It's Organic, dude.

Ah, clients. Do love 'em. Base my livelihood on them. Ah blogs, love 'em too. And they're becoming even more of my livelihood...oh how the entire world now wants a blog (and a shortcut).

See, in my biz, I do as much work offline as I do online, plenty of strategy, loads of planning and program development. I've worked for BIG companies and done the MBA deal. So I'm no stranger to methodologies, matrices, paradigms and revenue models. I'm a fan of them. Fact is, these exercises and a "method to the madness" is critical.

But the BIG question nowadays is: how do I get "the bloggers" to chat up my product?  And how do I do it quickly?

Sure, there are best practices. And without question there are rules of the social-media road. But it really comes down to being dedicated enough to your market--be it b2b or b2c--to invest the time, encourage feedback and act upon it when your market generously does give you input.

I have several client workshops ahead of me where I'll be discussing "going social" and I'll outline upwards of 20 best practices. But my core message is up there in the headline. In this self-policing, transparent medium, the route to relationships is not methodical. It's organic, dude.

It's exactly like your relationships in real life: they develop naturally, are built on trust and require an investment of time. And that's the long, short and inside skinny. No shortcuts, free passes or discounts.

So far, not many of my clients like my answer. That's OK, if they go this route they'll like the results. Should they go organic, I've done my job. And if they say 'dude'? Well, that's just a bonus.

Comments

[Gavin Heaton]

Unfortunately blogging is not a "silver bullet" ... but then, most of the time our customers aren't warewolves (unless you are Josh Whedon).

You know, I think that "Blog Trust" is different to trust in the normal sense. Because you are able to review a blogger's history of posts and view their profile, you can quickly get a sense of where they are coming from and the approach that they take to issues. I often see (in my analytics) that new visitors skip over to my profile and then read up on a particular category.

The good thing about "Blog Trust" is that it can accelerate the time it takes to reach a secured market. Sure it might take a few months to start reaching an audience and building a community, but what an investment! You then have ready access to people engaged in your brand/product/service, can get almost immediate response to new developments or innovations and can build an evangelist network relatively quickly.

And if they call you dude, dude, then you have done very well!

[David Reich]

Or they can call you Dudette.

[Lewis Green]

CK,

Like so much of what we do, while the tools frequently change and grow, the strategy remains the same: It is all about the who, not the what. Build relationships based on trust, credibility and honesty and word of mouth, including blogs, will do its magic.

Lewis

[Greg Verdino]

If I had a nickel for every time a client asks me how to get bloggers to chatter about their products, I may not have enough to retire but I could sure afford a few lattes (venti's even!) CK - Like you, I advise clients on how to market better through new channels like social media. I am stunned at how often they look first for ways to manipulate the media and the consumer (in other words, keep on doing the things that worked before but don't work so well anymore), before finally getting that rather than trying to goad bloggers into talking about them they should smply focus on creating something (a product, service, marketing program, etc) that is actually worth talking about.

[CK]

Thanks for your comments, guys.

Gavin: Good insight into "blog trust". It is strong (one you gain it, absolutely).I think clients will need to prove their worthy of it and worthy of maintaining it. It's paramount to me--and gives back far more than what I put into it.

David: Yeah, that works too :-).

Lewis: You're always there to remind us that the best lessons are the "core" ones. That's where the magic is, you're right.

Greg: Yep, your clients just need to focus on product (simple, eh?)...but hold tight as the stampede to social media has only just begun. It's gonna be a wild ride--where everyone wants a shortcut. sigh.