“Involve Me, and I Will Understand”
Since I’m an avid BMW motorcyclist now, I came across this video on a forum I belong to.
Don’t dismiss it just because you’ve no interest in motorsports — there’s an important takeaway for professionals who want to connect at a deeper level with clients and prospects.
Involve = Engage
This video underlines the importance of engaging with clients and prospects instead of broadcasting to them. BMW could have splashed its logo on the screen and called it a day, but wasn’t it a better idea to involve the audience? Even to the tiny extent of telling them to close their eyes?
The emotional nature of the message, “Look inside yourself…” and the novelty of the message’s delivery seared the brand into viewers’ memories. Granted, establishing an emotional connection in a novel way is more difficult for a lawyer than for BMW, but it’s being done every day.
Start with key messages that resonate emotionally
What are you selling? It’s not financial planning, accounting services and legal advice. Take it deeper. Is it security? An edge? Peace of mind? Reliability? These are emotion-laden terms, and they resonate where descriptions like financial planning, accounting services and legal advice clank and thunk.
If you can’t distill your key messages to something emotional for your audience, you’ll miss your mark. You’ll waste your time and your money.
Social media involvement
Social media is a natural way to engage clients and prospects. I know business professionals arriving late to the social media party with misguided expectations that a Facebook Page or Twitter account will work for them the way it works for a colleague or competitor who’s been at it for a while. Like everything else in this world, social media produces a yield for those who do their spade work.
Spade work means “involving” yourself in the lives of your prospects and clients by giving away some of your expertise in the course of conversations and interactions. Yes, giving (some of ) it away. And yes, plural conversations and interactions. Social media success isn’t magic — it’s working a strategic plan over a period of time. Spade work.
This is easier to do when you’re producing content – newsletters, blog posts, ebooks, white papers, books, videos, podcasts or presentations. When you’ve stocked your content pantry, it’s easy link that content to someone whose Tweet or status update indicates they need your expertise. Valuable content is a real “follower” magnet, too.
Connecting with audience
Being in front of a captive audience isn’t enough to ensure they’re engaged in your message. Take it a step further. Several months ago I wrote about providing an audience with a note taking guide along with my presentation. Throughout the session I drew their attention to the guide and invited them to share their notes and observations with the rest of the group. This worked on a couple of levels — helping them stay with me and enlisting their fellow audience members to re-enforce my points.
As the video says, “Tell me something and I will forget. Show me something and I can remember. Involve me, and I will understand.” Therefore, in every marketing plan, every communications plan, every pre-conference plan, in every thing, ask how you can involve and engage others in your emotional message.
Case Study: My Social Media Road Trip
I had the opportunity to debrief the Business Sorority of NC on the vital role that social media played in my 2010 road trip. I used Twitter, Facebook Pages, Vimeo, Flickr, and my travel blog to:
raise money for my expenses and the National Breast Cancer Foundation- get news stories in four states during my trip and hours of local coverage
- find co-riders throughout my trip
- earn sponsorships from Caribou Coffee, AAA and BMW
I asked how many of the Business Sorority members used the same tools for their businesses and was surprised how many used Facebook and how few used a blog; here’s the final tally:
- Twitter used by 10%
- Facebook Pages used by 90%
- Video by 5%
- Photos by 0%
- Blog by 30%
The most important social media tool
In the Q&A one woman asked which I felt was the MOST useful/important of these applications. I answered using the Swiss Army Knife example — in social media you’ll use a couple of the tools more than the others, but when you really need that tooth pick/Tweet, you really need it.
For example, when I reached Bend, Oregon (my westernmost destination) I wanted my hometown NBC affiliate to take the feed from the Oregon station and run it in the Charlotte market so I tweeted asking if anyone had a connection to WCNC. Sure enough! While WCNC didn’t get the feed from Oregon, they did three times more than that: they covered my arrival home, featured a live interview with me on their morning show and used footage from my arrival and interviews in a feature story about women motorcyclists.
