The time is now! Telling rich stories has become ever more important in the world of organic storytelling. It is providing a much needed balance to digital content marketing efforts inside agencies and inside organizations. With more and more access to digital marketing tools and automation, the temptation is to put more thrust behind reach rather than substance.
We are finding more and more groups and willing to jump the digital ad buys quickly and begin to ignore the far reaching sustainable efforts of organic storytelling they have built.
So I found this on a pr/marketing firm’s website…and I think they raise an interesting question. Let’s look at this statement:
“Successful companies tell their stories well. Multiple channels today allow for storytelling on many levels. Our team helps clients tell those stories in the traditional way as well as through the digital and social media channels. It’s one thing to get good publicity and another to leverage it. We also help clients navigate the choppy waters of storytelling in less than ideal situations. Our advice to clients is simple: Tell your own story (good, bad or ugly) and tell it fast or someone else will.”
Yes…so who is telling your story? You? Your organization? The people in the organization? What is a good story?
I am always thinking through how to find new ways to share stories and funneling like minded people to your story. The digital road map is important, especially when you have many communities online and great stories to tell. The goal is get people to share…basically take part in digital word-of-mouth.
For the last few years, I had the opinion that you should always make your website your mothership…but recently I have really began reconsidering this opinion. For one thing, it is all about audience! But…the delivery mechanism/channel is always a part of this equation…which leads me broaden my opinion with some new options.
If you look at this diagram…you will see that the information and audience flow is to build communities based on content/information in your social/digital spaces…driving them to your mothership (website). This is a simplistic view of how a B2C organization can capture audiences, distribute information, build conversation, and drive traffic back to the mothership. But what and how is a traditional website really serving your audiences especially in the world of dynamic content?
I am finding more and more people are using social outlets as their mothership, to capture and engage audiences then direct them to a final destination for final information. But, if the final spot is your website…what are we doing to deliver the information that provides the return on engagement? Why not keep them in the dynamic content area, where the community is thriving.
Two years ago, Sally Foister of Greenville Hosptial System looked at me and said something that has stuck with me…every B2C organization should a Facebook presence. Five years ago, that statement was applied to every B2C organization should have a website. Now the trick is to drive traffic to a destination point that is not the end destination but a dynamic portal that continually engages the audience with some action.
We are going to see some interesting movement in 2012 especially with Facebook planning a $100 Billion IPO. Let’s consider some stats surrounding Facebook:
800 Million Users
1 Trillion Page Views
October 2011 – Facebook reached more than half (55 percent) of the world’s global audience and accounted for 1 in every 7 minutes spent online around the world and 3 in every 4 social networking minutes. (via ComScore.com)
So instead of thinking in terms of driving traffic to one mothership…how about funneling traffic through Facebook. Basically use Facebook as the community funnel of information, capturing the audience in one dynamic, community driven hub.
So let’s look at some of the reasons, well I mentioned the statistics above.
First – One of the first reasons is the Timeline which has aimed to make Facebook the destination for all media. People are able to dynamically post all types of media right inside the Facebook Timeline making it easier to interact with the media and the community that surrounds the person/brand that posts the media.
Second – The Insights area for brand pages. The Insights tool provides publishers who use Facebook plugins with analytics on how content is performing. Now they can see those analytics in real time. You can see how “Like” button’s perform and the interactions based on demographics,which may enable site owners to target specific audiences.
Third – The Ticker which is the update to the News Feed. This serves as a “real-time feed of activity away from Facebook. Taken in tandem, these updates indicate Facebook’s growing desire to be to discovery what Google is to search — that is, the market leader for the new dominant form of currency on the web.” Facebook does not want to be a creator of media, they want to be the ultimate curator of media.
Fourth – The idea of expanding Gestures. They want to expand the “Like” button to developers allowing them to create concepts like “Watched, ” Listened,” Read,” and other buttons. “These actions are the next step in integrating Facebook with every part of the web. It’s possible you’ll be able to click a Facebook “Challenge” button that would let you post a game challenge on your friend’s wall, or a “Cheer” button that would let you support your friends when they need it. And yes, you could theoretically create a “Dislike” button through Facebook’s new initiative.” (via Mashable.com)
So for this model of the Community Funnel to work, you have to build a solid Facebook Community, give the community a reason to engage with one another, invite more friends, and make it easy and for the community to talk about you online.
The idea behind the community funnel is to build solid communities outside of Facebook, drive the communities to engage in Facebook, and given them a reason to want to find more information inside your mothership (web properties). Twitter, YouTube, and E-Newsletters are entry-point communities that can expose individuals to content. Then you drive this community to engage with more like-minded individuals within your Facebook presence.
Hi my name is Bobby and according to my wife, I am gadget freak. Yes, I have an iPhone, iPad, MacBook Pro, Mac Pro, PS3, AppleTV and on and on and on. I love gadgets. I love the accessories that go with these gadgets.
I love bags. No…I am not a guy with tons on man bags. I have tons of camera equipment, lighting equipment, cords, gizmos, and gadgets to do my job. Oh yeah…I have other bags for my laptop, iPad, books, etc. So I love the idea of finding the best bag possible to organize these things and make them quickly assessable. My life…my entrepreneurial life…my small business life…quickly assessable.
