Perfection isn’t as pleasing to us as imperfection because it’s not natural.  This is where so many get the web wrong:  ideas which are overly polished don’t resonate with people, they resonate with marketers.

To those who might say “I’m unsure about my idea, what if I fail?” I’d respond with: “what’s wrong with that?”

One of the greatest things about being a marketer these days is the cost of failure.  If you’re organized for failure, something the internet enables, you can fail like crazy – cheaply or even free – until you find what works.  Most people try to perfect every little thing that is shared with the world because it used to be costly to launch.  But as Eric Friedman sagely advises:  never launch, just iterate:

“When did Google launch?”

The answer is that they never officially “launched”. Sure they opened up the product to a larger sample, but from the first index of sites, to the next 100,000, to the next 1,000,000 then just kept having people use the product. They outgrew their servers and office space and continued to grow the product. They iterated along the way and used the crawling of the web as a catalyst for growth and adding new hardware.

This has resonated with me and gives an important lesson; never launch, just iterate.

Why should this be just for startups?  Apply this to your marketing, your blogging, your website, your social media participation, your PR, or any of your outreach to spread ideas.  Businesses, artists and everyone in between should think like this.

The “big win” as a bump in buzz/digital PR no longer happens at the start.  It’s been totally flipped – you have to earn enough social proofing to reach that tipping point.  But a neat thing happens when you get to that point:  you will rely less on pushing your ideas and more on an audience you’ve built a relationship with to help spread them.

Pull PR will shape your future public relations strategy, but only if you implement an incremental growth strategy, let go of “big wins” or as Eric says:  never launch, just iterate.  When big wins happen, great – but the propensity for them to occur rises if you embrace a constant, iterative process and are always trying new things (building an audience along the way) versus spending inordinate amounts of time trying to craft hits.

Structure your marketing so the next time you’re unsure about an idea, you get to test it in it’s pure, unfinished form.  Get your team into a system that is simple, friction free and with the approach there are no “wrong answers.”  If you can’t trust your team to do this, get them to the point you can.

I’m a internet marketer by day, but I don’t drink the kool aid – I’m first a foremost a user of digital platforms and have been for more than a decade before I got into marketing.  I live at that intersection and approach strategy from that vantage point.  And that vantage point is to treat the web as if it is a constantly evolving experiment with no wrong answers.  I encourage you to do the same.  If you’re working as a digital marketer and are worried about the risk to failure, you’re not using the web properly.

When You’re Not Sure About An Idea… is a post from The Future Buzz

It’s that marketing itself was disrupted.  We need something else.  And what’s next is going to look more sociology-driven than something taken from a marketing best practices book.

Traditional marketing tenants were designed for a society where communication from the few to the many was the norm.  We were all taught them.  But they’re sort of useless.  Hear me out:  it’s not that items such as broadcast media can’t successfully reach the masses.  They can.  But reach can no longer be equated with influence, reach for the sake of reach is obsolete.  People know better, and they no longer take messages at face value.  I know what some of you are thinking – the masses don’t.  Except that they do.  The next generation of “the masses” grew up with the web, and the web connects all of us.  The trend isn’t to trust companies, in a connected society it is to trust each other.

Understanding the connections between each other, between members of the same industries, between those with a common interest and not just how, but why information travels throughout social graphs is emerging as the valuable skill of tomorrow.

Many are embracing digital channels, sure, but it’s disappointing how most try to pattern what was done on previous mediums.  To date, ideas I’ve executed by approaching from a sociological standpoint than a marketing standpoint were ultimately the most successful.

Social proofing is the new black

If you’re involved in marketing/PR and not leveraging social proofing, you’re ignoring the ultimate persuasion tool.  Social proofing is so powerful a force, it can even be used for marketing yourself in an authentic light.  It’s powerful because it’s difficult or impossible to manufacture, however it’s achieved only with a true comprehension of audience dynamics.  You can’t just pay for social proofing, or even pitch people to achieve it.  Rather, you need an applied strategy to solicit organic responses from those with authority.  You also need to warrant it.  Additionally, once achieved, applying social proofing to achieve end objectives also requires an innate understanding of how it will resonate with target audiences.

Social sciences are advancing quickly

There are so many fascinating studies being conducted using digital communications tools, many conducted by those fluent in social sciences.  I’ve been reading quite a few interesting studies in the past several months and much of the data and research has direct application to marketing.  There are smart people putting data behind previously nebulous scenarios such as how ideas spread, how markets change and how we make decisions.  I plan on incorporating many of the proven frameworks I’ve been studying into my own marketing strategies.  In fact, personally I would say overall studying of sociology has proven more valuable to me than studying marketing.