YEAH, that’s the power of the right tool at the time!
Start with a blog and Facebook page
While YMMV (your mileage may vary) from project to project, I think you’re best served to start with a combination of a blog and Facebook (FB). The blog is your hub and the only asset you truly own. Any of the free online apps can change their terms of service on a moment’s notice, making you vulnerable to losing data or functionality at best and money at worst. For the 90% of Business Sorority members using FB, for example, I asked what would happen if FB decided it was only going to keep the last 3 months of updates? There is no satisfactory answer to the question if you don’t have a blog.
Why Facebook over Twitter? Notwithstanding my success with Twitter, if you’re a beginning social media user, it’s easier to use and a critical mass of most everyone’s friends and business associates are already using it. The key is to place content in your blog FIRST and then link to it from your FB page. That’s not to say you shouldn’t upload videos or pictures to FB, just store them on your blog for safekeeping.
The versatile blog
I use a WordPress theme on my own url (not the free one on the WordPress site). Unlike FB or Twitter, a blog lets me write posts of unlimited length and insert multiple graphics, videos and sound files in each. Facebook allows you to embed ONE thing and with Twitter you can only insert links. I drive traffic to my blog using all the other apps but also send traffic out to those apps via widgets. Take a look at my home page for example, where you can follow my tweets, watch my recent Vimeo videos and connect to my other social media outlets.
If you want to know more, reach out to me or Andy Ciordia, the impresario who makes everything I do online possible.
Lessons on Plagiarism from “The Decider”
In light of the news that our 43rd president plagiarized portions of his OWN MEMOIR, it’s clearly time for a review of what we learned in high school English class about giving credit to others. Not doing so is an act of piracy.
When I posted the link to the article that broke the plagiarism story on my Facebook page with a note that it seems likely Mr Bush’s editor will soon be “spending more time with family,” I got a couple of comments to the extent that it’s impossible to plagiarize your own story.
Yes, it’s possible to plagiarize when writing about yourself
Plagiarism occurs when you take and use ideas, passages, etc., from another’s work. Have a look at these two passages from Mr Bush and General Tommy Franks paying particular attention to the phrases in bold — this is one of the instances of piracy:
Bush writes: “Tommy told the national security team that he was working to apply the same concept of a light footprint to Iraq… ‘If we have multiple, highly skilled Special Operations forces identifying targets for precision-guided munitions, we will need fewer conventional grounds forces,’he said. ‘That’s an important lesson learned from Afghanistan.’ I had a lot of concerns. … I asked the team to keep working on the plan. ‘We should remain optimistic that diplomacy and international pressure will succeed in disarming the regime,’ I said at the end of the meeting. ‘But we cannot allow weapons of mass destruction to fall into the hands of terrorists. I will not allow that to happen.’“
Franks, in his memoir American Soldier, writes: “‘For example, if we have multiple, highly skilled Special Operations forces identifying targets for precision-guided munitions, we will need fewer conventional ground forces. That’s an important lesson learned from Afghanistan.’ President Bush’s questions continued throughout the briefing…. Before the VTC ended, President Bush addressed us all. ‘We should remain optimistic that diplomacy and international pressure will succeed in disarming the regime.’ … The President paused. ‘Protecting the security of the United States is my responsibility,’ he continued. ‘But we cannot allow weapons of mass destruction to fall into the hands of terrorists.’ He shook his head. ‘I will not allow that to happen.’”
Plagiarism isn’t a partisan issue
This post is meant to be instructive, not political.
Evidently Mr Bush had a crack researcher helping him flesh out his story. No problem with that. If Mr Bush wanted to lift passages from others’ work, he could have simply said “So-and-so said it best…” and then quoted the original.
Why the editor should be “spending more time with family”
Editors have scads of software to detect plagiarism. The editor (and publisher) should have known people would go through Mr Bush’s work with a fine tooth comb and should have been more diligent in assuring that the final book was beyond reproach. Ultimately, the publisher is responsible for the book, but the editor will take the fall.