Digital Dependancy
Everyday, I use these things that we depend on so much in this new digital life. Google Calendar, Google Docs, MS Word, iCal, BaseCamp, Quickbooks, Mobile Me, iMail, etc, etc, etc. I use these everyday to organize and execute my life to serve my clients. OK…are you annoyed? Yes…I am. My head is spinning.
Think about your day. If you are a technology person or live in this Corporate Americano…we are influenced to use so many digital tools. We check our email, update our calendar, take notes, use the CRM, pull out the iPad, take notes on paper, save our contacts in three places…we try so hard. This is a true digital divide…dividing us between all the devices/software and efficiency.
Have you tallied up your communication and online communication costs? How about the time invested in creating the best tool from a piece of open source code? Oh yeah, how much time do you spend sifting through emails or even multiple email accounts? How many newsletters are you getting each day? How many different passwords do you have to remember for each login between all of those technologies?
So…I put my foot down.
I spent more time stressing out about what I am doing next and where to find what I am doing next. Notice the last sentence was in past tense! Yes…I have an assistant, but using the “digital” to find the “digital” is creating a huge digital dependancy. Why do think we text, Tweet, and consistently review our digital device while driving…because we can and we hope we can stay in-tune with our information. We do not have a clear plan.
So I went old school!
Yep…I did it and I have a planner again. Yes, you know that organizer that is a day timer? Yep, it is about the size of my graduate school classical rhetoric book. Guess…what, it is WORKING. Also…It has me thinking about all this digital dependancy.
WHY DO WE DO IT?
Because if you are surrounded by the crowd I am around (offline and online), then you are always hearing about the next big tool, next big CRM, next gadget, next organizational “do-dad”…and we try it. We are entrepreneurs, small business owners, and we want the edge…the edge to get ahead. We live technology and we are conditioned to believe that killing trees is not the answer…just a better gadget.
Back to basics.
Yes…I have moved to the planner full of paper, a calendar, organizational tools, place to take notes, place to journal. Oh, I still use my iPhone and iPad with the calendar so my assistant can keep up with what I am doing. I am getting rid of all the stupid newsletters and blog posts delivered. I am also using my hand to write. It is amazing how much this helps me clear my head and articulate my thoughts. Plus…if I can add 30 minutes of time back to my life each day, then that is more time with the things I love…my family.
Over a year ago, I started working with a client on their Social Media strategy and implementation. While in the first training session, the statement was made, “Every major company/organization should have a Facebook Page, it is today’s website.” This statement has been making me think lately…especially while watching the noise level increase across the social media networks.
I jumped into the Social Media space to learn, connect, and build a community around ideas…specifically to find like minded individuals. I believe there are some communities still there especially with arena’s like #blogchat started by Mack Collier (@MackCollier). But technology is becoming the focus; create a Facebook Page, Twitter Account, YouTube Channel and use it for a “Push” mentality.
What do I mean by the “Push” mentality? Basically, one directional communication with a mass or targeted audience. I push my information to you without much social reciprocation.
It has given many businesses, entities, individuals a platform for thought leadership positioning themselves to push, push, push. Join me here, follow me there, agree with my thoughts, join my group…more technology, more groups, more thought leadership fighting for a smaller space of audiences.
It is my humble opinion that Twitter has created a discourse community that has converted how we use and access information in the social space…”Follow.” This positions everyone to be a leader, these leaders engaging in push mentality. One-directional informational flow that does not engage a communal mentality. Now, I understand that this mentality has a tremendous impact in many advertising campaigns, but how many people want to have information always pushed on them…all the time. Less listening and more pushing. Just build another piece of media technology to push more information.
I do think we are seeing a paradigm shift especially with Facebook…the ability to increase privacy settings. Not just to protect ourselves from people looking at our information, but to filter out the push mentality. How many of you have taken the time to hide your status updates from friends/family and even hidden those who are pushing too much information on you? I know I have, hiding status updates so they do not come across my news feed. This is an effective way to hide people’s push mentality without letting them know we do like their updates. Easy way to save face and save space.
Facebook Pages are becoming yesterday’s website, post the information and hope they will come. Is it really necessary to have a website or Facebook Page to push your information, especially if you are not building the community effect that engages a conversation.
I guess it is ok if your whole goal is to build up SEO, but if that search does not lead to a conversation…what is the point? Just more noise in the world of the digital, social space. Another piece of technology and no community. Sometimes we have to step back and say, who do we want to connect with out there and how can we do this? Is it necessary to use a technology to connect if it is more purposeful to just go meet the person face-to-face.
I had a former student ask me, “I want to intern at one of the local (Greenville, SC) ad firms…do you know anyone at these groups?” I asked him which group is he interested…then he listed one or two. I asked him if he had contacted them and he responded saying he sent an email and received no response. He asked,” what should I do next?” Hmm…it is more than just sending one email. It is more than just one chance with one piece of digital technology to illicit a conversation. It is more than just pushing ourselves on others. How about stepping away from what is comfortable, get away from behind the keyboard and find new ways to build a conversation and a community. To my former student, try calling and setting up an appointment, or offer to take someone out to lunch or even coffee. Then have a conversation.