We draw upon our social networks in increasing complex and invisible ways

Through a mix of technologies, our social networks have been switched to “always-on.”  When we’re all connected, all the time, the way we interact, how we get information, and who influences us changes.  Traditional marketing wasn’t designed with this in mind – however an understanding of sociology allows us to better predict outcomes and understand these situations better.

Not “is this a good marketing idea,” but how will this connect people

There is power in being a connector.  We’re all looking for those to connect us with each other, with information, with companies, we crave it.  But we’re looking for it to happen organically in a fluid and unstructured setting.  Unartfully forcing connections never fosters the same types of relationships as those which are organic, or even serendipitous.  With comprehension of sociology, especially applying it to digital interactions, you may be able to consciously guide people down this path.

Sociology + marketing = a winning formula

The web is in many ways just a big social science experiment.  I noted in a previous post on Twitter insights that sociology and psychology students/professors must be having a good time studying us.

As a marketer, I know we’re studying the web, but I question if marketers view the world through the proper lens to get a clear picture of digital culture.  Sociologists have an advantage, they are primed for this.  Or do they?  Most of their case studies, theories and data are out there for you to learn from.  And that’s where your opportunity as someone looking to spread ideas comes in.  Learn the intersection of sociology and marketing and you will uncover a potent formula for success.

Related posts from The Future Buzz:

10 Rules That Govern Groups Online

The Psychology Of Parking

Are You Organized For Failure?

Related posts from around the web

Marketing as System Thinking (Conversation Agent)

How Newcomers Can Influence Established Groups (Psyblog)

Digital Exuberance In Space (Potlatch)

In A Connected Society, Comprehension Of Sociology Is King is a post from The Future Buzz

None of this is surprising.  Social media doesn’t require knowledge of technology or staying on top of  trends and technologies.  Not in the same way SEO does.  In comparison social media is easy to get right.  You just need to know how to market to a connected society, have comprehension in sociology and learn the basics behind some pretty easy to use tools.  Some patience helps too.

The truth, though, is social media is not new hasn’t really changed since I’ve been involved in message board and forum culture of the late 90’s/early 00’s.  There are just more people.  And we’re actually a bit nicer to each other.  But it’s still just digital conversations.  Tools change, but the way we interact digitally hasn’t – despite the glorification of certain platforms over others and the new found ability to be anti-social in public (or for some, more social) with the proliferation of mobile.

So here’s the truth:  digital marketing hasn’t changed as much as some would have you believe.  Search is still the number one source of traffic to my web properties by a pretty good margin (yours too, right?).  Sure I’m getting lots of social traffic, but guess what – search still wins month over month, it’s far more consistent and it’s just better quality traffic.

And this brings us to the point:  despite us early adopters shifting our habits and changing the way we use the web with the release of each new tool because we’re infinitely curious doesn’t mean everyone is like us.  Search is still the core function of those seeking content or information.

If you’re engaged in things like content marketing you should become fluent in SEO before social media.  Social media and SEO work together, but without having a search strategy locked down first, you’ll never fully benefit from the intersection.  Neither happens in a vacuum.

Search engine optimization intertwines with social media and the engines will only continue to look at social signals more in the future as more users participate.  Sites like Twitter won’t disrupt the web’s link graph, eventually it could make it even stronger.  But your marketing, your media, your brand – by engaging social without comprehension of search means you’re yielding a higher conversion channel to competitors.

Social marketing efforts before SEO is putting the cart before the horse.

It’s shocking SEO isn’t yet a core comprehension of all marketers when you consider the power behind the ultimate pull marketing channel.  Yet it’s not, because the truth is it’s work to stay on top of search trends, continuously learn new best practices and relentlessly market your site better than competitors.  It’s also an environment where cash is not king, and many tenured marketers who only understand 1-to-many channels don’t know how to participate in that sort of arena.

Unsustainable traffic

Social marketing efforts behind a website that isn’t optimized will produce fleeting returns.  You’ll hit peaks and valleys this way.  The social web is fickle like that, and users navigating the river of real-time see today’s signal as tomorrow’s noise.  Search on the other hand provides infinite life for your best content.  Good content makes your website and the search engines equally more valuable, everyone wins.

No one looks at page 2

Social web users look at page one of our favorite social sites.  We want what’s new, now.  For many, page 2 of Digg, Reddit or even clicking “more” on Twitter might as well be page 50.  If there’s some thought given to SEO behind your social participation your ideas can be extended beyond real-time and given infinite life by the engines.  If not, when you fall onto “page 2,” you’ll live in archive purgatory.

Your campaigns can and will outrank you

If you engage in social media without having an SEO strategy behind it, it’s possible externalities are going to outrank your own content.  I used to be surprised brands would let this happen, but I’ve seen it happen so often that I’m actually surprised when I see the opposite occur.  It’s just so rare people put thought behind this stuff.

