I was doing a personal coaching call and my digital marketing friend was obsessed with creating content that was extremely short because of “today’s short attention spans.”

Here’s what I had to say to him about that (and this is a direct quote): “Bullshit.”

People today do not have short attention spans. Your content has a short interesting span.

It’s not unusual to observe people spending 12 straight hours playing a video game.

… Or binging content on Netflix for days.

… Or watching TikTok for hours and hours.

Why? Because it’s worth it. It’s fun. It’s captivating.

The whole “goldfish” attention span thing is more than a myth. It’s an excuse used by lazy marketers. The problem is NOT attention spans. The problem is, you’re not good enough to compete with games, movies, and TikTok.

So the solution isn’t shorter content. Short crap is as bad as long crap.

The solution is: Create something that competes.

One of my favorite podcasters recently had a four-hour episode. Four hours. It took me two days to get through it but I hung on every word because he earned my attention.

Earning attention is very, very hard to do. That’s the whole Content Shock thing, right?

Marketing is difficult. I’d argue that marketing is more difficult today than at any other time in my career … And I’ve had a long career. Too bad. Marketing is your job, so double down and triple down on creating something that is worthy of your customer’s time.

Stop blaming attention span and get on with it.

By the way, I’m creating some new short videos about subjects like this one on YouTube. If you want to hear occasional rants, raves, and revelations like the one on the blog today, I absolutely love for you to subscribe to my YouTube channel.

Mark Schaefer is the executive director of Schaefer Marketing Solutions. He is the author of some of the world’s bestselling digital marketing books and is an acclaimed keynote speaker, college educator, and business consultant.  The Marketing Companion podcast is among the top business podcasts in the world. Contact Mark to have him speak to your company event or conference soon.

Follow Mark on Twitter, LinkedIn, YouTube, and Instagram.

Illustration courtesy Unsplash.com

The post Stop blaming short attention spans! appeared first on Schaefer Marketing Solutions: We Help Businesses {grow}.

By Kiki Schirr, {grow} Contributing Columnist

We’ve all experienced bad apologies:

I’m sorry you feel that way.

(non-acknowledgment of wrongdoing that can even suggest the person is being too emotional)

I’m sorry you’re upset, but this isn’t my problem.

(passing the buck)

I’m sorry, but the situation was inevitable with the way you behaved.

(passing the buck back to the customer!)

The simplest way to improve your apologies is to avoid being awful! But how do we improve the official company apology from there?

If you’re running a small business, dealing with angry customers can feel overwhelming. You want to be professional but you probably don’t have your own legal team, PR team, crisis management team, and a host of others at your beck and call.

So how should a business approach apologies? 

1) Basic steps of brand apologies

From personal experience and the wisdom of HBR, Adam Lazare, Contagious and other expert opinions, I think that there is a very rough outline for sincere brand apologies:

1. Display empathy for the situation
   
2. Agree the customer’s feelings are reasonable given their experience
   
3. Acknowledge your part in the situation
4. Try to find a solution that satisfies the customer
5. Show that you will change your policy in the future

Of course, it will require tweaking to fit your exact situation and there might be additional steps in the event of a major mistake, but most good apologies follow that outline.

Today I’m going to give you some advanced techniques to nail your brand apologies:

2) Never erase, only replace

If you’ve put out false information or offended with written content, don’t delete all traces of it in a panic.

In 2015, Mark Schaefer made a mistake (it is whispered in marketing channels that this was the first and only time) and he then wrote an excellent digital apology for misrepresenting some of the features of a marketing tool. It was an honest mistake but Mark didn’t shy away from addressing it.

I’m showing this example because he did something very clever in this post that I haven’t seen used widely. Mark didn’t erase the errant post — he replaced it:

If you panic and delete a problem post, when visitors return (possibly with outraged friends in tow), they’ll only find a 404 error without any explanation. Many people, especially when they’re already angry, will see this as suspicious behavior. Maybe you’re just “covering your tracks.”

Use Mark’s innovation: he wrote over the initial post, fully acknowledging why he had replaced the erroneous content. This allowed him to end the confusion without a dead link. By posting his apology on the same initial link, everyone who had seen the incorrect information saw the very professional retraction.

3) Create a crisis response playbook

If the customer service person on duty isn’t authorized to make major decisions (a questionable but common practice) it can be tempting to tell them to “stall” until you can get in touch with lawyers — after all, sometimes an apology is cited as an admission of guilt.

Ideally, you should set standards for brand apologies through a social media policy before you or your team has time to form bad habits. It’s never too late to create a crisis response playbook. 

Thinking through scenarios and proper responses will take time. If you’re in a field where you often need a legal team —healthcare, supplements, children’s toys, weight loss — you’ll definitely want to include your legal team. Draft a list of problems you’ve had in the past, and look for issues your competitors have faced — especially apology fails. If you take the high road where you’re competitor is known to go low, you might win loyal customers.

You’ll need to tailor these suggestions to your own industry, but here are a few things you might want to add:

• If the customer suggests your product has become a safety issue, escalate immediately.
• If that safety issue could be fatal, call the CEO’s cell phone number, regardless of the hour. Have your legal team ready.
• If the customer’s post is gaining traction and wide sympathy, escalate immediately.
• If the customer complaining is a celebrity or a respected member of your core community, either escalate or call the CEO as the employee feels necessary

4) The toughest brand apologies

How do you handle brand apologies when accusations are false or self-serving?

You might want to set a dollar amount max for product replacement or other customer appeasement methods in situations where verification is an issue. Or like many tech company policies on children downloading products with their parent’s credit card, you get one refund, no matter how major, no questions asked. But that’s the only time you’ll help without proof.

How do you handle customers that want to draw attention to your discussion and refuse to enter a private channel?

You’ll want to handle the apology in a manner consistent with your brand’s voice and customer base. The way Neiman Marcus apologizes is very different from the apology that PewDiePie’s fans want.

What if you’re not the party at fault? What if it was chance? What if it was someone else’s fault?

Don’t point fingers or use the name of the brand or person you suspect screwed it up. Outline the things you’re in control of and the things that are results of chance. Acknowledge that the trouble is still annoying, no matter who is at fault. Offer to work with them to find a solution.

