Tag Archives: authenticity

Video: What Do Consumers Really Want?

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httpv://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2RD0OZCyJCk

If you can’t see the above video, click here, or watch it directly on YouTube.

Today I’m sharing a video that changed my life. I watched this in February 2009 when on a weekend break in Cornwall, and as I saw Joe Pine’s TED Talk on The Experience Economy, it resonated deeply within me because it explained what I had spent all my working life doing: staging powerful, compelling experiences.

Shortly after, I purchased the book and read it when I took a group of interns to Romania for a week in April 2009 (whenever I read it now, I think of Romania in an instant.) A few months later when researching Joe a little more, I saw he was on LinkedIn and I sent him a thank you message for how it had changed my life and my business. Joe responded, and from there we kept in touch. I was fortunate enough to meet Joe in December 2009, and Joe was very helpful with hooking me up with Teemu Arina, who spoke at Like Minds in Helsinki. Such is the power of Social Media! (BTW Joe is now on Twitter.)

My Takeways

I could and have spent a lot of time talking about what I learned from this video, but my main takeaways are:

  1. Good and Services are commoditised. They are everywhere. If you want to be unique and remarkable, you need to offer an Experience.
  2. An Experience is a customised Service. This provides the starting point to start staging Experiences.
  3. Staging Experiences doesn’t make them inauthentic. In fact I say that the more you prepare for people is the more that you actually value them and care about the experience that they’ll have. Case in point: Like Minds is highly prepared to deliver a compelling experience to every participant – because I care about people learning and connecting.
  4. Authenticity is two things: being true to yourself, and then being true to what you say you are. I wonder how many businesses fail on BOTH!
  5. Whatever the level of Authenticity of your offerings, whether Fake-Fake or Real-Real, you can embrace it and make it work.

Joe has co-authored two books with James Gilmore that combine the thinking in this video. I would highly recommend that you purchase both Experience Economy and Authenticity (affiliate links), because they have given me an incredible way to understand economic value and the levels of economic offering. If you like anything about what I do, most of it has some root in these two books – either because I learned it there, or have found that I was already doing it but it was described there.

Your Leading Thoughts

  • Do you offer Experiences? Or rather, what Services do you offer that you could customise into Experiences?
  • Where does your business lie on the Authentic Matrix?

Video: Unmarketing

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[vimeo 12743658]

If you can’t see the video above, click here, or watch it on Vimeo.

I watched this video this week by Scott Stratten (regularly known as @unmarketing), which is an hour long presentation on what Social Media is really about: social – a.k.a. relationship.

You know I don’t do this often – so given that I am posting this with little more than what I think, I thoroughly recommend you watch it.

My favourite bits:

  1. The opening story that Scott tells. N0 matter how advanced we want to get with Social Media (you know, my frameworks and all), we have to remember so many businesses still are getting the most basic customer service horribly messed up.
  2. Automated tweets and other Social Media fails because it is pretending to be present - and the most important thing about Social Media is the reply – which you can’t do off an automated tweet or cross-platform status update. Very good insight here.
  3. His example of getting people to understand how powerful Social Media is (9:30 in.)
  4. “Social Media doesn’t change the fact that relationships take time.”
  5. “People still use videotapes… Holy monkey nuts.”
  6. Scott’s admission of denying digital sales of his book in order to get better New York Times Best Seller List ranking, as they only count physical sales. Authenticity is a big thing to him – which I like.
  7. Every line of information you ask for on an online form decreases the chance of someone filling it from 10% – 30%. (Wow.)
  8. His story of learning that the volume-play from the early Twitter days was just over the top and doesn’t work. (And now understands value is where it’s at.) He now regrets following everyone back.
  9. Increase people knowing you, liking you and trusting you (always good to hear again.)
  10. Create great content on Twitter. In other words, craft useful 120-character tweets, rather than just sending updates. (This is what I call being an Active Authority.)

And yes, I so liked the keynote that I pre-ordered his book (my affiliate link – commission for sharing this with you ;-)

Your Leading Thoughts

  • My question for you – what is your favourite bit, and why?

Enjoy.
Scott

If Your Blog Is REALLY Your Home, Then:

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96 Maison de FéeEveryone know’s Chris Brogan‘s famous analogy of a blog being like your home, where you invite people back to, and your Social Media profiles being like outposts where you meet those people in the first place.

But if your blog is REALLY your home, then the implications are deeper than just bringing them to a place where you can show off your content in order to get your ego stroked.

