There is a catch to social media. There is no place to hide…no tolerance for BS. Expectations are high. You and your brand must actually be special. You must reveal yourself. You must be authentic, natural and inspirational. How? Just be human and real. Ditch the lame commodity corporate website “business-speak” and say what you would say as a human if you were face-to-face with your most important prospects. Marry your brand with real personalities that make your business special.
Word-of-Mouth Demands Honesty
Proudly explain and publicize who you are as people, not as a cliche. And if you’re not fired up to do that, if you’re not inspired, if you’re not sure – don’t bother because new era media demands honesty. But…if you dare to be vulnerable, if you are bold, if you’re willing to look people in the eye and offer authentic value, and if you prove it… word-of-mouth and buzz shall take hold. And social media will make your brand a celebrity.
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Zabada, Inc.
Andy Sernovitz
CopyBlogger
Gary Vaynerchuk
ProBlogger
February 20th, 2009 at 3:52 pm
Love the issue addressed here. We are REAL people, and at the end of the day, those that are receiving your message want REAL information, not a lot of baloney. Yet, at least in the sales world, relationships are built with those that LIKE the person delivering the message. How can we project that via a text blog, or with a quick tweet…without coming off as “cutsy”?
February 23rd, 2009 at 9:33 pm
Interesting related video posted today on becoming a celebrity by WordPress designer extraordinaire Chris Pearson. In a nutshell, you have to communicate with your audience when they reach out to you, and yes, sometimes that will feel like WORK.
Warning, trashy wife beater shirt and some NSFW language in the video
http://www.pearsonified.com/2009/02/celebrity.php
August 10th, 2009 at 11:33 am
Setting the idea of Celebrity aside, businesses of all kinds can really benefit from a dose of reality in the way they talk about their products and services. I think your title of Brand Celebrity is nice and catchy but what I like best is just the idea of authentic messaging.
We constantly work…maybe even strive…to help our clients speak in a real, natural way to their audiences. We use the word ‘authentic’ like some kind of mantra.
Their default seems to be that they think you have to use convoluted language where every one of your value propositions is in the one sentence or you aren’t really communicating.
Thanks for your article! We re-tweeted it this morning.
August 11th, 2009 at 9:09 pm
Thanks Barbara … I love your site http://www.gravitycreative.com/ Great example of striking a balance with creativity, simplicity and direct language. Thanks for your comment and RT.
November 11th, 2009 at 12:37 pm
So, what are you trying to say here, Mark? Kidding. I like the post, and I hope that the more people reiterate this the more we move the needle of marketing as interaction. Having recently given a lot of talks on social media for economic development, which is relationship building at its core in many ways, I find it’s still hard to move people away from the understanding of social media as “wasting time online at work” versus credible messaging tool via relationship building.
July 7th, 2010 at 9:06 am
Well said Mark. Conversations with people who have no personality are short conversations. I always advise clients to create a motivation for their social media voice. It’s no longer okay to just “be somebody,” you have to be somebody with a defined purpose.