It’s almost the end of 2009, and you and I both know the social web is about conversations between humans. We’ve figured that part out. Organizations, events, products and services – none of these things really have the ability to communicate. They’re things that have messages. But behind those things with messages, their are people. Their are always people.
We know people talk to each other. It’s human nature to want to connect with others like ourselves. However, the rub lies in figuring out what to talk about. What reason do we have to connect? Why should we reach out to other humans? Who actually cares where we went for lunch or who we’re meeting for coffee? [answer: nobody. sorry.  It was interesting at first, but the luster has worn off over this past year.]
I Hate the Word Viral
Viral to me brings up a negative connotation. Viruses make us feel terrible and maybe miss a few days of school or work. Viruses infect our computers and make them not work. In recent years, the word viral has been used to describe things that spread. That said, think about what’s happening with the whole H1N1 scare right now. Months back, it started as a few isolated cases, but in time those people infected passed on the virus to their close friends or family. Without meaning to, people cultivated seeds of something that spread fast.
Seeding Conversations
Consider the H1N1 example, but rather than think of seeds as a nasty bug, think of seeds different types of content and media. We’ve already seen some people seed topics that have grown into really big online conversations.
A few years, BlendTech was able to get everyone talking about blenders by seeding “Will it Blend” on YouTube. Zappos and Southwest Air seed online and offline conversations by how well they treat their customers. That’s one way to do it. Spend some hours, build out content elements one at a time, publish on the right medium, and hope people get motivated to spread it.
Campfire seeded conversations using offline packages, Facebook Connect and frienziedwaters.com. What’s interesting is that using Facebook connect allowed them to automated some of the work load. Each user had a personalized experience on the site, but the team Campire did not have to spend additional hours creating that content. Facebook Connect did the work for them.
That’s our idea with TweetMyTime. We’re using Twitter and Facebook to automate seeding that get people talking about endurance racing.
Building Brand Armies
All of the cases above have something in common. In each, armies of people are motivated to interpret and spread brand messages across the web.
These brand armies are always prompted by some type of content. Maybe it’s a service experience that goes above and beyond what they expected. It could be a YouTube video that makes them laugh, or a personalized and engaging web experience. In the case of TweetMyTime, it’s an automated and genuine message to a network of your followers and friends, letting them know your progress in an extraordinary race.
From the seeds grows the real magic. These armies,now motivated to talk and equipped with their own social media weapons like Facebook, Blogs, Pod Casts, and Twitter, dive into the trenches of the interwebz and invade the landscape.
What do you think? Have you ever been a part of a brand army? Did you realize it? How could you make this work for your business?
Join The Discussion!