Archive for the ‘social media marketing’ Category
Where does loyalty come from?
Gift Economy and Loyalty Programs
This is a tale about where loyalty comes from. It involves making a garbage man very sad.
The second home we purchased was left with all sorts of furniture by the previous owners. We called them and put the furniture in the yard. But they never returned and their furniture sat in our new yard for too long. Rain and sun and more rain—these people never came.
But Ace Solid Waste came. And they took it all for free. And they won our loyalty. Is this a commercial for Ace Solid Waste? Maybe, although I am not employed or directed or in any communication with Ace Solid Waste. In fact, I pay them. On time (mostly).
Their gift of removal (you might say Ace blessed us with the absence of a soggy couch and other wet furniture), is easily and quickly remembered by Mrs. Kirkistan and I, still, to this day.
In The Gift (NY: Vintage Books, 1983), Lewis Hyde described how a gift economy works: people give gifts to each other as a sort of payment. But not in the transactional way most of us expect today. One gift was not given in exchange for another gift. No, Hyde described how gifts move on. Or, you might say, moved forward. The gift you gave me, I gave to someone else, and so on in an endless cycle of giving. In the gift economies Hyde cited, trade was greased by gifts.
Of course, gifts carry with them an obligation: a sort of unwritten sense that I must pay this back, or “I owe you one.” Gifts also carry a sense of relationship. We give gifts to friends or relatives. It is a way of saying, “Hey buddy!” or “I’m thinking about you.”
One long-time strategy for business is to give gifts to woo loyalty. I buy plumbing supplies at Beisswengers because they are patient with my simplistic plumbing questions. They provide answers along with the new drain. The answers are even more valuable than the drain. All sorts of free apps become so indispensable we finally buy them. We frequent the vendor who gives away their knowledge.
A competing garbage gentleman stopped at our door with an offer of savings. When I said I wasn’t interested, he probed:
Why?
I told him my story of the furniture that wouldn’t go away and how Ace helped us out.
Will you be in debt to Ace for the rest of your life?
And here is the surprise: as I listened to my own words, I wondered at the strength of the feeling and the depth of loyalty for this good deed done to us—and the longevity. Maybe our retelling of our furniture story kept giving fresh reasons to continue.
Maybe.
And so the man of seeming excellent garbage-manship walked away sadly.
So that’s one way to build loyalty: help someone with a need. And as you help, try not to see the gift as a transaction.
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Image credit: Kirk Livingston
Lady Gaga: Onstage Vomit Sells Doritos? Of Course.
“Selling In” Not Quite Opposite “Selling Out”
One adorned in a plastic tarp need not “sell out.”
Lady Gaga made a plea for “selling in” at SXSW last week. Doritos sponsored her onstage vomit-art, which attests (she said) to her artistic success. But read the Rolling Stone article and you’ll find a more complex, nuanced notion that falls short of completely bowing to the demands of the sponsor.
When Kerry Miller (@DailyCircuit @KerriMPR) wondered aloud what people thought about “selling out,” she echoed a sentiment borne decades before when the big rock and rollers first roamed the earth and bowed to the demands of advertisers to create art to propel commerce. Ms. Miller’s comment generated responses from scholar Patrick Cox (@patrickcoxMN) and others on just what corporate sponsorship was beginning to look like.
Ms. Miller’s generation (also my generation) labeled such people “sell-outs” and tried to work up disdain for them even as we bought the cans of soda or beer or whatever they shilled. Even as we ourselves sold out to the company we worked for. And never mind that the notion of patronage has been around for as long as artists have starved.
Watch the recent Frontline “Generation Like” and you’ll get a sense of how Millenials approach the art vs. commerce question. Gen Y seems largely happy with getting free swag and brandishing logos on their social spaces/shirts/tattoos/hair cuts.
“What’s the big deal?” [They might ask.]
Ms. Kerry’s generation (my generation) is quick to point out that “You, sir, have sold out.” The Millenials I teach might return: “You, sir, have also sold out.” Which would be entirely accurate.
Maybe Gen Y has done us a favor by repackaging the connection between art and commerce: That repackaging looks more like an articulation of authenticity. It is a voice we need to hear today. I’ve been arguing that craft and service (and art and faith) do better together than separated into holy, inviolable silos.
Gen Y is articulating some of this. Not perfectly, but they are closing some gaps and opening others. The “selling out” conversation has changed.
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Image credit: Michael Buckner/Getty Images for SXSW via Rolling Stone
Pinterest Knows Me!
Pinterest has a wonderful plan for my life.
I’m new to Pinterest. I really have no clue to what it is about, but one team from my Social Media Class focused on Pinterest—so I’m right there! So far I’ve search for (pinned?) exactly two things: an attic fan and a pair of boots.
Yesterday Pinterest came right back at me with…a DIY cat teepee. And a backless wedding dress.
How did they know?
I’m no cat fancier. And I’m more of a rent-a-tux kind of guy who enjoys being (already) married to Mrs. Kirkistan. But all this failure makes me wonder if Pinterest is curating my life into some odd, unforeseen direction. What is Pinterest’s wonderful plan for my life?
Pinterest: you scare me.
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What is Your Purpose with Your People?
Can You Articulate Your “Why?” and “What for?”
I’ve been gushing over Improv Wisdom lately, this 2005 book by Patricia Ryan Madson. I’m thinking of buying a number of copies to give away and wondering how I can incorporate it as a supplemental text in my next classes. The book is easy to read, memorable and full of actionable wisdom all directed at staying in the moment and building something with others. Ms. Madson—a drama professor at Stanford, improv maniac, eager collaborator and kind-hearted encourager—brings a lot of life to how we can work with others. Now I find myself ordering the primary source texts cited by Ms. Madson.
Ms. Madson has been kind enough to respond to my tweeted epiphanies when reading her book. I am impressed by the longevity and timeliness of certain ideas. Ms. Madson’s 2005 book will likely be relevant for a long, long time.
As I finish with my Social Media Marketing class, I’m reading reflections from the students. One near universal regret was not having a clearer sense of their purposes for the communities they were trying to create. We spent focused time on this early on in the class, but forming a crystal clear picture of what we want to accomplish with others is neither easily understood nor often practiced. I know this from the number of companies I’ve been in that operated every day without a clear sense of what they were trying to do with their audiences.
Students resist the tightly-formed purpose and the close definition of their audience because it feels so restrictive. It just feels easier to write anything for everyone. At least that’s how the class always starts. But at the end of the class, there are multiple confessions about how the tight purpose and close definition actually freed them to say much, much more to their target audience. This experience fits with a bit of improv wisdom Ms. Madson offered:
Rather than asking “What do I feel like doing?” when a free moment arises, instead ask “What is my purpose?”
I love this question for my class and I love this question personally. The question presupposes I have a purpose and assumes I know that purpose. The question assumes I am conversant with my purpose and assumes I am in the habit of articulating it to myself and others.
All these presuppositions and assumptions are worth pursuing. Going back to our purpose again and again sounds like bearing fruit over a lifetime.
And this: Patricia Ryan Madson should write more books.
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Image credit: imgur
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