How do you handle accusations that your company is racist/homophobic/misogynist or other reasons your service failure might have been a form of bigotry?

This can be a nightmare scenario. First, what not to do:

Don’t question whether the form of discrimination they’re citing is actually real. Another typical cringe-worthy error is to assert that you can’t be _____ist because you have ____ friends.

Best practices include:

• Investigate the issue
• Ask how you can make it better for them in this instance
• Ask whether they have any suggestions for the future (but don’t require that they solve future problems for you)
• State that you had no ill intent
• Avoid widening the perceived gap between your brand and the individual by using “we” about the brand vs. “you” to mean people like them.
• Mirror their language and use their terminology to describe the situation you want to avoid happening again in the future 
• Address and fix the core issue before defending your brand

While you might feel defensive about your brand being accused of discrimination, you should try to quash the fear of others believing the accusations long enough to fix the actual problem.

When the problem is fixed, then analyze the situation and what your company did or didn’t do wrong. Is there something you should change going forward?

It is also possible that you did nothing wrong, but either way, you should treat your customer with respect. Keep your cool and remind yourself that you can’t know what is happening in their life.

You will likely have many silent eyes watching brand apologies like this, so try to make it right in a manner that feels compassionate, honorable, and on-brand for your company’s values.

5) Just be human

Ultimately, the best way to humanize your brand is to face each interaction as if you are dealing with your neighbor, face-to-face.

Just be human back.

Kiki Schirr is a freelance marketer, writer, and former founder who enjoys new technologies. She believes success is a product of luck, tenacity, and chutzpah. You can email Kiki Schirr at her full name without spaces at Gmail. Just remember that she responds faster on Twitter.

The post Five best practices for those difficult brand apologies appeared first on Schaefer Marketing Solutions: We Help Businesses {grow}.

A few years ago, I attended a panel discussion on Snapchat at the annual Social Media Marketing World conference. This was a time when Snapchat was the hottest social media platform around. People proclaimed it would be “the next Facebook!”

One of the conference panelists gushed: “You HAVE to be on Snapchat!!! It’s so easy to build an audience and get engagement there, compared to any other social media platform!”

I knew, with certainty, that this fellow’s positive experience with Snapchat and its levels of engagement would end. I don’t have a crystal ball, but I do know that there is an inevitable pattern that repeats itself in every successful media channel.

To understand this, let’s go back to the early days of television. Trust me on this …

A repeating content pattern

In the early days of television, it was easy to be a star.

The first television stations were starved for content. If you wanted to teach baking or auto repair, you could probably start your own show by trotting down to the local station. Or, you could grab your guitar and sing along on the hundreds of “variety shows” that popped up all over the country.

Fun fact, this is how the legendary Dolly Parton got her start. As a six-year-old girl, she sang songs on a variety show here in my hometown of Knoxville, Tennessee. That’s young Dolly in the picture.

The entry barriers were also low for advertisers. One colorful grocery store owner sponsored nearly all of the early TV programs here in my town.

As television became more popular, the programming became more sophisticated. To compete, the stations hired professional writers and big stars. As the popularity of television increased, the ability to be seen on TV, or sponsor a show, diminished as the cost of producing competitive, superior content skyrocketed.

What does it take to stand out on TV today? You might think of The Mandalorian, which can cost as much as $15 million per episode to produce! And how many advertisers do you see? None.

There is a lesson here that applies to every social media platform that we love. This content pattern I noted in television repeats in every channel … inevitably, without end.

The cycle of Content Shock

Back in 2014, I wrote a well-known post called Content Shock that predicted how this pattern would work. As any social media platform becomes popular and fills with content, it requires more money to compete and be seen. To win over time, you’ll have to either:

a) significantly increase what you spend to create better and better content, or

b) increase the amount of money you spend on promoting your content.

In either case, some companies won’t survive this content arms race. It just gets too expensive and too risky.

The richest studios Like Disney will win the race in TV. Likewise, the richest content producers will eventually rise to the top in industry niches. It may take years, or even decades, but ultimately content marketing will not be a sustainable strategy for many businesses as the lower-budget players drop out (the ultimate content strategy is to CREATE content shock for your competitors!).

Content shock is a pattern that repeats over and over, in every media outlet, in nearly every place in the world.

A case study

When I wrote the original Content Shock post, some gurus laughed it off as an improbable theory. But it’s not a theory. It’s basic supply-and-demand economics, and it’s playing out in the social media world every day.

Here’s a personal and painful example.

For several years, I was a contributor to Harvard Business Review. It’s really difficult to get an article accepted to this prestigious business journal. Historically, about one-third of my submissions made it to publication.

About three years ago, I simply could not get anything approved. I was doing great work … but nothing made the cut!

The editor explained to me: “Many powerful executives from big companies have discovered that getting published on our site is good for business and their personal brands. So they’ve hired agencies to research and write content for them. Mark, you’re creating your best work, and a few years ago, you would have made the cut, but you just can’t compete with these New York City agencies.”

I stopped submitting articles. I could not compete. The deepest pockets won.

Back to Snapchat

This is how I could predict that the enthusiastic young creators on Snapchat would not have such an easy time sustaining their audience growth and driving engagement in the long term.

This is how you can predict the future, too! All you have to know is that as any social media platform grows in popularity, it never becomes easier to compete. There are some interesting implications:

1. In any content channel, there isn’t as much advantage being an early adopter as some would hype. If you can’t keep up with the content arms race in the long term, you’ll fade with the pack.
2. The importance of establishing a powerful brand is significant. If you’re well-known and the authority in your niche, your content can be seen in almost any situation. I might not make the cut on HBR, but an Elon Musk post would. Anything that features Apple or Nike will get some attention, even if it is a grainy video.
3. There is always room for the new and absurd. Something truly revolutionary and relevant can cut through the noise, at least for a time, on even the most saturated channels.
4. Perhaps the ultimate solution is community. If you own a tribe of passionate fans, you no longer have to count on outside channels for success, no matter what happens there. Of course, you still have to compete. There is always a threat of a rival community becoming more interesting and relevant. The future of marketing is community.

