Spreadability: The New Sensibility

Posted on March 2, 2010 by Scott Gould

In my article PR 2010 I discuss a framework that looks not at reach, depth or views but spreadability as the new sensibility for marketing.

Think about it. Direct reach gets you in front of eyes. But with so much coming in front of eyes everyday, why spend so much money to be just another message?

The things that gets word of mouth and word of mouse today becomes what we call viral. The message is one that lends itself to being shared amongst friends, amongst networks, and amongst communities.

Things that are viral and high spreadability are often very sticky. They stick in front of your eyes, as opposed to being one of the many messages that pass them.

The Cost of Spreadability

The great news about Spreadbility as the new sensibility is that it costs far less than reach. Direct reach on TV, radio, print, etc, will cost you a lot of money for a crowded moment in front of the eyes. But spreadability doesn’t cost that much cash – it costs time and thought.

The local restaurant doesn’t have to spend money it doesn’t have on reach if it can creatively make a special offer spreadable. And how will it spread? Though the existing network of brand advocates (Seth Godin calls them sneezers) who pass the message on.

In order to have higher spreadability we need to stop governing the message and start guiding it. As long as our hands are tightly holding the message, others can’t take it and share it to others. The sneezers can only sneeze the message if they can catch it and get it – own it – in order to pass it onto others.

Again – this is placing an emphasis on people not parts. Reach is really tied up in managing the process of the parts. Spreadability is about leading and developing people.

The Surprise of Spreadability

We’ll talk in the comings weeks about it more, but for now, you can read the whole article over here. My question to you though, hinges on the surpise of spreadability.

I often find that the things I want to spread don’t, and vice versas. I wondering if any of you have any thoughts about what makes something spreadable – and what surprises you’ve had over the things that did spread, and the things that didn’t.

Are you build Community or Connections?

Posted on February 28, 2010 by Scott Gould

So I’m sat here at the Like Minds Summit reflecting over the last few days at Like Minds where we’ve played host to over 300 people, and I don’t know where to start.

First off, I’m not one to chest beat and bang my own drum (as much as Chris was telling me I should), so I’d rather you watched this incredible video put together by the always excellent Documentally.

I guess that main thing I want to say to everyone is what I’ve been saying for a little while now about Connections Over Community. Community support is great – but it only gets you so far. If you really want to do something, and achieve something, then you need to begin building connections out of that community,

The takeaway from Like Minds, then, is to go and pick up the phone, or send an email or a tweet, and get some face-to-face time with the connections you’ve made. There’s too much much talk and not enough action these days – so often because we’re so busy building our own communities rather than developing connections that enable to us to really be helpful.

Surely all the talk of ‘social’ needs to come around into this?

Influencers And Translators

Posted on November 4, 2009 by Scott Gould

httpv://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oZUJ7D5zjxg&fmt=18

Yesterday over brunch John Harvey (Exeter City Centre Manager) was telling me about the above mentioned case of Twitter, and the offline momentum he gained from a single tweet. It’s a great (and digitool, not digitall) example of what I think is the greatest use of Social Media for business: engaging and envisioning influencers. Continue reading →

Delivering Multi Touch And Multi Sense Strategies

Posted on October 6, 2009 by Scott Gould

I wrote a while ago that you should cast your bread on the social media waters – in other words, get your message out there without too much prescription over where your message is placed – the reason being that more often than not you get growth from areas you did not expect. Today I’m going to address a way to do that through two strategies. But first of all, we need to define a few things:

A strategy is a set of projected outcomes that move your desired ‘thing’ from one place to another, be it a market position, car journey, a blog rank, increased wallet-share – whatever.
We fulfil these outcomes by employing tactics. In the case of driving from A to B, we require the tactics of driving a car. Note that tactics not are equal to the strategy, they are part of the strategy.
Therefore, in the realm of social media, for example, the tactic of creating a Facebook page and setting up a Twitter account are not a social media strategy. And creating posters and flyers is not a marketing strategy.

I say this because a lot of ‘social media gurus‘ and dodgy marketers across all boards equate hooking one free service up to another a strategy – but it is not – this is just a tactic. We must have strategies that plot where these tactics lead to other than paying through the nose for SEO, PPC, etc. There is more to marketing success than hits and eyes.

