That’s right kids, I loaded up the truck and moved to Austin, TX. And it’s good to be back in the homeland.
After several conversations with a lot of great companies over the past few months, the chance to work with the digital group led by none other than Matt Dickman was just too sweet a deal to pass up. Besides, I get to be in the Austin office. And as a Texas (Dallas) native, it’s not only good to be back in the country, er, state of my origin, but it’s Austin. AUSTIN. And the world is outside my downtown front door.
At FH, I’ll be playing with the digital group and specializing in word of mouth strategy and execution. Man, these guys and gals already have a great line-up of clients, including AT&T, USAA and GM, just to name a tiny few. And the digital group is already making waves with things like their efforts for Chevy at the recent SXSW.
So after that short two week hiatus from the blog, I’m cranking it back up. And now that I have my brand new header (it’s SO SWEET – yes, I said “sweet”), I’ve got no excuses.
I don’t have to tell you that this space is changing daily. And it’s great to be with a group of DOERS. Hey, it’s where I come from.
So much more to come. Stay tuned.
Tweet This Post
Posted in: slice of life
In reading this month’s WIRED
magazine (the print edition, mind you), I found a great nugget buried in an article entitled, “Lost in the Details – How breaking everything down to particles blinds scientists to the big picture” (by Jonah Lehrer). The entire article is a great read, but near the end, Lehrer brings Karl Popper (the scientific philosopher) into the picture with his theory that everything in the world falls into two categories: clocks and clouds.
Basically this means that clocks are orderly and neat and the parts of it interact in a predictable way. But clouds are unpredictable in that they are “highly irregular” and their motions are beyond “even the theoretical possibility of prediction.”
I love this concept. And taking it further and applying it to the digital and word of mouth world that we live in as marketers, I’m adopting this as a philosophy when building solutions for clients. Not one or the other, but finding the right balance of both.
Follow me down this path: The clocks are the tools. The Facebook page. The CRM Twitter account. The Gowalla pin that leads to a payoff. They are the inner-workings that can be put into place and set in motion. Yes, we are all still figuring out how to best use them, but we know the fundamentals of working with these tools.
The clouds? That’s the people. The personal interaction. That’s where emotions and personal experience and memories and word of mouth come into play. That’s where users could see a completely different use for what you’ve created. People are unpredictable. And most of the time they know your product or service better than you do. So sure, they will take your clock parts, but what they do with them isn’t always predictable and doesn’t fit into a flow chart.
So now our job is to find the balance. What percentage is clocks and what percentage is clouds? Because once you find it, you’ll have something big on your hands.
Tweet This Post
Posted in: brands, featured, lessons learned, marketing, word of mouth
…is deeper passion.
So I say quit it with the influence thing. It’s a debate that’s been raging on for years now. And you know on which side of the line I stand – I’ll take passion over influence any day of the week and twice on Sunday.
Because passion is one of the things that fuels word of mouth. (The other is experience.) Influence is not sustainable. Influence is not long-lasting. Probably because the influencers that marketers are going after these days are having to make it their job to be influential. And people retire from jobs. But they don’t retire from experiences. And they don’t retire from being passionate about something. Passion has sticking power. You don’t have to work at it or maintain it like you do with being influential.
The only thing that can trump a passionate fan of your brand is someone who is MORE passionate. Not more influencial or who has more followers on Twitter. Remember, influence can be fabricated. But passion can’t. Social media influence can be built by almost anyone if they learn how to use the tools and dedicate time to growing and feeding their followers. But there are no tools to create passion. There are no tricks of the trade. There are no magic bullets. You either are passionate about something, or you’re not.
The other thing about passion is that it can’t be measured the same way “influence” can. As David Wilcox sings, “You can’t keep it in a camera. It’s not a trophy on a shelf. It’s not a tale to tell the children. Not a way to prove yourself. It’s much bigger than we are.”
So remember to look for the passionate ones. They might not be the loudest or the most opinionated or even the savviest. But rooted deep down within them is something special – a love for your brand and how it fits into their lives. And that is the acorn you need to grow that oak.
Tweet This Post
Posted in: lessons learned, marketing, word of mouth
The one and only Bob Schneider
One of my favorite things in life is to go to a live show, stand in the middle of the room and listen to the voices around me sing every lyric to every song. And from the musicians perspective, I would think that hearing and watching the audience sing – loudly, even – the lyrics that you wrote, that started as just a collection of words floating around in your head – has got to be incredibly rewarding and validating.
So my question to you as a company is, are your customers singing along with you? Do they know you so well that they WANT to learn all the lyrics? Do they know where the key changes are and the origin of your songs? And are they just humming along, tapping their toes? Or are they leaning forward, arms raised, pounding the air and screaming out each and every word?
I know there’s a lot of talk out there about “fans.” But I think we have to go deeper and begin to dissect the anatomy of what a true fan really is. Without a doubt, they are the people that know you. That know your words and ways and what song is coming up next. But the other thing is that everyone has their own favorite song. And that’s why – to continue the metaphor – you need to have that killer set instead of that one-hit-wonder.
So listen to the audience. Are they singing along at the top of their lungs? Can you step back from the mic long enough to listen to them?
Tweet This Post
Posted in: brands, featured, marketing, word of mouth
First of all, let’s get the origin of the phrase right. According to the interwebs…
The phrase “toe the line” is equivalent to “toe the mark,” both of which mean to conform to a rule or a standard. The Oxford Dictionary of Word Histories (Oxford: Oxford Univ. Press, 2002; ed. by Glynnis Chantrell) says, “The idiom toe the line from an athletics analogy originated in the early 19th century” (514).The specific sport referred to is foot-racing, where the competitors must keep their feet behind a “line” or on a “mark” at the start of the race–as in “On your mark, get set, go!” So one who “toes the line” is one who does not allow his foot to stray over the line. In other words, one who does not stray beyond a rigidly defined boundary.
Many of you probably thought that the phrase was “tow the line” as in “towing the company line.” But either way, my point is this: in all of your digital efforts, you should be toeing and towing the HUMAN line first – and the company line second. Stay with me here. Who do humans want to connect with? That’s right, other humans. And when you put the human element first, you have a better chance of leaving an impression. You’re not a voice on the other end of the line or a set of fingers typing on a keyboard somewhere representing a faceless company. You’re a person. With hopes and dreams and good days and bad days and a life away from your job. You’re a person. Just like whomever is on the other end of that connection.
It’s the first rule of representing a company in a community: Be human. And not only will you make your connections stronger, but you will “humanize the brand,” as the Scott Monty‘s of the world put it.
So repeat after me: Human first. Company second. And just watch how things start to change for the better.
Tweet This Post
Posted in: brands, marketing
That’s right kids, I loaded up the truck and moved to Austin, TX. And it’s good to be back in the homeland.
I tweet. Therefore...