When I think about this repeating pattern of content saturation, I have this image in my mind of the endless waves forming in the ocean and growing larger and larger. But there is a difference. The biggest waves never crash. The best content-fueled waves, like Snapchat, just keep getting bigger. If a wave does crash, the surfers leave and look for the next one, like maybe TikTok!

Make sense to you?

Mark Schaefer is the executive director of Schaefer Marketing Solutions. He is the author of several best-selling digital marketing books and is an acclaimed keynote speaker, college educator, and business consultant.  The Marketing Companion podcast is among the top business podcasts in the world. Contact Mark to have him speak to your company event or conference soon.

Follow Mark on Twitter, LinkedIn, and Instagram.

Wave photo courtesy Unsplash.com

The post The inevitable pattern occurring on every social media platform appeared first on Schaefer Marketing Solutions: We Help Businesses {grow}.

By Kiki Schirr, {grow} Contributing Columnist

When you’re starting your own journey as an independent creator or entrepreneurial marketer, the one thing you’ll always have in abundance is criticism. Well-meaning people will discourage you, say the market is too crowded, tell you to wait until the economy is better … a thousand different ways to say “no.”

The comments that cause embarrassment, that hurt, and make you question your plans are usually about you, not your business.

People will object to your risk-taking for many different reasons. You’re late and disorganized. You don’t have the energy or motivation. You’re more about ideas than execution.

Well, it’s time to flip the script.

Is that a personal failing?—or is it a feature?

Okay, sure, people who are punctual, hard-working, detail-oriented perfectionists are likely to have great success — as an employee somewhere. Those are all great skills for people who punch a clock, selling their time to build someone else’s dream.

If you want to create something, start something, or build something of your own, you might be surprised which qualities are actually assets.

Instead, learn to harness the upside of the shortcomings people harp about. This list of “flaws-become-features” will provide famous examples of people and businesses flipping the script on criticism.

And maybe it will help you to do the same!

“Feel embarrassment? Him? He’s shameless!”

When’s the last time you really embraced embarrassment?

I’d be willing to bet the most successful creators can readily tell you about their last humiliation.

After all, Richard Branson cross-dressed to raise money for a charity.

Doja Cat made a video about being a cow before her breakout.

Mark Cuban got schooled by Randy Orton in the WWE ring.

Independent creators learn to stifle their pride because often opportunities exist behind the barrier of social disapproval. When others wouldn’t dare, an entrepreneur stands up, takes the mic, and belts out the lyrics to the theme from Lion King.

Preparing for embarrassment takes resolve, but that skill might also take you to the [big] top

“If you’re not embarrassed by the first version of your product, you’ve launched too late.”

So shout your URL from the rooftop. Wear your company’s tee to weddings. Beg talent on bended knee to join your team, if that’s what it takes to get things done.

Being shameless opens access to opportunities your competitor is too timid or too polite to seek.

“He’d argue with a fence post!”

Being pegged as a contrarian might not be a bad thing for a creator.

If the status quo remains unquestioned —i f no one at a company wonders if a process could be improved or made more efficient — then that company becomes a slow-moving Kmart-of-a-brontosaurus, food for faster, smarter, and more innovative Wal-Mart-velociraptors.

Of course, there are many real-world cautionary tales of an industry’s refusal to change, even when faced with one of Christiansen’s disruptive innovations. Examples of entire industries, wiped out by better technology from smaller, faster companies abound.

Of course, the more entertaining stories play out on a more individual level. My favorite disruption story will probably always be how Sam Walton took on Kmart, even though Walmart began as the distant underdog.

Over time, Everyday Savings in ‘one horse towns’ became the apex predator of the Blue Light Special. Nom nom.

Sam Walton wasn’t going to shy from a fight. The odds against him were only hurdles, ones that thorough research would help him leap. A 1992 Fortune article quoted him:

“Kmart had interested me ever since the first store went up in 1962. I was in their stores constantly because they were the laboratory, and better than we were. I spent a heck of a lot of time wandering through their stores talking to their people and trying to figure out how they did things. I’ve probably been in more Kmarts than anybody in the country. For a long time I had been itching to try our luck against them…”

While Walton’s adversarial nature was … intense… even curiosity with pure intentions can annoy leaders or peers who prefer their authority unquestioned.

When I worked retail during college, my manager dinged my annual review score because I was prone to “asking too many questions.”

“You don’t always have to know why something is done, you just have to do it.” He said.

The irony was that, in the same review, I was praised for always finding a creative solution to our most challenging customer satisfaction issues. “You know the return system better than anyone.”

My manager didn’t understand that trying to understand every facet of a system and the ability to find new paths to a solution are cause and effect.

I didn’t get a raise that year.

But I did co-found a company.

So while always questioning the status quo might not win you friends, it can win you market share.

Of course, there’s another route to finding new solutions.

“Could she be more lazy?”

In 1947 the Chrysler Corporation testified in Congress. In the public record, you can read that Senator Ellender (D-LA) followed up on something odd that Mr. Bleicher, the Chrysler executive, had said:

Senator: “You say you would put a lazy man on a job to find an easy way to do it. Why would you say a lazy man rather than a hard worker?”

Mr. Bleicher: “Because the lazy man will find an easy way to do it. He may not do much, but he will find an easy way to do it.”

[the record reflects that Congress laughed]

Since that time the quote has been made pithier and is falsely attributed to Henry Ford or Bill Gates: “I will always choose a lazy man to do a hard job because a lazy man will find an easy way to do it.”

“This just in?—?it seems the first place winner of the 2022 Coca-cola 600 race, Clown Car Motorsports, might be disqualified for cheating. Their driver was heard shouting ‘I’m thinking outside of the box–shortcuts are just innovation!’”

And while that might sound silly at first, it cuts to the heart of innovation: find a solution to a real problem, even if no one realizes they have a problem at all.

In the academic discussion of innovation and entrepreneurship, Eric Von Hippel of MIT was one of the first to directly address how tacit knowledge—the things people within a situation simply know and might not think to convey, like that speeding up a little might help you balance a bike around a curve—can reveal a sticky problem: a problem that few can see, because it relies on first-hand knowledge to even identify that there might be a better solution.

The wonderful thing about using your tacit knowledge to cut corners is that it’s not just lazy—it’s also innovation.

