Social Media and You

A solid definition of your ideal client is essential to online business success. But creating that definition is no slide.  Nonetheless, lately I’ve been on the brink of progress in that department.

Identifying your niche market, recognizing the sort of person who most relates to you and your business can be tricky. You might think your market is busy moms or people with dogs or investment bankers. But to be actually useful in marketing, your definition has to be far more specific.

And not just predictably specific. It’s not busy moms who live in Peoria and are under the age of 30. That stuff’s important, but not the key. The key is that your busy moms need a shoulder to cry on, or they need affordable diapers, or they need care for their aging parents.

Who they are is of interest, but what they need is bankable.

For me, the ideal client picture has been fuzzy. When I started in this biz, I thought it was okay to focus on ‘small businesses.’  So it’s been a long road from there. You get closer, over time, to a good working definition.

But it’s what you learn about yourself that’s mind blowing.

It’s been two weeks since ThoughtLead recorded The Influencer Project, but I finally had the chance to tune it in today.

Fun concept, informative even if you already know a lot about inbound marketing, and worth the 60 minutes if you are interested in brand building. Sixty thought leaders are each given 60 seconds to share their best tip on “Increasing Your Digital Influence.” Their tips for online success are varied and challenging.

While the worn-out theme of “being helpful” was dominant, there were other, more exciting and exacting viewpoints as well. The resulting collection amounts to a pile of gold.

Amongst admonishments to

• be consistent,
• develop multiple streams of influence,
• use video
• create great content,
• and focus on a niche,

there are other voices speaking of larger meanings.

One said that we used to debate, and digital influence allows us to dialog, instead. We used to compete; now we can value and admire. We used to seek to prevail; now we seek to engage.

But the coolest came from Gretchen Rubin of The Happiness Project, who said, “self expression is the new entertainment.” Want to develop your influence digitally? Ask your peeps to express!

The two are so closely related that it’s hard to distinguish between them, sometimes. But actually, they differ in important ways. Important, that is, if you’re wondering how to sell your products / services online.

Social media is a sub-set of inbound marketing. It’s much easier to understand and manipulate than inbound marketing. Social media is to inbound marketing what a rowboat is to an ocean vessel.

It’s like writing a letter, versus developing an entire postal service.

What you consider to be social media may range from a narrow perspective, in which only the networks of Twitter-Facebook-LinkedIn and such are included, to a broad definition inclusive of almost anything about your business that exists on the internet.

Perhaps social media goes even further than that, extending to in-person meet-ups and Foursquare events.

Social media is a set of tools.

Inbound marketing is a state of mind.

Inbound marketing is about moving beyond a competitive economy to a branded one, where value is derived from observed behaviors and relationships that are relatively personal.

(Traditional business values subliminal seduction through mass communications.)

Social media’s easy. Inbound marketing’s hard.  It’s tough to teach: it begs intuitive understanding.

More to come on this.

Hugh MacLeod gets my goat. I’ve been offended, outraged, disgusted by him more than once.

On the other hand, I subscribe to his daily email, and thrive on it with gratitude.

I guess that’s always the way with brilliance. It’s impossibly infuriating and totally enchanting at once.

MacLeod, an ‘early-adopter,’ a cartoonist, social media samurai, and marketing whiz has won the hearts and gizzards of large corporations as well as millions of minions like moi.  No sense trying to ignore him. Hugh MacLeod simply and powerfully just is, like a sudden storm or a rainbow.

I dropped his RSS feed and went away in a huff awhile ago, because all he seemed to be doing was selling me, and bragging. Egotistic bastard. But I’ll be whooped if he didn’t woo me back. Not intentionally, not just for me; but his presence was so large and artful, there was no resisting.

Hugh MacLeod gets social media, big time. You could say he embodies it. His brand is eccentric, unapologetic, driven. He passionately persists in relating, day after day. Subscribe to his daily cartoon, and you’ll understand. His artistry forces revised perceptions, with humor and compassion. He’s self-absorbed for all our benefit.

“Strive for perfection but don’t wait for it.”

(Perhaps this post  belongs on my other blog, but it’s here now, and so it goes.)

• Talking about Michael Gerber’s challenges in his E-Myth in my local networking group. Create the perfect system.
• Thinking about Valeria Maltoni’s weekly Tweetchat on Kaizen. Perfectibility as work/lifestyle.
• Loving the work I do, helping people express their brands online. And thinking how vast the field is.

