Created from screen shots from Lady Gaga’s pop hit videos Bad Romance and Telephone

Video is powerful because it shows there are people behind your business, which is important for building a strong brand that people can relate to. But how can you integrate it into your content marketing strategy effectively?

Know Your Audience

Before you can put together a video that will be relevant to your audience, you need to know precisely who that audience is. It’s important not to try to appeal to everyone – instead, figure out your archetypal customer. Two tools to help you do this are Sally Hogsheads 7 triggers of fascination and a simple guide to creating a customer persona. This’ll smooth out the rest of the process, because it’s much easier to figure out what to say to one person than to 1000.

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★ How To Integrate Video Into A Robust Content Marketing Strategy ★

Know Your Reasons Why

Why are you making the video? What do you plan to achieve with it? Perhaps your aim is to boost brand recognition, or are you looking to drive more visitors to your website? To convert more viewers into paying customers?

The core aim should be helping your audience, of course – after all, content marketing is about providing value. Providing value forms a deeper connection with your audience that simply isn’t possible with a regular sales pitch. If you help your viewers, they will naturally feel inclined to help you too – be it by spreading word of your brand or buying what you’re selling. So consider what your viewers need and how you can help them find a solution, and slot your business’s agenda around that.

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Script Your Video Accordingly

When writing your script, focus on the benefits your audience will reap, rather than the features of what you’re selling (be it an actual product or simply your brand) – always keep the “what’s in it for me” idea at the front of your mind. This will allow you to create a video that resonates with viewers, rather than one that is technical and dry. If you’re struggling, try to empathize with your viewers’ needs by putting yourself in their shoes and digging deep. And don’t forget to use conversational language that’s relevant to your audience.

Find the Right Presenter

Make sure the person you put in front of the camera is somebody your audience will be able to relate to. There’s no use putting a fuddy-duddy old man on screen if you’re trying to appeal to 18-24 year old women (the exception to this being a credible expert on the subject). Whoever you put on camera should be an authentic representation of your brand; someone your customers can relate to or aspire towards.

Above All: Be Genuine

In today’s world of hype and clichés, sincerity is a rare trait – and one that will put you bounds ahead of your competitors in your customers’ eyes. Video is perfect for creating an emotional bond with your viewers and connecting with them in a meaningful way – which can have bounteous repercussions for your business. So don’t waste this opportunity, and think carefully before you cobble together another clichéd video and call it ‘content marketing.

About The Author
Neil Davidson is the founder of My Web Presenters, who are a leading web video production company specializing in creating videos that achieve a positive ROI, where they create and market compelling and emotive videos. They also write a video marketing blog.

Notes 9 Interface via matnewman.com

I don’t normally agree to review software. However, IBM is a sponsor of my blog, they have been a great partner in helping grow my reach, and they have been instrumental in helping me gain access to some really smart marketing folks that I wanted to interview. (Hat tip to the wonderful folks at Digital Influence Group.) So, when I was asked if I would be interested in gaining early access to IBMNotes and Domino 9.0 Social Edition, providing feedback, and even getting paid a dead president or two for giving my unvarnished appraisal of the new software, I said “Hell yeah! Those beers aren’t going to pay for themselves.”

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★ IBM’s New Notes and Domino 9.0 Social Edition ★

Kidding aside, I was interested because this was IBM’s foray into enterprise office software that was designed to effectively integrate with social. Now the Lotus name has been around a long time, but with this new release the brand has been retired. This move to incorporate it under the IBM brand umbrella signals this significant shift in approach to their design.

Absolutely No Excuse

The new release has been re-envisioned from the ground up to allow businesses who have been reluctant to move to a more social business model. They can now make the move with a trusted vendor their IT departments are already using. Before this release I was fond of giving companies who have been slow to embrace social a hard time. Now they have absolutely no excuse. This is a high-trust environment that will help guide customers to naturally start adopting social into their work-flow, and result in improved productivity and communications company-wide.

The user interface is clean and simple, and each section of the product uses the same look and feel. So, the user experiences a consistent looking environment. I understand that earlier versions had different looking modules, which sounds confusing. This attention to detail is important to the whole thinking of the platform.

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A Complete Work Attention Dashboard

This new version aims to be a complete work attention dashboard. While there are a number of tools, the starting place is the email inbox, and where user can quickly share and connect to other media for powerful collaboration. The payoff for all this integration is productivity. A worker can complete all their work in the same environment without having to switch between other tools.