In reality, successful creative entrepreneurs are the opposite of lazy. But they still can be perceived that way, since they’re always asking: “is there an easier way to do this?”

What corners could you cut in your regular work without sacrificing quality?

“They’re just a screw-up!”

Failure can seem like the end of the world. And when you start stringing failure after failure together, it makes you want to roll into a blanket-burrito of embarrassment with your favorite ice cream and never take another chance again.

But failure–or more accurately, being able to quickly bounce back from failure–is also a skill.

Jack Ma, the founder of the now-maybe-in-limbo Ant Group, often talks about his failures prior to founding Alibaba.

He once applied for an hourly job at KFC. 24 people interviewed and KFC hired them all—except for Ma.

However, Ma is more famous for his persistence. His application to Harvard was rejected 10 different semesters. Maybe he’d still be applying today if his company hadn’t taken off.

Risky business

When FedEx was pushed to the verge of bankruptcy during the 1970’s energy crisis, founder Fred Smith knew he had $5,000 left in the bank and no way to meet the next month’s payroll.

So he took a risky, foolhardy, and likely outright stupid gamble—quite literally. On the way back from a failed pitch for more financing, Smith stopped in Vegas, withdrew that last $5,000, and hit the blackjack tables.***

When he stopped playing, Smith was able to put $27,000 back in the bank. It wasn’t enough to run FedEx for long—but it allowed him to pay everyone until he raised another $11 million dollars. The company went public two years later and remains a powerhouse.

***Don’t try this at home, my friends.

Still, if Smith had been unlucky that night, he would have faced serious repercussions. For most people, it would have been an irrational decision. But to Smith?

“I was very committed to the people that had signed on with me, and if we were going to go down, we were going to go down with a fight.”

— Smith on his gamble.

Entrepreneurs have to take rejection in stride and learn to use failure as a lesson.

Move on from embarrassment quickly

Countless entrepreneurs have cited one Japanese kotozawa as inspiration: fall seven times, get back up eight.

That is certainly a good motto, but I think Khosla’s advice is most comforting when you’re feeling embarrassment.

Vinod Khosla, founder of Sun Microsystems, has asked audiences if they’ve ever heard of The Data Dump.

His question is usually met with the sound of crickets chirping. But when he asks who’s heard of Sun Microsystems, nearly everyone in the room puts their hand in the air.

The Data Dump was Khosla’s previous (and failed) startup. He now says:

“Nobody remembers failures.

Success matters. Failure is inconsequential.

Yet what I hear most people do is not do things because they fear failure.

Most people are limited by what they think they can do, not what they can do.”

So stop fearing rejection.

Okay, that’s easier said than done. And Mark has warned us in the past about the dangers of making failure a fetish.

But if you can’t make yourself apply for a job despite meeting 95% of the qualifications, or you keep doing quizzes to diagnose your imposter syndrome, you likely would benefit from failing more often. So what steps can you take to work toward overcoming the fear and embarrassment of rejection?

One way is to begin pursuing it.

Collecting rejection to overcome the embarrassment

I, like Jia Jiang and many others, once undertook a Rejection Challenge. My remixed goal was to receive 100 official journal article, job, or opportunity rejections in 2018. And to my delight, I failed. By mid-year I was too busy with new and exciting opportunities to actually complete my challenge. #goodproblems

If you’d like to read more, this is my summation, but the tl;dr is: push yourself to do things you think are just beyond your capability, and you’ll be surprised at how much you grow.

So while it’s still a good idea to do a little soul-searching when called a lazy, argumentative, attention-seeking reject, there is a chance that you’re just on the wrong career path. Your annual review might be punishing you for the very traits that will make you a great creative.

So remember the mic drop from Steve Jobs’ Standford address:

“Stay hungry. Stay foolish.”

Kiki Schirr is a freelance marketer, writer, and former founder who enjoys new technologies. She believes success is a product of luck, tenacity, and chutzpah. You can email Kiki Schirr at her full name without spaces at Gmail. Just remember that she responds faster on Twitter.

Illustrations by the author. 

Top photo is from a North Face video called “Question Madness.”

The post Is embarrassment your entrepreneurial secret weapon? appeared first on Schaefer Marketing Solutions: We Help Businesses {grow}.

I’ve often said that marketers flock to whatever is popular until they ruin it. And the latest thing that’s popular is cause marketing.

Predictably, the marketing airwaves have been filled with news of inappropriate and tone-deaf miscues as companies race to support the cause du jour.

This is a big issue and that deserves a big blog post. How should your company approach cause marketing in a way that is believable? I have 10 considerations for you today.

The business case for cause marketing

First, let’s examine why cause marketing is so important!

There’s a good business rationale behind companies wanting to align with cause marketing. Research conducted by Edelman showed that 67 percent of consumers will try a brand for the first time solely because they agree with its position on a controversial topic, and 65 percent said they will not buy a brand when it stays silent on an issue they consider important.

The study, which polled 8,000 people in eight countries, found that a company’s position on a social issue can drive purchase intent just as much as the features of a product.

Today’s consumers are vocal about social issues, and they are quick to take disingenuous corporations to task. A majority of Americans of all generations — 60% of the U.S. population — say that how a brand responds to racial justice protests will influence whether they buy or boycott the brand in the future. Additionally, 60% say brands should take steps to address the root causes of racial inequity and 57% say brands must educate the public.

There may be increasing pressure to show a compassionate front and jump on the cause bandwagon during the pandemic when some many are in need.

Consumers are holding brands and companies to a higher standard than previously, favoring those perceived as doing more for society. Companies like Unilever and Procter & Gamble, whose portfolios include hundreds of brands, have no choice but to pivot in response. Brand loyalty can no longer be taken for granted, and brand repositioning may be necessary in many cases.

Cause marketing is on the rise

And Millennial and Gen Z consumers have expectations of brand authenticity that far exceed those of generations before them. These adult consumers are the most racially and ethnically diverse in American history, and they want corporations to stand for something beyond traditional consumer benefits and product quality.

A new survey found that 69 percent of Millennial and Gen Z consumers think brands should be actively involved in the BLM movement. To connect with these younger consumers, brands need to take a stand against racial injustice in a way that is authentic to the corporation as well as their customers.