Now that we have that out of the way, you may be wondering why I have a picture of our recent Exeter Tweetup above, and thinking to yourself “why is that there?” – Well, I’m so glad you asked! Here’s the answer: every person in that photo is part of a multi-touch and multi-sense strategy that I have employed.

Shock, horror?!?! “You mean they are a part of a strategy?” Well, yes and no. If you mean whether I’m treating them all as a marketing project, then no. But if you mean, am I treating them all differently because of who they are and what we have in common, then the answer is yes.

See the reality is that we are all using multi-touch and multi-sense strategies. Some people that we know are more visual than others, and in order to communicate more effectively to them, it’s all about painting pictures and metaphor. You might not even realise it, but guaranteed there are people in your life that you act differently towards that have different dominate senses, and your relationship works because you are ‘translating’ from one sense to the other.

Making Multi-Sense

We all learn and think differently. Some people see a film and remember the lines. Others remember the car chase scene, where others still remember how they felt about the characters. Any event you hold, any website you have, any interaction you make, anything, is all being perceived differently by people with different dominate senses.

So the question is, are you making sense to all the senses? I look at this a few ways. First, out of the 5 senses, we rarely engage taste and smell in the normal course of marketing (when I run events, I make sure I engage them both.) So that means hearing, seeing and touching. Do you provide content in text, in audio and in video? Do you provide tactile workable examples, and do you provide inspiration testimonials? These are relate to these three senses. If you are missing one out, you are missing out some of your audience (don’t feel guilty, I’m missing out some of mine too – it takes time to build it up.)

Next up is people’s motivational sense. It is considered that people are motivated in two basic directions – either towards success, or away from pain. Given this, do you make sense to both? If you marketing is all about success, then what motivation do you provide for those moving away from pain? And if your products are all about alleviating stress, then what about those who want to move towards something?

Being Multi-Touch

Our second strategy involves how people can interact with you and find you. Last week, when I published my PR 2010 framework, I updated my LinkedIn status to say that I have just published it, and provided a link. It just so happened that someone I’m connected with on LinkedIn saw that, read it, and contacted me. If I have just stuck to my usual Twitter stream, I would’ve completely missed it.

Likewise, I became friends with someone on Facebook the other day whose business I have helped through some of these principles (and a few others too – there’s more where this came from.) As I accepted his friend invite, I look on his profile to see that he was having whole conversations with people on his profile where he had posted links to my articles. There was a whole conversation going on about me but I would’ve missed it if I hadn’t been multi-touch.

Multi-touch, for many, means thinking outside of the goldfish bowl. Don’t just use your preferred channels and methods of communication – experiment with other forms and see how you get on. At the least, as far as social media goes, you should keep your LinkedIn, Facebook and Twitter profiles active, and I suggest using Flickr to store all your photos, while using Posterous to link a lot of this together. I regularly get people finding me through all 5 of these services.

Multi-touch really worked for me when Aaron+Gould marketed Touch 09 – an annual Christian woman’s conference with a lot of style. Over the course of a year, but concentrated over a 3 month period, we marketed the conference through multi-touch, across multiple social networks, digital channels, and traditional marketing. Of course, every touch was integrated and holistic, and linked back to the hub – the website where all the information, communication, and bookings existed. This approach increased by registrations by 100% – in a recession.

You also need to escalate multi-touch. Don’t leave your interactions at just tweets. Sending an email is still more personal than a tweet or facebook, because it requires more effort and is kept private. Set up Skype calls with the people that you connect with, and if you are able to, meet new contacts face to face. By escalating the level of touch you have, your relationship becomes stronger, more personal and more unique.

I can quite honestly say that I feel closer to people who I have met face to face and shared only a few tweets than those I have shared many tweets with. When I worked on a fashion start up, I sourced our designers by finding them on forums and emailing hundreds of potentials. After hundreds of emails, I developed the expression that a phone call is worth a thousand emails. It’s true.