On top of this is the ability to fully support BYOD (Bring Your Own Device). They support mobile and tablet devices that use iOS and Android, but now they’ve added support for Microsoft Windows Phone 8 and BlackBerry 10. So, if you want to switch from desktop, to tablet or mobile phone, you can. You have the ability to access and work with your documents everywhere, and likewise collaborate with colleagues regardless of where you, or they, are.

The First Social Mail Experience

One of the people I have met via IBM is the uber smart Ed Brill, Director, IBM Mobile Enterprise Marketing. There have been a lot of cooks baking this new version, and Ed has been one of them. He notes something I think is key to this release: “This release delivers the first social mail experience out to the market, and adopts some important concepts on how to move collaboration forward and integrate it into social.” On top of this he said is the embedded application experiences. Customers can access the applications they use all the time with a single click. So, they do not have to leave the context of their mail environment.

Another thing that impressed me was the massive ability to customize it to meet any organization’s information and regulatory needs. While the enabling technology is somewhat beyond my pay grade, I did see copious examples of how the customer could do three crucial things directly inside IBM’s Notes and Domino 9.0 Social Edition:

1. Easily integrate existing legacy software
2. Build new software components within the platform for additional functionality
3. Embed third-party software

Well, that’s my two cents. I liked what I saw, but sharing all this has made me thirsty. Now, I’m going to go have a beer. ;-)

P.S. While looking for a good screen shot to use for this post I came across Mat Newman’s blog. The image on top is a link from an excellent IBM’s New Notes and Domino 9.0 Social Edition series he did. He does a great job digging into all the features. I highly recommend checking out Getting Started with IBM Notes 9, and if you are a Notes user you should subscribe too! Lots of helpful screen shots that are all thoughtfully explained.

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This post was written as part of the IBM for Midsize Business program, which provides midsize businesses with the tools, expertise and solutions they need to become engines of a smarter planet. I’ve been compensated to contribute to this program, but the opinions expressed in this post are my own and don’t necessarily represent IBM’s positions, strategies or opinions.

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About Steve Farnsworth @Steveology

Mid and large technology-based companies hire Steve to implement strategic initiatives that generate demand and leads through targeted content, social, and digital channels. He uses all of a company’s digital touch points to increase demand for their products, build brand preference, shorten sales cycles, and grow customer loyalty. To contact him call (650) 331-0594.

One of the huge benefits that social media (still) has going for it is that it still feels very intimate. Some people complain that social media dilutes their “real” relationships and enhances their less meaningful ones, and that can be entirely true depending on how you choose to use and it with whom. But inside small and medium-sized companies, the opposite is happening. People are developing more real relationships, especially with executive leadership, which in turn means more influence for good ideas, transformation change and sales.

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★ Social Business Starts With Leaders Connecting Socially To Employees ★

A Friendlier Way To Send The Company A Message

Social networks – especially those run internally at small and medium-size companies – can supercharge relationships for executives and other influencers in an organization. I work full-time for small financial services company and spend most of my day coaching people about how to use and maximize the relationship and messaging capabilities of our new social networking tool. My work includes everything from creating full-blown communications strategies, right down to ghostwriting for some of our senior leaders.

And while most of the people that I’m supporting get very focused on what they want to say, how they are going to say it and how people are going to respond, they often overlook one of the most valuable aspects of putting their message out on our social media platform. Unlike a company memo sent via e-mail (yes, we still do those) or an article splashed on the home page of the company intranet, employees feel like you are really talking directly to the executive when the message is posted as a blog or microblog within our social network.
 

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Speaking Intimately With Workers – Appropriately

The personal nature of blogging – it uses first person (“I” statements), it allows comments, and looks informal – all lead people to feel like they are having a more intimate conversation with the executive. And as a result, they are most inclined to comment, share or embrace the message. In other words, this has been an opportunity for our leaders to feel like they are talking directly to employees, but more importantly, for employees to feel like they are involved in a conversation, not just receiving word from on high.

So if you are thinking about a message that must resonate with people, then think about using your social media platform before anything else. It will feel more like a conversation and less like a mandate.

About The Author

Sarah Gilbert is a writer, coach and change agent. She has an undergraduate degree in neuropsychology and a master’s degree in mass communications theory. She has worked as an activist, a newspaper reporter, a project manager and a consultant in a variety of industries. Follow her at sarahanngilbert.com or @sarahresonance on Twitter.

