Your mother, if she did her job right, taught you everything you need to know about how to get along in the world and how to get ahead in it. When we were kids, we thought these rules were silly, but later we learned her advice was pretty valuable. In honor of Mother’s Day (May 13), we’ve put her wisdom to work in online marketing.
Mom’s Guide To Social Marketing
Mom’s Top 10 Steps To A Good Online Reputation
1. Put Your Best Foot Forward: As recently as a year ago, when things were newer, more experimental, a presence on MySpace only was fine. Not so anymore. You have to be everywhere, treating branding in the online world the way you would in the real world. Most social networks allow you to set up a profile page for free (the ones that matter most do anyway). Create your online persona (a polite one), then clone it as necessary.
2. Make Eye Contact: Just like in the real world, wallflowers don’t get noticed. The wallflower is most likely an incredible resource – it’s just that nobody knows her because she doesn’t put herself out there. Be a participant by commenting, inviting, giving. Show up at your new neighbor’s door with a gift. It always goes over well – just remember to button your blouse.
3. You Are a Reflection of Your Mother (Company): Nobody likes a poorly kept lawn except the lazy bum that lives behind it. Maintain your public face on the social networks, shine your shoes, crease your pants, embrace your OCD. It may not be your homepage, but it is a home away from home. Maintaining several of these online presences is work, but so is business.
4. Keep An Open Mind: There’s an appropriate cliché for every situation – all your eggs in one basket comes to mind here – but I prefer my grandfather’s chestnut: “You drove your ducks to a damn poor market.” Poetic, that man was. For a long time it was search, search, search. Before that it was email, email, email. But now you need to integrate your campaign. Search is a staple, a pillar of your online campaign, but we also know that Wikipedia ranks consistently number one in the SERPs. That means you need a Wikipedia page, too. Note: YouTube also ranks well.
5. Become Necessary: Viral marketing is tricky, difficult business. But maybe it doesn’t have to be. Maybe if you realign your approach to reflect what you, as an individual enjoy, instead of being a salesperson, you can find a more intuitive connection with what the public wants to see. It’s often been said that a salesman sells himself more than the product. So if you want to make linkbait, think about what would cause you to bite first. If you look at your viral attempt and see more corporate talking points than linkable material, it’s time for a do-over.
6. Like the People that Like You (Even If You Think They’re Annoying): Barack Obama’s campaign people did something brilliant, and followed up with something not so brilliant. That makes it a great case study. An Obama fan set up a MySpace page and soon attracted thousands of friends. Instead of competing with his biggest fan, Obama endorsed the site as the official MySpace campaign headquarters. That was the brilliant part. After the page got to be “bigger than” the original operator, the campaign crew staged a coup to wrest control of the page from their biggest fan. That was the not so brilliant part, even if politics is mean by nature.
7. Watch Your Mouth: Again with the clichés that still hold true – if you don’t have anything nice to say, then don’t say anything at all. Steve Rubel learned the hard way that stream-of-consciousness blogging can have you saying something you wish you hadn’t. Transparency doesn’t mean total access.
8. Don’t Be a Fake: Who do we dislike most in civilized society (aside from the violent)? Liars, cheats, and thieves. We don’t like them because we view them as betrayers. That principle applies online, too, when your network discovers you’re not what you say you are. And the mob’s wrath is one that is hard to endure. Ask Edelman PR about their Wal-Marting Across America campaign.
9. Mind Your Manners: Mom’s favorite maxim still applies: “Do unto others as you would have them do unto you.” Commonly referred to as the Golden Rule on Earth, in Cyberspace, manners and etiquette are becoming increasingly more important. People are getting angry about anonymous drive-by (rude) commentary, salesy and useless comment spam (spam in general constitutes harassment in some form)…the list of ethics and etiquette violations is a long one, so it’s probably best to ask yourself: Would I appreciate this if it were done to me?
10. Stay Hip. Right now, MySpace, Facebook, Wikipedia, and YouTube are essential, but they’re still relatively new. Few really saw SecondLife coming as a virtual marketplace. Still yet, only the early adopters are talking about Twitter. But change online is swift, and the smart marketer keeps up with what’s hot. The last thing you want to do is look outdated. Just don’t sell out your core identity in the process.
While that’s just ten guidelines out of many, Mom always had one rule that ruled them all: Use your head, dodo bird! This is a thinking man’s game.
Indeed it is. Good luck with your campaigns.