I want to reject Gerber’s ideas, because they’re contrary to an artisan approach. But I know that the truth is, though he leans to the right, Gerber’s got a point. Whether you expect to incorporate your business or remain a tradesperson, your search for perfectibility is paramount. Your progress in perfectibility is the yardstick of success.

When you give things an Oriental slant, seeing work as practice in the slow patience of a belief system, the ugly edge of mechanism is softened. It’s not robotic, it’s devotional.

But really it’s the mere fact of the ‘net that forces us to work smarter, right? The vastness of it.

The reality that we have this tool for discovery of self and other that lets us envision a perfection heretofore unimaginable.

You may have heard the observation that the web’s divided between content-producers, commenters, and lurkers. Relatively few people want to spend any of their time producing content; not many are willing even to compose a comment.

Therefore, although inbound marketing and social media are key strategies for every business, it is not to be assumed that the business owner is the Voice of their online presence.

If you run a business but don’t wish to be a content producer for the internet, what are your choices? I’ll offer just a few basic solutions here.

1. Get a digital voice recorder and talk into it. Let your virtual assistant transcribe and upload.
2. Identify someone in your company who can be trusted to take on the role.
3. Organize your company so that all workers share in the demands of online responsiveness.
4. Work with a social media assistant who can help you devise the best solutions for your specific situation.

Generous sharing of knowledge is what you are doing online, demonstrating sufficient personal investment to win your visitors’ trust.

Your internet Voice has to be real and honest, but it does not have to be your own Voice or nothing.

Social media gurus make a big deal about being authentic, as the best way to create your most effective online presence.

There’s a general consensus that you should be as You as possible, liberally sharing your personality. Gary Vaynerchuk-style.  Or Hugh MacLeod.

Many stand firmly behind the notion that all updates must be your own expressions, that anything ghost- or staff-written on the internet is bogus.

The relative raw immediacy of social media may be one reason why people want online exchanges to be transparent.  Relationships formed online are vulnerable to suspicion and mistrust. You have to overdo it in the transparency department if you’re going to be believed.

But if we relegate the web only to those who are capable of regularly expressing themselves there, it won’t be of much use. The internet is truly for everyone; businesses of all kinds have to be able to use it profitably. It’s not just for coaches and authors and marketers: it’s not only for language-oriented types.

So the voice of your business online becomes a critical question. If it is not to be your voice, whose voice can it authentically, transparently, and powerfully be? Next post, we’ll look at some possibilities.

There are a few people who speak like prophets about the internet, and Brian Solis is one. Along with Clay Shirkey, Mitch Joel, Seth Godin (+ others), Solis establishes the lingo, defines operative principles.

Solis writes about Social Media Best Practices for Business and drives home in just a few strokes the essentials of the new culture that the web has created. He uses words like dedicate, conquer your fears, listen. He teaches that we need to be not only attractive, but expansive.

“The ability to showcase your products and services to attract customers and spark conversation is arguably greater on social networking sites than your own website.”

This sentence presents a formidable thought.

I asked some other supposed ‘gurus’ about the future of websites: they replied with indignation that individual websites are and always will be paramount online.

Shirkey more clearly understands the realities: social media (read, your Facebook Page, your Twitter presence, your LinkedIn activities and profile) is now almost as important as your website.

Note that this doesn’t mean you should use Facebook as your home base and bypass the need for a website. Rather, it suggests that both website and social media are required, working together.

You may have encountered them: the rockstars, the early internet adopters who have attained worldwide fame. Guy Kawasaki, MenWithPens, @ pistachio, Chris Brogan, Gary Vaynerchuk, Liz Strauss, Loic LeMeur … and maybe a couple dozen more. Not to mention luminaries like Mitch Joel, Clay Shirky, Seth Godin.

These people are exceptional, it’s sure. Their brilliance is remarkable. In every field, wherever we fixate our interest, we look for the finest, the best example, the cutting edge. To seek out, label, and celebrate the stars is human nature, and an admirable urge.

But this doesn’t diminish the reality that social media is the antithesis of star-crossed culture. Online, value is constantly shifting, and can’t be permanently placed anywhere. That which is revered today will be archival in a minute, so don’t take pride in any fleeting glory. Online, your personal glory is not the point, and if you persist in promoting it, you will fail. Online, you win trust, a commodity more precious than mere love.

A rockstar is to be adored, but not necessarily trusted. Inbound marketing and online social media are leveling, democratizing forces. They are the opposite of star-making culture.  Online, opportunity is equal; we are all rockstars.