When brands speak out, they are rewarded. Nearly a quarter of all consumers will pay at least a 25 percent premium when their values align with a brand, and 51 percent will buy the brand exclusively based on shared values.

The numbers are convincing. Taking a stand through cause marketing – with due diligence – is one of the few remaining paths to consumer loyalty, advocacy, and even premium pricing.

Does this mean every company has to create meaning through controversial stands?

No. Of course not.

Sometimes we just want a car wash because our automobile is filthy or a hamburger because it tastes so good. Hold the onions and angst, please!

What steps should you consider if it makes sense for your brand to take a stand and explore cause marketing?

1. Be clear on your values.

The literature defines brand authenticity as the extent to which consumers perceive a brand to be faithful to itself (continuity), faithful to its customers’ expectations for the brand to deliver on its promises (credibility), motivated by caring and responsibility towards the community (integrity), and reflecting values that consumers consider important (symbolism). on its own internal value system.

Here’s a place to start:

1. Discover your purpose. Why do you do what you do? Start there. Is this grounded in tradition alone, or does the company’s reason for being need to be updated with a modern lens?
2. Validate social tension. Once you’re clear on your values, how does this connect to your customers? What’s getting in the way of the customers living out their values? Taking aim at this societal tension and aligning it with the brand’s passion leads to a sense of purpose and direction for activation.
3. Use your unique voice. Having a “true north” expressed as purpose can become a differentiator if the intent is right and the expression fits the brand’s mission and personality. Ultimately, the potential of purpose is to act as a filter for all actions and communications from the brand.

2. Create rock-solid alignment.

Cause marketing today is not just about your “why,” it’s also about your customer’s “why.”

Of course it makes sense for Patagonia to take a stand against legislation that opens up protected land to development. Of course it makes sense for Airbnb to connect on issues of public housing. Of course American Eagle is going take a position that empowers the treasured values of its teen customers (they have a teen board to keep them straight!).

When these companies take deploy cause marketing, it’s logical because the position aligns with their core mission and the values of their customers.

Brand identity has been the single most important factor for increasing sales and ensuring growth since the dawn of capitalism. But a brand today is no longer just a symbol, logo, or tagline. A brand must include the promise of what the customer will experience emotionally and even politically.

3. Take a measured risk.

If you decide to take a stand, you can’t change your mind or you risk becoming a meme – or worse. This decision must be carefully considered based on research and insight.

You’d better believe Nike ran the numbers before making their bold political move with Colin Kaepernick.

Two-thirds of Nike customers are under the age of 35. A large-scale study of the political views of this demographic showed that nearly 80 percent hold liberal to moderate views on social issues. A young consumer who can afford $200 shoes likely has substantial disposable income and lives in a city. The term for this demographic? Progressive.

Nike knew there would be a backlash and risked a sizable portion of its business to strengthen the relationship with the young consumers who account for 90 percent of its revenue.

And, indeed, there was a backlash. In one day, Nike’s market value dropped by nearly $4 billion dollars. But one week later, its market value was even higher than before the volatile campaign began.

The math? Nike just did it.

4. Be congruent.

Cause marketing tends to backfire if it appears that the stance is a one-off or an attempt by the company to selfishly grab attention. In every case the cause marketing strategy has succeeded, the company has demonstrated its values in many ways, continuously over time.

A values-based marketing strategy will only work if the values are aligned not just with the consumers but also with the actions of the company itself.

Human rights, racism, civil liberties, global warming – these are extremely complex issues that aren’t going to be solved through a sensational ad campaign.

Marketing isn’t just about making promises, it’s about keeping promises.

5. Emphasize action over words.

Most people believe that brands have more power to solve social issues than the government.

But they want more than words in an ad campaign. Companies need to be active and visible in their customer communities, fighting for their preferred causes.

Microsoft Chairman Satya Nadella wrote in his wonderful book Hit Refresh:

“Multinationals can no longer be the memes they’ve become – soulless, bloodless entities that enter a nation or a region simply to take rent from the locals. The job of a multinational is more important than ever. It needs to operate everywhere in the world, contributing to local communities in positive ways – sparking growth, competitiveness, and opportunity for all. How can we help our local partners and startups grow? How can we help the public sector become more efficient? How can we help solve the most pressing issues in society?”

6. Take care with creative treatments.

The presentation of these brand/consumer values must be confident but sensitive. It would be arrogant for a brand to suggest they are a solution. They can be a bridge to a solution or a platform for discussion. This must be supported through expert creative treatments.

Nothing can undo a brand image faster than good intentions presented in an inappropriate perspective.

7. Be ready for the heat.

The organization must be completely aligned at every level and prepared for repercussions when, predictably, certain consumer groups rebel against the idea. Can your corporate culture withstand a controversy? Can your career?

And don’t forget to be prepared for the internal reaction. If you take a stand that your customers love but your employees hate, can you still operate as a company?

Employee voices are increasingly playing a role in whether companies take sides on political issues. Tech companies, for example, had little to gain strategically by opposing U.S. immigration policies. But Microsoft and Google found it impossible to remain silent in the face of employee demands for a response to what they regarded as an assault on company values.

8. Consider the first-mover advantage.

If your customers expect you to take a position to align with their values and you don’t, that is, in effect, taking a stand.

It may also make you vulnerable. What’s the risk of not taking a stand on an issue and then having your competitor roll out a meaning-based campaign?

Nike made a bold move. Would a values-based marketing campaign by a competitor like Adidas or Under Armour seem unoriginal, or even desperate?

There are only so many “values” to go around. American Eagle’s research led them to a highly focused strategy supporting gun control and civil liberties. I don’t think a competing retailer in their category could now mimic their aggressive and consistent strategy. AE is owning the hearts of core customers by aligning with their values and by being the first to do it.

I want to emphasize once again that I’m not being prescriptive. You have to make the right decisions for your business. I’m just laying out the options.

9. Have a crisis plan.

In our fast-changing and complex world, it’s impossible to prepare for every eventuality. It’s difficult for even seasoned professionals to predict what could suddenly ignite into controversy. So, hope for the best and plan for the worst. If your company decides to take a controversial stand, have an executive team and PR professionals standing by for a few days after the announcement.