Lessons for my clients
- You’re wise to check your recollections of events with other sources. If they are the same, I’ll handle it without plagiarizing; if they are different, I’ll encourage you to acknowledge the differing points of view and make a compelling case to believe yours.
- If others have written about you they’re likely to give your work some publicity whether your accounts agree or not. But all bets are if if you plagiarize their work.
- List your references.
Social Media: Ethics & Best Practices for Attorneys
Like financial professionals, attorneys bear the burden of using good sense and propriety online. Would that everyone bore a similar burden! (but I digress).
Friday morning I co-facilitated a continuing education seminar for the Mecklenburg County Bar on social media with Andy Ciordia and Ted Claypoole . The attorneys asked great questions and the three of us presenting enjoyed the lively discussion.
Peppering his ethics guidance with jaw-dropping anecdotes of ethical lapses by legal professionals, Ted boiled everything down to four categories of concern:
- Talking too loosely
- Improper investigation (pretexting)
- Sites that don’t provide room for proper disclaimers (think: Twitter)
- Advertising Rules
I’m unqualified to say anything about legal ethics, but from a middle-aged lay person’s vantage point, much of what Ted said seemed like common sense and good manners: don’t say anything about someone behind their back that you wouldn’t say to their face; don’t misrepresent yourself or your behavior; and don’t tell a judge you need a continuance because your father died if your Facebook page shows you were getting smashed at your college roommate’s wedding!
Advice for blogging, Facebook and Twitter
Andy and I showed several examples of what to do and not to do on the big three social media platforms:
Blogging: We didn’t need to dwell on the oft-repeated advice to publish frequently — they’d all heard it. We took it further to show how you can subscribe to content feeds to supplement your own articles but also warned to keep non-pertinent content off your site. We showed an example of an otherwise-good blogsite by a divorce lawyer who inexplicably featured an article on SEO and Google.
Huh? Stick to your knitting.
Facebook: We see lots of lawyers using their personal FB profile as a professional site. Some even call it “The Family Law Firm of Jane Doe” or similar appellations — a big no-no and a violation of FB’s terms of service. FB created “Pages” for commercial use. Go to my AUTHOR PAGE of FB and you’ll see how it differs from the personal.
Twitter: The main concern Andy and I expressed here is lack of engagement. Most of what we saw lawyers do is BROADCAST new blog posts or news of the firm. Blech. If you’re not engaging people on Twitter, don’t waste your time with it.
If you’re unsure where to take your social media marketing efforts, reach out. If I don’t have the answers, Andy or Ted will.
Sharing Deep, Sharing Wide
One of my clients called last week to say, “I love your newsletter but I want your blog delivered to my email too.”
No need. Every blog post for the preceding month is referenced in my monthly newsletter (along with some original content). Why do I do this? My readers have lives of their own and I need to make it easy for them to access my information (duh).
The good people at ShareThis have a little application that can be inserted into blogs and websites. It enables readers to share what they’re reading via email and social media platforms in a couple of clicks/keystrokes. This gives ShareThis a unique vantage point from which to watch sharing behavior.
And what do they know? 46% of shared information reaches its new destination via email, in spite of social networking sites in the aggregate edging email out.
Tweets and Retweets
I owe a great deal of my traffic flow to Twitter, where I actively participate in financial, economic and marketing conversations and share what I’ve written as it’s appropriate. At least a third of my blog traffic is Twitter generated, so I was surprised to read ShareThis stats on this beloved service:
We found that Twitter is the least engaging share platform with users visiting an average of 1.66 pages when they click through to a site, while users coming in off e-mail were the most engaged, visiting 2.95 pages (emphasis mine), and Facebook trailing closely behind 2.76 page views. Of course this varies by vertical and site, but if you think about your own habits, it makes sense. Getting an emailed link from a friend may cause you to pay more attention than the more random discovery that you get on Twitter as you consume quick opinions. We think there is tremendous potential for Twitter to increase its engagement when and if better filters are applied – the type of filters that Facebook has built in from the start.
