Janet Lee Johnson | The Art of Marketing

I was asked recently to provide a guest blog for one of my long-time friends in the blogosphere, Meryl at Meryl.net. She has been blogging for 8 years. In honor of her blog’s 8th birthday, she decided to take a break and let others blog for her. And she’s giving prizes away to people who come along and care enough to leave a comment.

A lovely birthday tradition, I think.

I enjoyed writing this post about the time that Meryl and I met. It’s a bit of blogosphere history (in the “teenage years” of the blogosphere), and thought those who regularly read my blog might like to read a little shared history over on Meryl’s blog.

Stick around there, she’s really quite a writer… she’s been doing it for a very long time, and she’s a personal model and mentor for me..

In an article called “How Three Brands Got Smart About Social Media” over on the ClickZ network, author Anna Maria Virzi wrote a perfect setup in her beginning paragraphs:

“A cacophony of voices are chanting: Put on a good face for Facebook, chirp on Twitter, tap dance for YouTube — all without looking stupid, appearing phony, breaking the law, alienating customers, or busting the budget.

No wonder some marketing executives are paralyzed.”

The article goes on to describe some interesting implementations of social media marketing, and some nice ideas for measuring success - positive comments, number of downloads, increased sales, increased customer satisfaction…

Paralysis Analysis (sorry, I couldn’t resist)

The feeling of paralysis is real when it comes to entering into the different areas of conversation online (which is all social media really is, in my opinion).

At the root of the issue for most businesses is one simple thing - control.

I used to think fear was the underlying issue, but I’m beyond that now. Fear simply describes the emotion around loss of control.

“What if someone says something bad about us?”

The most oft-heard (and generally first) question I hear from businesses when asking how to safely enter online conversations…

My answer? They’re probably already talking about you anyway. Don’t you want to know what they’re saying? (It may not all be bad - unless your business has prompted bad feelings.) And regardless of the tone of the conversation, don’t you want a voice at the party to respond?

These days, it’s OK to be human - even if you’re a brand.

A brand is (ideally) how your market feels about you, after all… And I know of no human in the world who’s always in control. To be human means to be:

• Delighted when things go well. (For most of us, that’s - what? - 10%-20% of the time?)
• Vulnerable when things don’t go well. (Another 10%-20% of the time?)
• Unsure, irritated, bored, smug, beseeching, aggressive, threatened… when things are just going along (the majority of the time).

Most of the time, we just make stuff up to move us to one state of feeling or another…

Why, then, does your business need to consistently appear superior to the general human condition? That’s a very 1.0 point of view.

Until businesses are made up of robots, we’re full of people. Which means we’re stuck with having forces beyond our control affect us - whether they be people, the rising/falling dollar, the agility of our partners or the resilience of our natural resources.

The first step in building resiliency to the forces beyond our control is to admit we’re not superior; and we’re interested in being part of the solution.

“What if I don’t know the answer?”

In another excellent article, this time on Online Spin, Max Kalehoff wrote, “Acknowledge What You Don’t Know.“In it, Max writes:

“…acknowledging what you don’t know implicitly means you’re open to alternative viewpoints and solutions. Allowing others into your realm enables choice and optimization, and greatly improves problem-solving likelihood….

…The fact is that people want to help. Being open identifies yourself, makes you visible and encourages others to contribute positive thinking and support to help you succeed.”

That’s the value to businesses in social media. There are thousands of examples every day of people offering their advice, opinions and experiences with brands online.

Smart businesses are listening (1.5), and even smarter businesses (2.0) are engaging in those conversations online.

And then there are those businesses (1.0) who simply have their heads stuck in the sand.

George Dearing is using Cover It Live to stream the Enterprise 2.0 conference coverage over on the Content Management Connection blog. It’s very cool, updates are posted “live” and look like this:

I am more involved teaching agencies these days how to enter the blogosphere with their clients. There’s a nice checklist for PR people over on Melanie Season’s Fake Plastic Noodles (one of the best names for a blog I’ve ever read) called “Do you know whom you are pitching?” on how to pitch bloggers in 2008.

The nice thing about it is she updates the notions of:

1. Relevant content - PR people should never pitch bloggers who don’t write about the ecosystem their product may live in. I really don’t care much to spend time writing posts about things that don’t interest me, thank you. And my interests change over time. Melanie’s idea of researching not only blogger’s blogs, but their Twitter feeds and Facebook pages is spot on…
2. Relevant context - I’ve seen many bloggers (via their Twitter feeds) definitively state: “Don’t pitch me in email. If you’re going to pitch me, do it in Twitter.” I rather love the notion of paring down the pitch to 140 characters. Can you do it?
3. Current thinking - Melanie suggests you check out blogger’s activities on other’s blogs (by reading their comments) to capture a holistic view of their thoughts. An easy way to do this (thanks Melanie!) is to run a Google search: posted by: janet johnson <their screen or blog name - find it in their own blog’s comment area> to see their interactions around the web. I am fairly consistent in my rants and raves whether on my blog or on others, but you never know when you might be surprised by a potential bloggers’ current thinking on others’ blogs. As an example, Melanie points to this Flickr exchange started by Tom Coates in early 2007. Before you pitch any blogger, I think it might be required reading - just to give you a “heads up” as to attitudes and optics you might find out there.

I’m following @mseasons now, and looking forward to getting to know her, 140 characters at a time.

Over at the SplashCast blog, CEO Mike Berkley has a nugget in one of his comments that I’m going to lift and use in every presentation on “why to blog?” for business:

“Content is the currency used to acquire audience. Companies can print their own. Most don’t. Why do I, the CEO, make time in my very demanding schedule to blog?“

Brilliantly put, Mike. Brilliantly put.

Nothing has given me more pleasure in my career than to have the ability to share nuggets like this with friends, colleagues and passers by… every time I “meet” someone like Mike, I feel blessed to share in, and participate in, the richness of this blogosphere.