10. Cause marketing: Get involved

Taking a stand that demonstrates your values doesn’t have to be expensive, risky, or complicated. But the focus has to be on fewer slogans and more actions!

Find groups in your community that share your values and need your help. Sponsor their events, donate your services, and better yet, show up. Let people see how you care. Don’t just lend a hand. Be the hand. That’s what people want and need from you.

Remember, the most human company wins!

Mark Schaefer is the executive director of Schaefer Marketing Solutions. He is the author of several best-selling digital marketing books and is an acclaimed keynote speaker, college educator, and business consultant.  The Marketing Companion podcast is among the top business podcasts in the world. Contact Mark to have him speak to your company event or conference soon.

Book links are affiliate links

Illustration courtesy Unsplash.com

The post 10 Steps for your company to embrace cause marketing — and be believed! appeared first on Schaefer Marketing Solutions: We Help Businesses {grow}.

Last week I had a call with a remarkable woman from Paris. She wanted to bounce some ideas off of me about her next steps with her personal brand.

She’s entering a crowded market. There are many, many marketing professionals out there who have been making a name for themselves for years. Does she have any hope of standing out?

I know she will.

In fact, I can practically guarantee it.

Why can I make this bold claim?

Because in a world of overwhelming noise, she’s delivering the signal — her original and helpful insights. The critical role of creating insights with your content instead of simply relaying information is an important lesson for anybody interested in social media and marketing today, so let’s dive in.

The nature of insight

Isaacson

I once had the opportunity to meet and interview the great writer and historian Walter Isaacson. He has written books on his favorite geniuses — Steve Jobs, Albert Einstein, Leonardo da Vinci — and I asked him about his definition of genius.

He said that genius requires two things: An endless curiosity and an ability to see patterns.

In other words, creating insights come from being curious and connecting the dots in a new way. You call on your experience, education, and heritage to look at something from a different angle.

It seems to me that anybody has the ability to do this if they apply themselves. When you’re creating insights, content magic happens.

You can be intentional about orienting your content toward insight instead of information. Here are a few ways anybody can become more insight-driven:

1. Connect the dots

One of my favorite ways of creating insights is to apply an experience from the past to a situation in the present.

Here is a universal truth. If you’re reading this post, you have a past and you have a present … so you should be able to do this!

An example of how to do this comes from my Marketing Rebellion book. I wanted to make a point in the book that cultural change in a company has to come from the top of the organization — there’s no such thing as a grassroots cultural change.

I thought back to points in my career and remembered a very dramatic cultural change that occurred through the visionary CEO of our company. I explained how he made a change in the safety culture through his entire company presence and by leading through example in dramatic ways.

Instead of merely stating “culture change comes from the top,” I illustrated this point through a personal example, connecting the dots to my past. This story was one of the most popular in the book.

Statements are boring. Stories deliver insights.

2. Connect the people

I firmly believe you can’t “think out of the box.” By the time we’re 15 years old, we’re wired with a mental framework that essentially persists throughout our life.

Creating insights comes through combining boxes — mashing together mental frameworks. Simply put, go talk to people and build on ideas together.

A person who can create insight consistently this way is Andy Crestodina. If you don’t follow Andy, you should. He is a thought leader because he’s constantly looking at things in a new way.

Every time I see Andy, he’ll start a conversation like this: “Mark, have you ever thought about how content marketing is like a pyramid …” and then we’ll riff on whatever crazy idea he has that day until we have plenty of new ideas (that eventually show up in his blog posts!).

My go-to person for insight-building is Keith Reynold Jennings, who of course is a regular contributor to this blog. Last week, he called me up and said, “I have a wild idea for you …” An hour later my head was stuffed with possibilities and new dots that had been connected.

Creativity and insight comes through connection, not thinking by yourself in an office.

3. Connect the experience

This is the weirdest idea I have in this post and maybe the most powerful. I consistently gain insight by SEEING something instead of reading about it or hearing about it.

I spend a lot of time mentoring inner-city kids. One time, I was struggling to get them to do their homework on time. It was a never-ending battle. But when I visited them in their home, I had an insight. I realized they had no WIFI in the house! Of course it was hard to do their homework. I never would have had that realization unless I had been standing in the middle of the situation. They had been too shy to tell me about the problem.

In the same way, I get incredible insights through first-hand observations of my customers and their facilities.

My friend Liz Fessenden reminded me of the Japanese kaizen principle of “going to gemba.”

Gemba (also less commonly as genba) is a Japanese term meaning “the real place.” In business, gemba refers to the place where value is created. The most common use of the term is in manufacturing, where the gemba is the factory floor, but gemba can really be anywhere you can achieve customer insight.

Do you experience this way of learning, too?

4. Connect the content

Do you listen to my Marketing Companion podcast? If you do, you’ll see this idea in action with each episode.

Before every show, my co-host Brooke Sellas and I pay attention to news items that inspire us and then we debate the issues, creating new insights.

In a recent example, The Wall Street Journal published an article explaining why Facebook knew it was creating divisiveness and hate but ignored it because hate speech drives ad revenues. Adding our own thoughts to this news story resulted in a ton of interesting insights and a great show.

Again, this is pretty simple for anyone to do.

Unfortunately, and perhaps inexplicably, it’s not happening too often …

The biggest problem in social media content today

Let’s get back to my friend in Paris and my guarantee that she will make it. How can I be so sure?

Because the world is CRAVING insights but most of the social web is delivering only information and that just doesn’t cut it. She will stand out because she has the courage to be creating insights and publishing her original views.

I am a huge fan of social media marketing bloggers and content creators.

I’m always on the lookout for the next emerging thought leader and I have a pretty good eye for talent!

But here’s what I’m seeing right now — there isn’t anybody on the horizon who is ready to come forward and lead the pack.

Too many creators today are playing it safe. They offer simple tricks and tips like thousands of others who came before them. You’ll never take the web by storm by creating posts on “10 Pinterest tricks” or “Five Facebook ad tips.” Your content might be good, but it’s not an original insight that will help you stand out.

By the way, I’m happy to be proved wrong. If you see an outstanding, insight-filled marketing blog or vlog out there, let me know!

One last thing.

Creating insight-oriented content requires some peace of mind that allows you to think and process.