You’re leaving traffic on the table

Good social media participation earns links – the organic, editorial kind.  The kind the engines want to reward you for.  But without an SEO program in place, you won’t fully benefit from those links – which are invaluable.  Most companies aren’t cognizant of the value of links they’re earning or how to make those links work for them, especially many engaged in social media.  And they’re only succeeding in letting competitors crush them.

Quick conclusion…

Be weary of social media marketers who aren’t fluent in SEO – you’ll never benefit from the biggest opportunity the web has to offer.  Search may not be as sexy as social, but it still matters more:  it brings more traffic, higher conversions and is sustainable.

Thinking about this a bit further, this actually goes beyond social media marketing.  I’ll just say it like it is:  if you put any marketing or PR before SEO, you’re putting the cart before the horse.  There is a nexus between these items, but you can’t uncover it until you are organizationally savvy about search.

image credit: zdjeciarnia via Shutterstock

Social Media Before SEO Is Putting The Cart Before The Horse is a post from The Future Buzz

The original lesson on leading was as follows:

12.  If you’re not a leader, don’t even bother.  Your writing will show it.  The best bloggers are natural leaders and exude confidence.  You have to be if you hope to stand out in a world of infinite choice.  It’s basic sociology, why else would anyone listen to you?

Let’s look at Jackie’s reaction to this:

Forgive me for this generalisation, but I don’t have an image of bloggers as leaders. I picture the average blogger as someone who enjoys their own company, with no desire to lead anyone.

Jackie is right – the average blogger may not have a desire to lead anyone.  And due to this, their content will remain in perpetual obscurity and they will never find the path of rapid growth.  Think of the most popular writers or bloggers in your niche of choice – they are at the top due to the fact that their thoughts are worth following.  In many cases, their leadership ability can actually trump their content.  People stick around because they are being lead down a desirable path and trust what is coming next.

She goes on to say:

I would describe myself as quiet and thoughtful, not a natural leader – saying that, I do end up leading lots of things, but this is more due to the fact that no one else will volunteer, rather than any aching desire to run things!

In essence, Jackie is finding that blogging is bringing out her inner ability and motivation to lead.  What an amazingly great thing.  To create content is to lead and be an influential force.  In this case, Jackie is leading some incredibly interesting conversations about books.  Consider that most who read books never go as far as to publish a thing about them, instead counting on people like Jackie to help guide their decisions on what to read next.

Bloggers as a group are confident and elicit the qualities of leaders.  Consider some stats from the 2009 year’s state of the blogosphere that apply to leadership:

• Bloggers do agree their medium is ascendant and 69% agree that blogs are getting taken more seriously as information sources.  This implies that bloggers see the medium as a leadership platform.

• 70% of bloggers say that they are better known in their industry because of their blog.  In other words:  bloggers are actively trying to be leaders in their industry.

• 15% say that they have more executive visibility within their company as a result of blogging.  So at least some bloggers are successful at reaching leaders organizationally.

• 15% say they are paid to give speeches on the topics they blog about.  This is a huge leadership opportunity afforded by blogging.

• 56% say that their blog has helped their company establish a positioning as a thought leader within the industry.  So brands themselves are achieving success at establishing leadership at the company level in addition to the personal level.

This data backs up that many are using blogging as part of their leadership strategy.  In fact, I would argue the act of creating content for groups of people with a common interest is  leading them.

What did other bloggers have to say in response to Jackie’s question:  do you think leaders make better bloggers?

Meagan says:

I would have to disagree that you need to be a leader to be a blogger. I do think it helps, though. I’m very much a follower and a quiet one at that, and I can tell which bloggers are leaders, or at least are more so than me. They’re always organizing events, challenges, and so on. I assume no one would really want to participate in anything I put forward (which I know is silly) so I don’t bother. I don’t necessarily think it’s my writing that suffers, but it’s more of a community involvement thing. I’m happy to be involved in the community but I know I’ll never take a leadership role in it.

Sandy says:

That is an interesting question. Most of my life, I led something…groups, departments, teams, etc. When I quit working, I swore I didn’t want to lead another damn thing in my life. I wanted to rest, and follow quietly. It didn’t really work out that way though. Do I think it makes any difference in the blogging world? I don’t think so. I’ve met people who are this close to being a hermit, but when they start talking about a topic that is their passion, they have all kinds of confidence and they inspire. Some of the best writers never came out of their caves. So why would it be any different with bloggers? In fact, blogging (the act of sitting at a computer and communicating) lends itself to introverted people being able to do their thing without face-to-face interaction. There are alot of leaders out there that can’t sit still long enough to string three sentences together. They would just make their assistant do it!

