hope (now no longer operating). He told me the story of how, together with the Sudanese people, they had built a paved road and a boat, and brought wireless Internet to remote villages. He talked about his struggles and successes and told me he was seek­ing support for a movie on the plight of the Sudanese.

Over the next month or so, I must have told and emailed 15 of my friends about what Les was doing, and included a link to his donations page.

What’s that worth? It took less than half an hour out of Les’ day to multiply his reach 15-fold.

What if your entire organization, and your entire community, was engaged in this type of evangelism, if even for half an hour a week? Think of how you would multiply your marketing and brand development efforts.

Characteristics of a Good Evangelist

No matter the style of the evangelist, you will probably value the following characteristics of a good one.

In his groundbreaking technology evangelism book, Selling the Dream,[1] Kawasaki created the following checklist to determine if you are an evangelist:

• Do you have a desire to make a difference?
• Do you fearlessly believe in a cause?
• Do you work for a cause for the intrinsic satisfaction that it brings?
• Do you give up other things to make a commitment?
• Do you enjoy fighting the mediocre, the mundane and the status quo?
• Do you get accused of being driven, showing chutzpah,[2] or having more guts than brains?
• Does your spouse threaten to leave you?

While we’re not sure items 5-7 will be appropriate for all organizations, the first four certainly are.

For a good overview of online evangelism, read the three-part blog posts entitled, Evangelism beyond boundaries[3] by Tata Communications International’s president, Vinod Kumar.

Supporting Online Evangelists is the 75th in a series of excerpts from our book, Be a Person: the Social Operating Manual for Enterprises (itself part of a series for different audiences). We’re just past page 228. At this rate it’ll be a long time before we get through all 430 pages, but luckily, if you’re impatient, the book is available in paper form at bit.ly/OrderBeAPerson and you can save $5 using Coupon Code 62YTRFCV

Get our new book, The Infinite Pipeline: How to Master Social Media for Business-to-Business Sales Success online here. You can save $5 using Coupon Code 62YTRFCV

What Others Are Saying

“Infinite Pipeline offers practical advice for using social media to extend relationship selling online. It’s a great way to get crazy-busy prospects to pay attention.”
—Jill Konrath, author of SNAP Selling and Selling to Big Companies

“Sales is all about relationships and trust. Infinite Pipeline is the ‘how to’ guide for maximizing social networks to find and build relationships, and generate trust in our digital age.”
—Sam Richter, best-selling author, Take the Cold Out of Cold Calling (2012 Sales book of the year)

“Infinite Pipeline will be the authority on building lasting relationships through online social that result in bottom line business.”
—Lori Ruff, The LinkedIn Diva, Speaker/Author and CEO of Integrated Alliances

Next up: How to Create Buzz in your Community

[1] Kawasaki’s Selling the Dream: amzn.to/98Tjsg

[2] Chutzpah, or audacity: bit.ly/cJGlEg

[3] Kumar’s Evangelism beyond boundaries: bit.ly/S8rlfT

In our previous post, Creating Online Evangelists, we continued our series with a discussion on how to find and create brand evangelists to help spread the word. In this post, we take a look at various evangelistic styles, and how to recruit the right style for your brand.

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Evangelistic Styles

Once you’ve found evangelist candidates, you’ll want to begin to establish relationships with them. Before doing so, it’s helpful to realize that there are various styles of evangelists.

• Intellectual
  Intellectual evangelists enjoy using rationality, ideas and evidence to persuade. They are typically analytical, logical, and inquisitive. They will most likely engage with your community by debating ideas and presenting rational evidence. They typically are more concerned with what people think than with what they feel. An intellectual evangelist is a good fit for communities or community members who like to engage on a rational level. If your organization’s appeal is primarily visceral, this type of evangelist may not be a good fit.Support the intellectual evangelist with lots of facts, figures, and other empirical evidence. They are likely to respond well to objective manifestations of their success, such as awards, badges, and admission to special clubs and hierarchies.
• Testimonial
  This type of evangelist has been there and done that and is best used as a representative for products and services that change lives. They’ve used your products or services to solve a problem or improve their lives in some way. They have the war stories to establish credibility. But their experience doesn’t have to be dramatic, based in life-changing events and conflicts. In fact, ordinary stories may connect with a larger range of people. Testimonial evangelists are generally good communicators as well as good listeners. They have a talent for connecting their experiences with your community’s. A testimonial evangelist can be an asset to almost any organization, but particularly one whose business purpose is emotionally affecting.Support the testimonial evangelist with lots of case studies and personal stories from those you serve. They may respond well to objective manifestations of their success, but are likely to be more driven by the number and quality of their relationships.
• Interpersonal
  The interpersonal evangelist thrives on creating relationships with community members and influencing them via these relationships. They generally have a very conversational online style and are compassionate and sensitive. They are obviously friendship-oriented and have an ability to focus on individuals in the community and their needs. An interpersonal evangelist, like the testimonial evangelist, can be an asset to almost any organization. Organizations where interpersonal bonds in the community are especially strong can best leverage this type of evangelist.Support the testimonial evangelist with online tools that enable them to easily create and maintain personal relationships. They may respond well to objective manifestations of their success, but, like the testimonial evangelist, are likely to be more driven by the number and quality of their relationships and a personal relationship with your organization’s staff and leadership.
• Invitational
  Invitational evangelists specialize in attracting new members to the community. This type of evangelist is a gatherer, identifying potential community members and bringing them into the fold. They are also extremely open, hospitable, and persuasive, and live for meeting new people. They are extremely committed and welcome opportunities to invite prospects to experience the community. The invitational evangelist fits best in an organization that has lots of online and offline events or other gatherings that the evangelist can help attract prospects to.Support the inherently social invitational evangelist by providing opportunities for them to work their magic. They are likely to respond to some objective measurements, such as number of prospects converted, but mostly to a sense of belonging to your organization and making a difference.

No matter the evangelism style your organization prefers, it’s important to distinguish between an evangelist and a fanatic.

Famous online personality and former Apple evangelist Guy Kawasaki said, “Fanatics forcefully push their agenda whereas an Evangelist always puts the customer first.” For customer in this quote we would substitute community. You don’t really want fanatics. While their energy and devotion are not in question, they may lack a variety of other characteristics that would make them a good evangelist, notably subtlety. And their passion may actually get in the way of their effectiveness: think the overly-zealous salesperson who won’t take no for an answer.

Defining Evangelistic Styles is the 74th in a series of excerpts from our book, Be a Person: the Social Operating Manual for Enterprises (itself part of a series for different audiences). We’re just past page 226. At this rate it’ll be a long time before we get through all 430 pages, but luckily, if you’re impatient, the book is available in paper form at bit.ly/OrderBeAPerson and you can save $5 using Coupon Code 62YTRFCV

Get our new book, The Infinite Pipeline: How to Master Social Media for Business-to-Business Sales Success online here. You can save $5 using Coupon Code 62YTRFCV

What Others Are Saying

“Infinite Pipeline offers practical advice for using social media to extend relationship selling online. It’s a great way to get crazy-busy prospects to pay attention.”
—Jill Konrath, author of SNAP Selling and Selling to Big Companies

“Sales is all about relationships and trust. Infinite Pipeline is the ‘how to’ guide for maximizing social networks to find and build relationships, and generate trust in our digital age.”
—Sam Richter, best-selling author, Take the Cold Out of Cold Calling (2012 Sales book of the year)

“Infinite Pipeline will be the authority on building lasting relationships through online social that result in bottom line business.”
—Lori Ruff, The LinkedIn Diva, Speaker/Author and CEO of Integrated Alliances

Next up: Supporting Online Evangelists