Coming soon: Reflections and resolve

I’ve been giving a lot of thought to what I need to spend most of my time and energy on recently, and I have to decide how this blog fits into that.

I’m not ashamed to admit that I experiment, and I’m not ashamed to admit that not all my experiments turn out well (ask anybody who’s been roped into being my “try something new” cooking phases).

Right now I’m in another experimental phase, and this time I want to experiment with social media marketing.

I’ve been focusing on SEO for a while, and it’s not quite doing it for me. I crave variety, especially when it comes to my contribution to SEO. I need more than keywords and backlinks. I want a deeper engagement with the audience. Not just the audience – my audience.

In the meantime, feel free to look around and comment on whatever moves you. I’ll definitely get it and will most likely respond.

Do your SEO experts know what they’re doing?

David Malmborg helps you get your money’s worth by pointing out ways to tell if your SEO experts know what they’re doing.

The truth of the matter is that most ad agencies only added SEO as a service because they were forced to by their demanding clientele. Most traditional agencies are not equipped with the tools and experience to successfully implement a good SEO campaign. Digital marketing, whether it be SEO, PPC, CRO or Social Media is quite different than traditional marketing, and though your agency might be great at the print work and media buying, they don’t have the ability to take on the Web.

These days SEO is becoming as much a catch phrase as it is a vital online marketing strategy. Today, without even fully understanding what it is, companies are demanding an SEO campaign from their traditional ad agencies, even if the agency isn’t prepared.

So before you sign on with your traditional ad agency for SEO, here is a quick checklist to see if they know their SEO. The easiest way to do that is to see if they are doing SEO for themselves. Because if they claim SEO is important for you, then shouldn’t it be important for them?

Find out more at: “5 Easy Ways to Confirm an Ad Agency Really Knows SEO.”

Allyson Kapin says what we’ve all suspected

Allyson Kapin at Fast Company explores the gender discrepancy in VC startups in Startups: An “Alpha Male Pissing Contest?”.

“Women entrepreneurs do fear failure and they believe they have to do a…to z and prove themselves before they start their own company. Men don’t have that trait, said Amra Tareen, CEO of AllVoices.com and former Partner at the VC firm Seven Rosen Funds. “Men promote themselves even if they cannot do it…they may think they know it all but THEY DON’T. Women on the other hand may have the skills but they will not promote them, and will always feel they need more skills.”

This reiterates something that Restructure! brought up a couple of months ago:

In other industries—and if uttered by someone without a university education—people would call it “sexism”, “racism”, and“ageism”, but not in the technology venture-capital industry. Doerr sees a racial, gender, age “pattern” in which startups are successful, but such “pattern recognition” is misleading when startups led by women, racial minorities, and people over thirty may be unsuccessful because they are discriminated against and denied funding. The pattern may be systemic bias, instead of the inherent superiority of white men (under thirty).

I know it can be a professional risk to talk openly about these things, so I won’t dig too deeply into a lot of the Why and How about it. That’s beyond the scope of this blog. And yet, I do think it’s worthwhile to consider, purely from a marketing standpoint, how your practices reflect your values. If you’ve been paying attention to the trends, authenticity is hot.

Politics aside, these things matter because integrity matters.
If you say you value diversity but people don’t see it, br>you look dishonest and/or ignorant.

Seriously, does it need to be said that anybody can say anything? If diversity, inclusion, equality, and so on and so forth are part of your core values, you’d better be ready to show us where it matters – and I don’t mean just in your ads or your marketing collateral. It’s not for me to say whether diversity should or shouldn’t be part of your brand, or even how to go about making that happen.

But -

If you’re going to talk about it, you need to be about it.

If you’re not going to do that, why bother saying anything at all?

How being an introvert helps in social media marketing

An introvert? You mean like anti-social?

A while ago, I mentioned that I’m an introvert. Without getting into too much detail, it means that I recharge energy alone and use energy to interact with people. No, that’s not a way of saying I’m anti-social, just wired differently. In practical terms, it means that it takes a lot out of me to be “on” in most social situations – especially in groups or when put on the spot. I can only do it for a short while and even then I have to psych myself up for it.

How can an introvert succeed in marketing?

But that doesn’t make any sense, right? How can you succeed in marketing if being around people drains you? Doesn’t marketing mean you’re out and about and around people all the time? Shaking hands, making small talk, talking about business, all that jazz – the whole winning friends and influencing people thing? How can you work in marketing if you’re not out there pushing what you have to offer?

Now we get to something interesting.

Social media marketing is relationships

Duh, right? It’s common sense. But remember what Dr. Lecter told us about simplicity. What is the nature of social media? What does it do? What needs does it seek to fulfill? The word that springs immediately to mind: connect.

And right off the bat, it makes you wonder: connect what? This is social media, right? So it’s obvious we’re connecting people.

Connecting people is the essence of social media.

But introverts are drained by people. Doesn’t that put us right back at square one?

Not exactly.

Push and pull marketing

I use push and pull to describe two different approaches to marketing.

Push marketing is what most people think about when they think of marketing. You look for ways to tell people about what you’re doing and how great it is. Extroverts excel at push marketing. There’s nothing more they like than meeting new people – lots of them, even all at once – and talking to them.

Pull marketing works more indirectly. With pull marketing, you look for ways to draw people to you. You figure out ways to listen. This is where introverts shine.  Talk to a lot of strangers? We’ll pass. But setting up something where we can think and observe – now, that’s interesting.

