The Power of Words

I would like to comment this week on a YouTube video by Purplefeather Online Content Specialists that was presented to our Public Relations class called the Power of Words,

http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_detailpage&v=Hzgzim5m7oU#t=7s

    

In under two minutes, this exceptional video demonstrates the effectiveness of writing to your target audience. In Social Media alone, we are being inundated every day with hundreds of choices of competing messages. A Google search for “the power of words”, for instance, yields 362 million results.

If we are to stand out and get noticed, our message must relate to our target audience. The more important our messages are, the more important it is to define that relationship.  Define what our message means to them, not us; especially messages that require a call to action. Defining the reader helps us define the most powerful words.

One of the vital lessons I learned about Social Media was put most poetically in 1839 by Edward Bulwer-Lytton, the pen is mightier than the sword.  

Technology Transforming Communications

We didn’t always have internet access, just like we didn’t always have single page printers. Over the past 25 to 30 years, technology has revolutionized corporate industry, but probably the Marketing field more so than any other. Technology has been transforming tools of the trade in Journalism, Media and Public Relations almost every 2 or 3 years.

I have included a list of ten of my personal favorites. 

                         10.      Desktop Publishing

         9.        Cell Phone Miniaturization

8.      Laser Printing

             7.        FTP Capability

6.     Color Printing      

         5.     Digital Media (vs Analog)

                                        

4.   Laptops above 40 Gb

3.    Facebook

                                 2.      YouTube

                                                                             

                                          1.     Internet capable phones

If anyone has any additional items they would like to add, feel free… 

Steve Jobs - Marketing Visionary

The article that Rohit Bhargava wrote about Apple’s CEO, Steve Jobs, I found both thought provoking and inspiring. In the article, Rohit mentions that he is inspired by “actions” not “people”.  Then, the article goes on to explain how Jobs had the ability to attract “an army of smart people and help them create something real… products that affected how we experience the world.”  You can find my Digg at http://digg.com/news/business/influential_marketing_blog_what_steve_jobs_really_gave_us

Myself, I find vision inspiring. I find taking your concept of new technology and creating a computer operating system that radically differs from the current form, visionary.  Founding a company of three employees, to compete with a company partnered with IBM, and establish a lion’s share of the market within five years, I find visionary. Identifying a revolutionary animation technology, Pixar, purchasing it, and partnering it with the most prestigious, world-wide distributor of animated films, Walt Disney Company, is visionary.

Rohit states that Jobs was passionate.  I suggest that it was his vision that drove the passion and desire.  He had the ability to communicate that vision so that others understood it as clearly as he did. They could perceive why he was involved in the day to day work, how he had the ability to tweak the products in minute ways to make them better. And they shared that vision through the confidence that Jobs had when he introduced those products to the world.

I think the simplicity mentioned in the article can be explained by his vision as well. If you can already see the outcome, it makes the path getting there seem clear, simplified. It explains his ability to strip away everything that is not important, and focus on those things that support your vision. So this brings me to the final point - purpose.  

It was how Rohit describes Steve Jobs' purpose that inspired me most. It defines, with utmost clarity, the vision that Jobs had for Apple as their CEO. He defines the vision, the purpose and the mission statement of the company, exemplified in one person, in a way that I had never taken the time to reflect on. And as so often with commemorations, “don’t it always seem to go, that you don’t know what you’ve got ‘til it’s gone.”

Designing a Social Media Test

In our Social Media assignment this week, we are supposed to design a test that examines a particular component of a company’s social media campaign. For the purpose of this exercise I have chosen to design a test for Kumon Canada’s website. I would want to test particularly if it is necessary to share to 10 different sites listed on their share file. The purpose for testing is to see if the time and energy spent to monitor all these sites is actually resulting in a better understanding of how potential customers will interact with our site. There is likely a strategic reason why these sites were added originally, but to maintain monitoring for extended periods of time would involve costs that eventually require statistics to validate their necessity.

At the moment, this feature is offered only on the home page of the site. My assumption is that they hope to engage first-time visitors, or customers who return to the site for updates and enjoy the interaction. In targeting returning customers, the best way to elicit some action, say to get a “like” on Face book, is to offer something for free, say a set of books, tapes or DVDs, worth up to $40 retail.  By posting this promotion for one week on our Face book page, and following the likes and comments on the admin network, we would have proof and a count of interaction through that media.

The next week, we change the items being offered, and run the same promotion through the MySpace page, keeping track of the results again on the admin network. Week three, we would tweet from the admin account and record traffic driven to the MySpace page offer, recording any changes. The following week, in targeting the first-time visitors, a different offering but run the promo on the homepage near the share links, for people who post it on their Reddit account, Delicious account, Google Buzz, Stumbleupon, or Digg. Customers will submit their entry ballot by email with a link to the post they made.

Tracking the results each week would define which social media account is the most effective. This should also give accurate stats as to which share sites are most popular with Kumon visitors and clients. Decisions can then be made with these stats as to which media requires the most monitoring.

My Social Media Personality

I chose to write this blog as someone used to being analytical, investigative and conceptual, someone still searching to see the BIG picture. In business I am a natural-born communicator, an organizer, project-oriented, a problem-solver with a fair amount of insight who loves to rely on, and create, systems. I am drawn to challenges and like to develop models, explore ideas and satisfy the need to be innovative. But I would much rather accomplish these things at the back of the room, and let someone else bask in the limelight.  For me, the discovery and sharing of new ideas, or a project launched from paper to completion, is its own reward.   

My friends would describe me as reliable, cooperative, honest, optimistic, and an independent thinker. Aside from writing under a pen name, all content I include in my blog is original thoughts, and comes from the heart. I am not as physically active as I have been in younger years, and I can say with all honesty that recreational activity comes now with heavy stress on the “recreational.” My marriage relationship is strong and my three children are a blessing. I agree to accept responsibility easily, but I can also delegate when needed. I would like to think of myself as genuine. Genuine and dependable.  Like the Maytag repairman of late 20^th century. See http://www.characterweb.com/maytag.html .