On Friday, David Meerman Scott teamed up with HubSpot for a bang-up seminar on how not to just get hit but create "a worldwide rave." The talk was chock-full of great information and new ideas--not just tips but ways of perceiving and using social media to get a sensational response.
The #hubspot hastag was flowing with dizzying speed as Twitterers commented on and questioned his ideas during the webinar. A few of my own humble obervations from his talk:
- Anecdote: Universal Orlando Resort's Cindy Gordon told seven people (bloggers) about their new Harry Potter theme park. Result? Within 24 hours of telling those seven people, she estimates that 350 million people heard about Universal Orlando's new theme park. [edited 2-17-09 for proper company name]
- Old way to get attention: buy and beg. New way to get attention: get others to tell our stories.
- Idea for replacing your Yellow Page ad: write an ebook--a dentist wrote "Healthy Mouth, Healthy Sex," under Creative Commons
- We're lucky to live in an era when we can create content and don't have to rely on newspapers to do it for us
- David played corporate bingo and made a chart. Number 1 overused corporate bull phrase? "next generation."
- Corporatespeak words are only wrong if your users aren't using them--if THEY don't say "scalable," then YOU don't say "scalable."
- Example of losing control of your stuff: the Grateful Dead allowing people to record and share recordings of their live concerts.
- Fun Fact: the back button is the 3rd most used web feature
- Mailer Mailer got a twentyfold increase in inbound links when they removed the email "speed bump" requirement to download report
- When you lose control of your marketing, you might get fired. But "your world learns about you" if you are willing to lose control.
- "Sincerity is something that is hard to fake and hard to come by but something that people respond to"--Matt Harding
And David's Six Rules of the Rave:
- Nobody cares about your products but you. So true--we care about OUR LIVES, not your products.
- No coercion required. Create something that is easily spreadable, that people WANT to spread.
- Lose control. "If you want people to share your stuff, you've gotta let them share it."
- Put down roots. "If you want to reach people with your online information, you need to be where they are."
- Create triggers that encourage people to share. Example of creating triggers: Erin Weed tells kids at her seminars to pull out mobile phones and record, take pix and post them right then and there. Another example: NY Islanders hockey team gives bloggers front-row seats.
- Point the world to your virtual doorstep.
Big picture message: Create something that people want to share and make it easy for them to share it.
David Meerman Scott is the author of the upcoming book, World Wide Rave: Creating Triggers that Ger Millions of People to Spread Your Ideas and Share Your Stories.
The most striking to me was Rule #1--nobody cares about your products except you. Truly, all these websites, commercials and trade show displays touting the great features of a product--who cares? No one! What we care about is, well, US. We care about our lives, our friends, our family. We don't care about your product sales or what feature you just added or what color you decided for your banner ad to be. We pretty consistently only care about ourselves.
And that's great news. It means that if you can move us to care a bit, we'll share your stories with our friends and family. We'll blog about you. We'll proliferate your content all over the place. But we're not going to do that if you just talk about you.
Last week, I was looking at a website in need of renovation for a client. On the front page was a beautiful, big, animated graph... of the company's sales numbers.
Who cares? I don't care squat how much you've sold or if you're the fastest-growing company selling stealth gear to Ninjas. What do I care about?
That's right--me! If you can touch me, enterain me and engage me where I live, I'll pass your story on to others gladly. Your sales charts, on the other hand, will stay on the front page of your site gathering virtual dust.
What do you think? Which of these rules resonated with you?