Think of push and pull marketing as fishing. Push marketing is the bait. Pull marketing is the hook. You need both to catch people.

Pull marketing for social media

Seriously, social media is simple (Thank you, Dr. Lecter – I’d invite you to dinner but . . . yeah). The best way to get social media to do what it does is for us introverts to do what we do.

It’s easy to get distracted by trends, buzzwords, and Seth Godin. So much so that a lot of people go around chasing glamor instead of doing what works.

What works in social media marketing? Building meaningful relationships. Ironically, people spend a lot of time, energy, and money trying to avoid doing just that!

It’s like playing the lottery. And I don’t mean a scratcher or a Pick 3 every now and then. I mean the people who play the lottery. Every day, without fail. You even have people buying books, CDs, subscriptions to lottery websites, and even ordering Chinese food for the numbers inside fortune cookies.

But the fact of the matter is that if those people had saved and invested what they gambled (including what they spend on tools to help them gamble better), they’d have real wealth. In some cases, even if you played the odds (time and resources permitting) and won the big payoff, you’d have less money than if you simply put it aside and invested it.

Here it is, folks: if you treat social media marketing as a gamble, you’re going to lose (That goes for everything, not just marketing). Because the house always wins.

What does this mean for you?

Use social media for what they’re good for. Definitely do your research. Certainly spend your time wisely. Leverage what push marketing has revealed. Get creative with what you say. But there is no shortcut other than connecting with people. Which brings us to . . .

What introverts bring to marketing

This is where introverts get sold short. And that’s too bad because we bring something that’s really important but easy to overlook.

We already have enough people trying to get something from us. We’re already bombarded with messages treating us like things instead of people. We get enough of being treated like customers, consumers, demographics, focus groups, target audiences, subscribers, and everything under the sun except human beings.

People seek meaningful connections. The best way to do that is to show you want to learn about them.

Go out of your way to hear their experiences and understand their point of view. Make it your business to know them as people. Find ways to engage them with something that interests them. Doing these things takes active listening and perceptive dialogue (not monologue!).

This is what introverts do.

And there’s another reason why you shouldn’t discount our more internal way of processing things. According to many studies, about 25%-40% of us are introverts.

And who better to understand us than ourselves?

What Hannibal Lecter can teach you about marketing your brand

Hannibal Lecter: killer, cannibal . . . marketing guru?

Let me let you in on a little secret . . .

Dr. Hannibal Lecter is one of my favorite marketing inspirations. You want to know why?

Because he says something in The Silence of the Lambs that I use for just about every problem-solving scenario.

“First principles, Clarice. Read Marcus Aurelius. For each particular thing ask: what is it in itself? What is its nature? What does he [it] do . . . ?”

Simplicity. That’s what it’s all about.

You could be forgiven for not thinking that. There’s a lot of information out there, a lot of ways to make a whole lot out of nothing – or less than nothing. Websites, SEO, Facebook, Twitter, social media, viral marketing, guerilla marketing, permission-based marketing, personal marketing, niche marketing, kabuki marketing . . . and on and on and on.

Simple does not mean easy.

But it all goes back to simplicity. Sounds easy. It’s not. We have way too many choices these days. Come to think of it, choice is too strong a word. It gives the act too much meaning. Perhaps we should say too many options. Yes, that’s better. Red or blue shirt in a place where that doesn’t matter is an option. Red or blue shirt in a place where that means something is a choice. Get my drift?

Yet despite so many options, the core of all great marketing is simplicity – I’m not talking about ease.

One-word marketing

Think simple is easy? Try this: Describe everything you do with a single verb. For all you who paid attention in English class, that means no infinitives, no verb phrases, no conjugations. Just. One. Word.

Got a group of people around? Good. Try this one on for size: Describe everything you do with one unique verb – something that nobody else is using.

Still think simple means easy?

So I’ve got this word. Now what?

Use it. Make it the focus of all your marketing efforts. Every word, every image, everything you put into the world comes from that verb. It never has to see print. You never have to say it out loud – but you must never forget it. You can always branch out. You can always come up with related verbs for different audiences, products, and marketing campaigns. Yet you must always come back to that first one.

Keep it simple, keep it real.

What’s this mean in marketingese? Authenticity is hot.

And it’s easier to keep it real when you keep it simple. Don’t try for Hamlet with marketing – you’ll drive yourself as crazy as he was. And there’s only so much crazy people will tolerate.

A marketing campaign from a single word

What are some ways you can do the word to meet your goals? How do you see that word in action? Don’t limit yourself to how it’s used in business. Where do you see that happen in everyday life. Use your own experiences and observations. Just brainstorm for now.

Take some time to think about what you came up with. Do they hint at particular audiences or media? What words and images come to mind? Does anything connect with your goals? Mine your mind. Don’t gloss over it.

Simplicity supports adaptability. Adaptability means survival.

Animals suited to only one kind of environment don’t do well when the environment changes. Their traits are too exclusive – limiting what they eat, where they live, and how they reproduce.

They don’t make good house guests, but you’ve got to admire rats and cockroaches. They’re amazing creatures when you consider their origins and where they are today. If whatever killed the dinosaurs comes back, rats and roaches will make it.

In a word, what do they do? Survive. It doesn’t matter if they’re in a New York apartment or a tropical island. That’s what they’re going to do. Their strategy: eat anything, live anywhere, mate anyhow.

Now that you understand it, you can see the real importance of simplicity.

One word. Infinite possibilities.