And Finally…

In a shameless act of self promotion, and in the spirit of experimentation, I want to let you know that I actually consult with companies and individuals on these frameworks, and believe it or not, it even works. And if you want to see how this stuff looks in real life, check out Like Minds, and run a search on it too. It ticks most of the boxes.

Digitall, Digicool, Digitool and Diginots

Posted on July 16, 2009 by Scott Gould

Earlier this year, some aliens visited earth. They came to do some research and enjoy a Starbucks – but unfortunately for them, they left this research behind at the table they were sitting at and I happened to pick it up. Lucky me.

I had a good read and discovered that they were researching social media. They mistakenly called us humans Digi’s, and accordingly they observed 4 different social media users:

Firstly, the Digitalls. I am, and some of you are, in the Digitall tribe. We use technology for everything. We use multiple social media sites, experiment continually, have lifestreams, and are on FriendFeed. Trouble is, most of the Digitalls – who are early adopters of technology – are trying to imitate the elite group of innovators. They copy their blogging habits, produce more and more content for other early adopters, and create plenty of noise. Thus, the gap between early adopters and the early majority is increasing in size because it is getting harder and harder for the average Digi (the ones with the money) to understand what the Digitalls are talking about.

Watch this video, made by the Aliens, which interviews the Digi on the street. I don’t just like it because the interviewer is called Scott, honest.

httpv://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o4MwTvtyrUQ

Cue the Digicool. They are some of these people. They don’t know what a ‘browser’ is and they don’t care – but they do know that Google is not synomous with Internet Explorer. They have Facebook. And they have it because it’s cool. My wife has an iPhone, because it’s cool. They might have a Twitter account, and probably only make use of it if they can link it to their Facebook status – why? – because it’s cool.

Digicools are an a giant untapped resource. As the early majority, they appear smart to most people (largely, to parents), but appear slow and sluggish to the Digitalls. They would use services like Flickr for their personal photos if they knew about it – but, they don’t. Everyone is up in arms because a 15 year old Digi researched 200 friends and discovered that teens don’t user Twitter. But the reality is there is a huge gap between the Digitall and the Digicools, and only the daring few are stepping beyond Facebook or Bebo into these new waters.

The iPhone app Shazaam is a great Digicool product. As a party piece, my wife loves to use it. But unfortunately for Shazaam, she’s never bought anything through it, because once it’s told her the track, it’s no longer cool. She hasn’t parted with any money for a digital service. And Digicools seldom do.

The Gap Widens

In the late adopters crowd we have the Digitools. My father-in-law is a Digitool who uses Skype purely for the utility of speaking to his daughter in Australia. When he isn’t calling his daughter on VOIP, Skype is switched off. It’s a tool for a job. My mother-in-law uses Facebook to keep in touch with friends. If she isn’t thinking of that friend in Canada though, weeks go by without her status changing.

Digitools aren’t bound to generation. One of my brothers, a 23 year old in Australia, will also use Skype and Facebook when he needs to communicate, but no more. And this it he hallmark of the Digitools – need to. The aliens did observe that this need does change according to what the Digitalls did five years ago and the Digicool did two years ago – so it’s not absolute need. But the strange thing is there are few from the Digitalls who try to empower this majority – they are content to rather ramble with other Digitalls than engage with these slow, but faithful late adopters.

This group is confused over what a browser, Google, the internet and search is. The mixing of an address bar and a search bar also confuses them, and accordingly, they are subject to phishing from time to time.

Finally, it is the Diginots – not the ‘Digifools’, through it rhymed – who hear about everything all the other Digi’s are doing, and decidedly don’t understand it. They are not social media users, in the modern sense. A computer, Microsoft Word and the internet are all the same thing in their mind. And every time they sit down at a PC, it is the computer that does something wrong; not the user.

They peaked at DVD, and occasionally, with assistance, can navigate the website of their favourite sports team. But when finished, they call their teenager child technical advisor to close everything down for them.

In Conclusion

So that’s the report I found. I hope it’s been enlightening for you as it has been for me. The one thing I am convinced of, though, is I must start looking more at the Digicools and their market share, than pandering to the fickle nature of the Digitalls. Because if I start talking to them, I have plenty of opportunity to be the one who bridges the gap – because few others are.