In a crisis-filled world, insights might be harder to come by when we’re pre-occupied with the prospect of job loss or isolation. Insights need some brain room to flourish.

And honestly, it takes a little courage to trust your insights and not play it safe all the time. But here is what I’ve learned: When you get to the point when you’re creating insights, the rewards will start to flow.

Mark Schaefer is the executive director of Schaefer Marketing Solutions. He is the author of several best-selling digital marketing books and is an acclaimed keynote speaker, college educator, and business consultant.  The Marketing Companion podcast is among the top business podcasts in the world. Contact Mark to have him speak to your company event or conference soon.

The post Four ways to jumpstart your content marketing by creating insights instead of information appeared first on Schaefer Marketing Solutions: We Help Businesses {grow}.

Many people ask me how I have so much personal productivity. “Don’t you ever sleep?” I was recently asked!

If you observe my social media stream you could certainly get an idea that I’m a workaholic.

• I recently wrote that I have 20 different income streams
• In “normal times,” it’s not uncommon for me to have three keynote speeches or consulting trips in a week. I’ve worked with amazing brands like Adidas, Hanes, and Dell.
• I host a marketing retreat called The Uprising.
• I blog every week, have had The Marketing Companion podcast for seven years, and I’ve written eight books in 10 years.
• I teach digital marketing at Rutgers University a couple of times a year and do guest lectures at other universities that assign my books to their classes.

And yet I feel I have a high degree of personal productivity with a fun and balanced life.

• I spend a lot of time with my family and also take a considerable amount of time to mentor inner-city children.
• I exercise regularly, including hiking, biking, kayaking, and tennis.
• I take a lot of vacation time, including the entire month of July last year.
• I recently took up watercolor painting. Here’s one of my favorites:

So … how in the world do I get this all done and not go crazy?

I follow one simple rule.

Personal productivity: Focus on the core

Before I get to my one big tip for crazy personal productivity, I have to explain the three core functions of my business:

1. Content

Marketing begins with awareness and for me, awareness begins with content. I’ve built a highly successful business without spending a dime on advertising over nearly 12 years.

As I write in my book KNOWN: The handbook for building and unleashing your personal brand in the digital age, content is the fuel for a personal brand.

Increasingly (and certainly in my case), the personal brand IS the brand. So, I spend an enormous amount of time on my blog, podcast, and books because this is is my reputation in the world. Creating content also includes workshops, speeches, and webinars, and occasionally content for other publications.

2. Customers

Sometimes balancing customer time and content time is tricky. Client work (whether for marketing or speaking) always comes in surges. When they need it, they need it and you better respond.

When I face customer deadlines I do what I have to do and sometimes that means clearing the decks and making time for what my customers urgently need.

Fortunately, most of my client work is on strategy development and that normally does not require a tight deadline. I also do one-on-one personal branding coaching and one-hour consulting sessions open to anybody.

To anticipate surges in client work, I always have a backlog of blog content on hand to fill in for those busy times.

Focusing on clients also means I am very hands-on with any personnel helping me on a project. It means making leadership a priority.

3. Classes

Teaching workshops and college classes is important to me. Teaching at the grad level means I need to stay at the top of my game. I’m teaching experienced experts so I better know my stuff.

Being ready for that high-level engagement and answering their smart questions feeds my work with content and customers. Classroom work can also eventually lead to consulting and speaking work. So it all works nicely together!

Now, the idea behind personal productivity

These three things — content, customers, classes consumes my focus and my time.

If work comes across my desk that does not serve one of these three core functions, I either outsource it or say “no.”

This is an extremely important discipline because sometimes this means turning down stuff I LIKE to do, like tweaking my website, participating in a lot of free events, or digging into some analytics.

The main idea here is that to achieve maximum personal productivity, you MUST focus entirely on the three main core functions of your business, whatever they might be. Then, get rid of everything else, as best you can.

Here are examples of stuff I have to do to run a business but choose to outsource:

• Travel arrangements
• Accounting
• Customer service
• Calendar scheduling
• Podcast editing and posting
• Web development
• SEO
• Some blog and social media admin
• Research

Here are things I have to say “no” to:

• Guest posts
• Most free events and webinars
• Round-up posts (usually)
• Offers to be an unpaid “influencer”
• Offers for product demos
• Anybody who wants to “chat” without a well-defined idea in mind (hear that LinkedIn spammers?)

By the way, I do all my own social media engagement. When you see a comment from me, it’s really me. I don’t consider being real “admin.”

Applying this to your world

This is a very simple concept but it all starts with identifying the three critical components of your business. And keep it to three. This was something drilled into me over years of statistical process control training and I find that it works. No business really has more than three main drivers.

Now comes the hard part. Saying “no” to that other work.

I realize that if you’re bootstrapping a new business you have to wear every hat. But I once heard about a model that becoming a successful entrepreneur means giving away those “hats” as soon as you can.

There are plenty of virtual services out there to help you and great companies like B Squared Media to assist with social media and outsourced customer care if that’s not a core function to your business.

Don’t engage in activities that do not create direct value to the business. Focus on value-creation, not administration.

Following that simple idea has made my life extremely productive … and a lot more fun.

What’s that you say? You want to see one more of my paintings? Well, OK. Just this once.

Mark Schaefer is the executive director of Schaefer Marketing Solutions. He is the author of several best-selling digital marketing books and is an acclaimed keynote speaker, college educator, and business consultant.  The Marketing Companion podcast is among the top business podcasts in the world. Contact Mark to have him speak to your company event or conference soon.

The post My number one idea for unleashing personal productivity appeared first on Schaefer Marketing Solutions: We Help Businesses {grow}.

I often get asked about the art and science of building a healthy and growing social media community and today I’d like to introduce an unusual concept — the surprising math behind building your online tribe.

Here’s an example to illustrate the lesson for today …

Let’s say you’re having wonderful success building a growing social media community, whether that means a blog, YouTube channel, or Facebook Group. You’re creating a safe and meaningful environment, adding unique value, and engaging with an active audience.

For argument’s sake, I’ll assume you’re doing so extremely well that you’re adding an average of 20 new members to your community every single day. Good for you!

