All You Need is Love
Saturday, July 30th, 2011Love, Love, Love - All You Need is Love
All You Need Is Love Image courtesy of Willie Simpson
I don’t know if you saw the Sci-Fi flick Serenity with Nathan Fillion. Anyway, at the end of the movie Mr. Fillion tells his co-pilot, River, what it really takes to pilot a ship. Here’s how he put it; “Love. You can learn all the math in the 'verse... but you take a boat in the air that you don't love... she'll shake you off just as sure as the turn of the worlds. Love keeps her in the air when she ought to fall down... tells you she's hurting before she keels.”
Mr. Fillion may have just described what’s at the heart of the potential Social Media presents and what it offers to help keep your (brand) “boat in the air” – nothing guaranteed mind you, but a good shot - and that’s love. If this sounds corny, think a minute, how many times in business have you heard somebody say, “Hey, we need to show that client some ‘love’ or “that customer needs some love,” and blah, blah, blah. Maybe you consider this “figurative,” but really, is it? One thing’s for sure, if you’ve been in business a bit, you’ve heard it, and maybe said it yourself more times than you care to remember.
Deep down, when an ad agency’s client asks them about including digital, Social and anything else Internet into their marketing mix what I believe they’re really asking, and they just may not know it, is, how can you, the ad agency, help us earn a seat at the Social Media table so we can show our customers we “love” them in ways that traditional advertising just can’t.
You can show a client the metrics, measurements, reports, and connections, or “all the math in the ‘verse,” and that’s all good, but it’s not going to mean much without that little 4 letter word. Besides, this is Charlton Heston – Biblical – Matthew stuff, which, of course, he made sure was on record… “And the greatest of these is love.” So there you go. If you want argue with him on that, be my guest, I’m not.
This can be pretty scary for some enterprises. Here’s why I think that is. And it has to do a lot with the word “distance.” Automation, mass production, and mass media, introduced by the industrial revolution has incrementally put up a healthy sized chasm between brands and the people they want to talk and sell to. As a result, for the past who-knows-how-many-years, brands, for the most part, have had the luxury of selling to people at a distance, with their advertising strategies coming along for the ride. A brand didn’t have to get “that” close – only perceive to. We all got used to being sold to at more than just arm’s length. All of a sudden the Internet, with its Social Media sidekick shows up, and subtly and methodically hands people the means to close that distance. And close it well. Power to the people, and all that jazz you could say.
Peeking at the brand/Social Media situation from a familiar angle might go like this; how many marriages or relationships have broken up because one party felt that the other became “distant” – even when the other party was there.
Brands have to genuinely get close now - or again – if they want to compete and grow. Just showing up and expecting your message to be heard doesn’t cut it anymore. Every day it’s getting more and more difficult for brands to sell at the distance they’ve been accustomed to. And brands are feeling it. Ford, Dell, Zappos and Starbucks are some examples of brands that know and go all out to understand this. Enjoying more than just reasonable and continued success, these brands use Social Networking outlets to help them close that gap, build faith, and invest in their customers – their true capital. And, like what love can imply, these are brands which apply their Social Media efforts with a seemingly genuine no-strings approach.
Moral of this story: if you’re going to take a crack at Social Media, maybe start with a little John Lennon and add some Social Media Love to your marketing.
http://www.williesimpson.com - Credit for image