Trish says:

Someone else pointed out that the article was specifically talking about professional bloggers/industry bloggers. However, I think the points made could certainly be applied to book bloggers.

As far as being a leader…well, I wouldn’t say you *have* to be a leader to be a blogger. But it all depends on what your goals are for your blog. I wouldn’t consider myself to be a leader. But do I jump in if no one else is volunteering? Yes. Would I rather sit back and let someone else do it? Absolutely!

It’s hard to say what’s most important. What makes various bloggers successful (and here’s I’m thinking of bloggers like Dooce, PioneerWoman, Pro Blogger, Seth Godin, etc) varies depending on what they’re providing. But they all provide *something* that people connect with. If you’re providing people something they can connect with, then I think you’ll be successful. You might not get millions of readers, but you *will* get people who look forward to what you have to say. To me, that’s when you’ve succeeded.

What do you think?  Is leadership a required skill to be a successful blogger?

image credit: Eric Isselée via Shutterstock

To Blog Is To Lead is a post from The Future Buzz

This is a complete 180 from how PR used to be done.  But it’s a higher value path because it is organic and scalable – your influence grows by virtue of your presence if you fully embrace a pull strategy.  Bring your desired audience to you where they will listen intently as opposed to unartfully pushing your messages to them.

I could speak from a strategic level on why shifting PR from push to pull is smart, but let’s drill down to a simple example to illustrate it.  PR is far more than just publicity, but publicity is certainly a KPI of nearly all PR programs (if not an objective of many).  In other words:  all PR people can agree publicity is vital.  Yet it’s not working so well from a push perspective anymore.  Consider two major influential groups PR folks target, and why push is failing:

Traditional media are more concerned with if they have a future than whether to write up your pitch.  While just a decade ago, traditional media and PR shared a symbiotic relationship, that relationship is currently on the rocks.  As PR folk become more pushy (and noisy) and traditional media feel the squeeze of a changing landscape, this relationship won’t get better anytime soon.

Bloggers may not be interested in your pitch at all.  Technorati’s 2009 state of the blogosphere revealed that 72% of bloggers are most interested in sharing their expertise and 71% blog in order to speak their minds.  Does push PR really fit into these motivations?

With that said, as push PR fades in relevance, pull PR only continues to grow more potent.

Pull offers sustainable growth

By embracing a pull PR strategy, one that includes tactics such as content marketing, you’ll build out your digital footprint naturally over time.  And more content will attract increasing amounts of attention from all channels monthly – search and social -  as you put more digital hooks in the water.

Pull PR is strategic, push is inherently tactical

Push PR is inherently tactical in nature, whereas pull is far more strategic.  Blogs are the ultimate pull marketing/PR tool, and the reason most fail is because they don’t act strategically, they act tactically.  The problem is success is not easy and results take time to see.  Most simply won’t commit, or will quit before their strategy has started working.  However the returns payoff huge for those who develop an effective pull strategy and follow it long term.

Pull PR lives at the intersection of PR, SEO and social media

Is your PR agency is SEO & social media savvy?  I asked ten questions to asses this at Online Marketing blog:

1. Are you implementing social media marketing, but not SEO?
2. Do your social media and SEO efforts work together?
3. How do you measure the return on investment of your social media engagement efforts?
4. Is social media something you do in your spare time, or is it a core function that requires a dedicated resource?
5. How much effort is put toward managing the search and social media friendliness of your corporate website?
6. How strategic are the recommendations for the company blog?
7. What is your company’s approval process for micro-blogging?
8. Is your current PR agency effectively optimizing your news content for search and social media?
9. What is your PR firm’s true core competency: traditional PR or social media and SEO?
10. Have you considered hiring a social media specialist?

The answers to these questions your firm provides are key to assessing whether they understand pull PR.

Pull creates the right kind of web popularity

By developing a PR strategy to bring people to you instead of always pushing your message to them, you are going to nurture a very different kind of reputation than if you were always badgering people to spread your messages.  It will be a relationship based on permission (they will want to hear more).

Pull PR makes you less reliant on traditional media

And yet, the amazing thing is that in time pull PR will deliver far more truly earned media.  The reason is simple:  it’s more powerful to be found by influencers than seeking them out.

Conclusion

Public relations is evolving quickly and it’s clear why.  When everyone is media, you can carve out your own share of voice in the world.  And as a byproduct of this, you’ll actually attract more media.  When you have the ability to shift your programs to be less reliant on externalities and more on your own strategy it seems shortsighted to ignore this.

Related posts from The Future Buzz

Shutterstock Gets Social – Digital PR Case Study

Matt Cutts Is Representative Of Next Generation PR

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image credit: mitzy via Shutterstock

Shift Your PR From Push To Pull is a post from The Future Buzz