Now comes the surprising part. Here is a chart that shows the expected total growth of your community over 600 days if you add an average of 20 new members every single day:

At this point, you might be thinking that I am really bad at math.

This is simple right? 600 days x 20 new people means you should have a total audience of 12,000 people, not 2,000!

How is it possible to have zero growth over time? This should be a straight line up into the atmosphere, right? You’re adding 20 people a day!

Well … yes and no.

The growing social media community

When forecasting your community growth, you have to consider a very sad fact of life. People leave the community.

My daily struggle!

It might not be your fault. People leave their jobs, move away, they become disinterested in your good work and move on to something else. There are a lot of reasons, but people come and go.

How many people can you expect to leave a community? As you know, the answer to every marketing question is “it depends!”

But for me, I average an audience loss of about three quarters of one percent, week in and week out. Let’s round up and call it 1 percent. So, for every 100 people active in my growing social media community, one of them leaves.

Here are the reasons I lose subscribers in a typical month:

UNSUBSCRIBE — Means people just don’t want my content any more. When people unsubscribe it might because the content is no longer relevant to their job or they are simply getting too many emails.

HARD BOUNCE — A hard bounce indicates that the subscriber’s email address is no longer any good. They may have changed email provider, switched jobs or moved.

PERSISTENTLY UNDELIVERABLE –These subscribers have been marked as undeliverable for at least two weeks and more than three delivery attempts. They appear to be unresponsive, unreachable or abandoned email accounts.

Like any proud papa, I hate it when people leave the tribe. But it’s a fact of life. You will keep gaining people, but you may also lose about 1 percent for whatever reason. On the first chart, we observed that once we hit about 2,000 people in our vibrant, growing social media community, we are also LOSING 20 people (20 is 1 percent of 2,000) every time we add 20 people.

So, at that community size, gaining 20 people per week or over whatever timeframe, means your growth had flatlined! There are weeks I get 70 new subscribers and have a net gain of one!

Building a buffer into your plans

To compensate for the natural attrition in your community or content audience, you actually have to set a target to grow your followers at an increasing rate.

In this example, when you reach 2,000 subscribers, to keep a growing social media community going at a steady pace you actually have to add 40 people, not 20!

The implication is, the more you grow, the more you have to grow.

The bigger your audience, the better you have to be just to stay even.

A common social media problem

Maybe you have not considered this little dilemma before, but when you think about it, it makes sense, right?

I see this dynamic happening all the time in my client work. They don’t understand why they are working so hard yet don’t seem to be getting anywhere.

The simple reason is, good enough today isn’t good enough tomorrow if you want to keep growing.

Make sense?

Mark Schaefer is the chief blogger for this site, executive director of Schaefer Marketing Solutions, and the author of several best-selling digital marketing books. He is an acclaimed keynote speaker, college educator, and business consultant.  The Marketing Companion podcast is among the top business podcasts in the world.  Contact Mark to have him speak to your company event or conference soon.

Illustration courtesy Unsplash.com. 

The post The surprising math behind a growing social media community appeared first on Schaefer Marketing Solutions: We Help Businesses {grow}.

One of my readers left this comment the other day as she advocated that you should establish a foothold in every emerging social media channel — a first mover advantage:

“If you’re among the first on a new social network, it will be easier for you to become big there, compared to arriving there after everyone else. Assuming the network survives, you’ll be set up for success.”

This seems to make sense, and we have certainly seen this “first mover advantage” play out in many marketing strategies over the years.

But today I will take a contrary position and offer a more realistic strategy when it comes to approaching social media channels.

The impossible risk of first mover advantage

Here’s the first challenge to a first mover strategy — finding the energy to do it all!

Here’s a popular chart that illustrates some of the most popular social media networks (please don’t strain your eyes!):

Don’t even bother trying to read it or understand it. I’m just making the point that there is a lot of stuff out there.

Trying to keep up with it all and place the right business bet is hazardous duty.

An example … One of my friends bet the ranch on a streaming video channel called Meerkat. He became an advocate and spoke at Meerkat events. He wore Meerkat t-shirts. He pushed tons of content on the platform and indeed became the undisputed Meerkat stud.

In less than a year, Meerkat was dead. His content went poof. His status evaporated. He had dedicated a good portion of his life to a social media channel that is now a memory.

There are not too many people (or businesses) that can afford to make that mistake over and over with every new platform that comes along.

No focus equals no excellence

Challenge number two: If you’re trying to be everywhere, you will be great nowhere.

There is only one way to stand out on any social media channel — earn an audience through consistently valuable and entertaining content.

Unless you have a huge team of people working on that for you, there is simply no practical way to maintain an excellent presence everywhere.

A better strategy is to be superior in one or two carefully-selected places.

Nobody cares

Eventually, the best content wins, not the person who was there first.

Let’s look at TikTok as an example. This is the social media rage right now. Simply being first means nothing if you’re not relevant, interesting, entertaining and superior according to the high school kids who love it there.

Nobody cares that you were there first. Why would they?

Be a fast follower

Here’s a better strategy: Let other people be the pioneers and figure things out. Then, be a fast follower.

In the history of business, the first movers almost never win.

One small example — the Apple iPod.

The iPod was one of the most successful product introductions in history but it wasn’t the first portable MP3 player in the market, or even the second or third. Apple let the others make mistakes and build a market and then came in with something that was more relevant and superior.

I think this same philosophy works in the social media space, too.

Being a first mover and maintaing a presence everywhere on social media sounds like a good strategy, but honestly, I can’t think of any practical reason to do that.

Think of that Meerkat example — It would have been a lot smarter to wait to see if it actually worked out before going all-in!

So when it comes to social media, take the first mover advantage advice with a grain of salt. Be patient and place your bets in the channels that emerge as important and relevant to your customers. The fast follower wins.

Mark Schaefer is the chief blogger for this site, executive director of Schaefer Marketing Solutions, and the author of several best-selling digital marketing books. He is an acclaimed keynote speaker, college educator, and business consultant.  The Marketing Companion podcast is among the top business podcasts in the world. Contact Mark to have him speak to your company event or conference soon.

Illustration courtesy of Unsplash.com

The post Why there is no first mover advantage in social media appeared first on Schaefer Marketing Solutions: We Help Businesses {grow}.