In many organizations social business seems like a qualitative exercise. They think, “We need to do this because it will make our organization work better together.” Ed Brill says this perspective would be short-sighted.

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★ Social Business – Going from Qualitative to Quantitative ★

Social Business Study

IBM decided to put some quantitative data around social business to find out if social was helping them as a business. Like most organization IBM has inside sales, which they call Teleweb since they use phone, email, etc. talking to customers. So, they decided to take a closer look at their Teleweb team and ask, “When using social, are they demonstrably more successful?”

IBM had Rutgers and Duke researchers come in, set up control groups, and then track metrics. They found the Teleweb team that used a combination of public social tools and internally deployed tools, like IBM’s Connections, were a lot more effective.

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Social Sales Closed More Business

• The inside sales team using social had 26% more leads.
• Closed 3% to 7% more business.
• Their cycle time was faster.

Based on these results they attribute this increased effectiveness to the sales reps having a better internal digital reputation.

For instance, in the past a product manager may only know a name of a sales rep. Now having the ability to get to know the sales rep virtually, the product manager is more inclined to help the sales rep since there is at least a digital relationship versus some random email they would have received in the prior generation of collaboration.

With the abundance of interconnections and collaboration there is more success with information self-service. Sales reps are finding the files they need, answers, or learning from other sales reps.

From the outside, customers who may not want to take a call from a rep can now check out what actual humans are saying on the website. They can read comments, insights, without marketing talk, and chat with other real customers. IBM has proven this combined approach of social business from the inside and outside outperforms the competition.

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This post was written as part of the IBM for Midsize Business program, which provides midsize businesses with the tools, expertise and solutions they need to become engines of a smarter planet. I’ve been compensated to contribute to this program, but the opinions expressed in this post are my own and don’t necessarily represent IBM’s positions, strategies or opinions.

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About Steve Farnsworth @Steveology

Mid and large technology-based companies hire Steve to implement strategic initiatives that generate demand and leads through targeted content, social, and digital channels. He uses all of a company’s digital touch points to increase demand for their products, build brand preference, shorten sales cycles, and grow customer loyalty. To contact him call (650) 331-0594.

Engaging the customer has firmly become part of buzzword soup. Sadly, when that happens little is actually done to achieve the thing it originally meant. However, in this case you can avoid that from happening. If you look at the companies that are most closely engaged with their customers, you will see that they are deeply engaged with their employees, notes Sandy Carter from IBM.

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★ Customer Engagement Starts First With Employee Engagement ★

When you have an employee that is deeply connected to the brand, and is excited by the brand, then they live the brand and customers see it first hand. It starts with finding the right employee, and that should be done socially. LinkedIn is clearly a key player in that, but using all of a company’s social assets to find the best that workforce 2.0 has to offer is essential to connecting with engaged candidates.
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Get Them When They’re Green

Sandy notes that if you look at the best companies with strong internal brand ambassadors, like The Ritz or IBM, they really go out of their way to engage new employees in the training process quickly.

However, today’s employees don’t want to be trained by someone in authority, but by a peer. They don’t want to hear a lecture, they want to use interactive learning as a way to creatively engage in the whole process. Social and collaboration tools really allow them to connect with their peers, create communities, and crowdsource to find the best answer to problems and challenges together.

Give Them Social Tools And A Voice

The next piece is to to help them go outside by giving them training and access to social tools, and the guidance to create their own path. To become subject matter experts, have a point of view, get into conversations with customers, and get deep into those relationships.

Make Learn A Game And Life Long

The last step is performance management. The best companies make continuous learning part of their DNA. Sandy says she sees a strong trend of incorporating gamification into the learning process. By rewarding virtual badges, or having leaderboards, helps foster healthy competition among co-workers, and builds communities. Employee engagement, she says, leads to a smarter workforce, which leads to the strongest customer engagement for the most competitive companies going.

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This post was written as part of the IBM for Midsize Business program, which provides midsize businesses with the tools, expertise and solutions they need to become engines of a smarter planet. I’ve been compensated to contribute to this program, but the opinions expressed in this post are my own and don’t necessarily represent IBM’s positions, strategies or opinions.*

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About Steve Farnsworth @Steveology

Social media and digital marketing. Strategy and implementation that generate leads, builds customer loyalty and word-of-mouth buzz. Contact 650-331-0594 to see if working together could increase your market position and sales.