My best recommendation, even if you devote time to build your presence on Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn and other sites, re-distribute your messages with a regular e-newsletter. A belt & suspenders approach to being heard.
When to Facebook, What to Facebook
(Note from Tamela) When I spoke to the Carolina Professional Saleswomen & Entrepreneurs in June, I promised a follow-up on their questions about Facebook. I turned to my good friend and social media genius, Andy Ciordia, who built and maintains my wonderful blogsite, for a guest column on the subject.
Andy Ciordia speaks
Facebook, Facebook, Facebook.. Unless you’re under a rock someone has talked about it and usually I hear this:
“An old highschool friend [who I may or may not desire to find me] has found me on facebook. I’ve connected with everyone I used to know.”
along side,
“I am losing at least a few hours a day just flipping through Facebook. I can’t believe how easy it is to just get lost in.”
Do I need Facebook?
With every new technology there are those who are already there, those who are in transition, and those who are defiant to it. Unfortunately time is not on your side, the new usually always beats out the old and even the most stoic convert eventually. Remember cell phones?
But do you need Facebook? No, of course not. It’s an application, a medium of communication. You’ll never find yourself in a desert and think, “If only I had Facebook”, haha! However, as a medium it courses with information. Information that can allow us to grow, to understand, and at times get lost in. Like any technology there can be abuse, but that’s not the question at hand.
While you may not desire Facebook and the level of transparency you can gate a large percentage of that through their options. In the budding age of social networks I recommend people getting online, checking out the tools, and share only what is comfortable to them and lock out the rest until they find a purpose to it. At the core of the thought is that you should be aware of what is going on in the internet space and this is where a lot of growth is coming from. If you miss this age you might be even further out when the next layers come down.
What does Facebook mean to business?
A good question and one central to anyone in modern business. You used to be able to not be online. Remember that? Oh I don’t need a website. My how times have changed. If you are not online you can hear a collective consumer sigh as they switch gears and Google your competition. Now we’re entering the social media age, which was really there all along but it’s never been so easy to tap into. Before this was mainly limited to the relationships fostered by brick and mortar establishments. Now the power of the individual business through social networking can establish healthy relationships with people from around the world!
While social media is undoubtedly something you will want to integrate into your marketing portfolio the uses of it and Facebook is a bit more unclear. Some markets it is required for, national brands, local outposts, grass root campaigns, and many others. However it’s not always critical to the success of you or your brand.
Facebook works best for the personal or group mentalities. After watching many come to Facebook with the expectation of huge sales and followers only to be hit on the head after hard sales approach many can walk away dejected due to the misunderstanding of the media. Facebook requires you to culture more of who you are, show it, relate with others, while developing and fostering relationships.
Social media takes time
These medias which unite us together and create a stronger representation of self, what you stand for, and your business are fantastic but it comes at a cost. Your time.
In the old sales channels how often were you out beating the street and meeting others. Knocking on doors, or picking up the handset? Quite frequently if you want to keep your business up. A relationship is a relationship. You’re still going to have to build and maintain it. What happens differently in this medium is there are elements of entertainment. Well we are really good at being entertained and all of a sudden your day is done but how many new people did you meet, how many people did you really interact with, and did any of your goals from the onset get met? You have to be careful.
One step at a time
I challenge you to get involved by taking small steps. Like Tamela often asks me, ‘Which part of the elephant are we eating today?’ The domain of all of this knowledge is large, the nuances subtle, but the payoffs can be large for you personally or for your business. Enter the arena slowly, watchfully, and aware of what you are exposing. Be honest and share what you can with who you want and evolve the relationships naturally.
Andy Ciordia works for Nuance Labs Consulting helping small businesses to establish their brands, identities, and strategies online with a hands-on personal approach. You can find Andy on LinkedIn and Twitter helping others in the community. Feel free to reach out and connect with Andy for the beginning of a great relationship.