Chris recently pointed out a few ideas when discussing “Rethink Your Web Presence” – which I’ve taken and extended to what I think are the deeper implications is your blog is your home. Consider that:

1. When people go to a diner party, they ask “who here is like me?” It is a safety thing. When we design our church experiences, we are always aware that when people enter a church room (or networking room, or any room where there are unknowns), they immediately ask “who here is like me?” – it is a safety thing. Faces are a great way to virtually show that people here are like you – to grant Social Authority – which is what Facebook’s social plugins are doing. Continue reading →

4 Issues With Comments, And Why Most Blogs Are Anti-Social

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Last Friday I posted a video about the gripe I have with bloggers who tag “What do you think?” onto the end of blog posts in order to make them social. What followed was a really great discussion in the comments section that I want to highlight and then add some more ideas to mixing pot.

I have four issues that I’ve drawn from the comments you made, and bolded the main points, as this has turned out to be a longer post than usual.

Why Comments Matter

They matter because that’s when blogging becomes social. When I look at where I’ve come in the last year, I can direct much of it to the comments on this blog, and the follow discussions on Skype and face to face. I always say that connections trump community, that is, a connection with someone who is engaging two-way with you is far more valuable than someone in the community that just blindly ‘likes’ or ‘retweets’ your stuff on Facebook or Twitter (and the offline equivilents of such tokenism.) Continue reading →

Facebook’s Cohesive Web and Postmodern Epistemology

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httpv://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cPbwRYg7OaI

If you can’t see the video, click here.

In this video (filmed by Andrew Davies, and full of The Office jokes), I stumble through attempting to explain the idea that Facebook’s new Social Plugins are a powerful step for our post modern epistemology – in other words, the way that we get information. Continue reading →

The Social / Broadcast Matrix

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I wrote last week about ‘Broadcasting Social Media‘, and how many conferences are a contradiction in terms when their content is about Social Media, but they have no social interaction or discourse – just speakers broadcasting a social message.

This got me thinking. If you can broadcast social, then that says something about the channel that is used, and the content that is delivered through the channel. Is it the case, then, that you can have social content delivered through a social channel? Or can you have broadcast content delivered through a social channel?

Taking Pine and Gilmore’s Authenticity (affiliate link) and their Real Fake Matrix as inspiration, I’ve thr0wn together a first draft of a Social Broadcast Matrix. Lo and behold:

Social / Broadcast Matrix Continue reading →

Do You Believe In A Flat Social Media Earth?

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One of the mantras of Social Media advocates (of which I’m one) is the flatenning effect. It’s what I noticed a year ago (and wrote about here) when I was able to speak directly to directors, CEOs, managers and decision makers without getting asked “And who are you?” by a secretary before being refused to be transfered to the boss’ direct line.

I guess what it means is that you don’t need a business card – Social Media gives you a direct line.

And in this way, yes, I feel that the world is the flattest that it has been since Copernicus came on the scene. But still, things – and people – are not all equal. Continue reading →

Friendship 2.0 and Beyond

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httpv://www.youtube.com/watch?v=r0h0LlCu8Ks

There’s a great discussion going on right now at my friend Robin Dickinson‘s blog on “Building Relationships: A Question of Quality Over Quantity” (go and read it!)

Today I’m hoping we can pick up on a key topic that has risen from the comments on Robin’s post, mainly about what I guess is easiest to describe as Friendship 2.0. We’ll look at what’s wrong with the current idea of friends, how we misplace confidence in community, and how we can move forward with genuine connections that get things done. Continue reading →

Pepsi and a Thought About Cause Marketing, Authenticity and Commonality

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All Good Children Go to HeavenYesterday we discussed Amazon and the challenge intangibles and digital products have with perceived value. I must say, the comments yesterday were rich and deep, and it’s really got me thinking. I’ll be picking up this theme again very soon – if you haven’t said a word there yet, please do leave a comment on what others have said.

Today we’ll look at the second case study, namely Pepsi’s decision to invest it’s $20 million Super Bowl spend rather into Social Media. As I said yesterday, I’d certainly recommend reading both ABC News’ article and Augie Ray’s article at the Forrester Marketing blog, as they both provide excellent analysis and further examples of other companies doing similar things. I don’t actually want to talk about Social Media here though, as they haven’t started the campaign yet – I actually want to focus on Cause Marketing, Authenticity, and, well, you can read the title! Continue reading →

Rage Against The Machine: The Case Study In Spreadability vs Reach

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In case you didn’t know, the UK is experiencing, right now, one of the greatest Social Media case studies ever. The headline and subtext from the BBC is this: “Rage Against the Machine beat X Factor winner in charts: Rock band Rage Against the Machine have won the most competitive battle in years for the Christmas number one”

But the real headline here is this: that 3 months of prime time television marketing and audience engagement are beaten by Social Media. Continue reading →