Thinking of all the individual moving parts, that marketing departments are responsible for, as a whole is not intuitive. As marketers we use words like touch points without really grasping the journey that the customer will go through. There are several reasons for this. Many marketers see their jobs as a series of tasks or executables. This shortsighted view makes seeing the bigger picture impossible.

Be The Brand’s Storyteller

However, this is just one obstacle. Even if you have a better sense of the mosaic of activities and digital assets in your marketing mix as a whole, the permutations are nearly endless. Ed Abrams, IBM’s VP Marketing for Midmarket, sees them in a holistic framework. He looks at it as the story of a brand.

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Storytelling As Solution-Telling

Storytelling is absolutely essential whether it be traditional paid media, owned media like social networks and blogs, or earned media where someone else is telling your story. It’s critical to connect your story of how you solve the customer’s problems at each step of their journey.

The key in storytelling though is to recognize that people are going to enter your story at different chapters and pages along their journey.

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★ Weaving Storytelling Effectively Into All Marketing Touch Points ★

It’s Their Story, Not Yours

So as you think of telling your story you must visualize it through their eyes. You should ask, where is the customer in the buying cycle, where are they in the learning cycle, and how does it relate to their job’s role as it relates to that stage of the process? That way the story is relevant to their needs, their issues, their requirements.

Ed stresses it’s vital from the storytelling perceptive that it is not delivered as a one-way communication. It must be crafted so the consumer of that information can interact with it, and be able to share and contribute to that story in their own way. That means you must see social and collaborative as intrinsic to the total experience. Then they can participate when and how the customer chooses.

This post was written as part of the IBM for Midsize Business program, which provides midsize businesses with the tools, expertise and solutions they need to become engines of a smarter planet. I’ve been compensated to contribute to this program, but the opinions expressed in this post are my own and don’t necessarily represent IBM’s positions, strategies or opinions.*

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About Steve Farnsworth @Steveology

Social media and digital marketing. Strategy and implementation that generate leads, builds customer loyalty and word-of-mouth buzz. Contact 650-331-0594 to see if working together could increase your market position and sales.

Interviewed:
Ed Abrams
VP Marketing — Midmarket at IBM

As a midsized business you probably have some kind of mobile support as part of your marketing mix. So what? People’s primary method of interacting with technology is now becoming a mobile device. This is how they stay in touch with family and friends, catch up on the news, or find a great place to eat. So, as a marketer it’s going to be the primary way they interactive with you as a brand.

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★ Everyone’s Got Mobile Marketing, But Do You Get How Different It Now Is? ★

Yes, everyone knows that you have to do mobile or you are leaving millions or billions of dollars on the table. Mike Riegel, IBM’s Vice President of Mobile however thinks that’s missing the point. Ninety one percent of people with smart phones have them within arm’s reach 24 hours a day, seven days a week.

This means that you can have your brand available to interact with your customers only a foot away at any given moment. What a great opportunity. This means mobile is no longer just a marketing strategy, but it’s now a business strategy. Once you embrace that, then mobile needs to be a CMO’s primary way of driving sales, and this takes re-imagining the entire customer experience.

Mike points to one example of CMOs with vision. At Visa and The GAP they’re taking advantage of this new approach. Visa wanted to reinvigorate their relationship with their customers and retail partners. The GAP saw the potential in mobile.

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So, working together with IBM, when a Visa customer swipes their card at a Starbucks in the mall, using location data, The GAP can push a coupon to them saying there is a GAP down the street and they can get 20% off anything in the store.

So, what is the outcome of this program? The GAP was able to drive a 30% increase in sales.

NOTE: This live blog update is from IBM’s Partner World Leadership Conference 2013

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This post was written as part of the IBM for Midsize Business program, which provides midsize businesses with the tools, expertise and solutions they need to become engines of a smarter planet. I’ve been compensated to contribute to this program, but the opinions expressed in this post are my own and don’t necessarily represent IBM’s positions, strategies or opinions.

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About Steve Farnsworth @Steveology

Social media and digital marketing. Strategy and implementation that generate leads, builds customer loyalty and word-of-mouth buzz. Contact 650-331-0594 to see if working together could increase your market position and sales.

Historically, guest posts were limited to invitation only because of my editorial focus. However, being inundated with offers, and getting tired of saying no all the time, I have decided to reevaluate this policy. I am now accepting guest posts from adept, agile, alert, apt, astute, bold, brainy, bright, brilliant, clever, crafty, effective, genius, ingenious, keen, knowing, nimble, on the ball, quick-witted, resourceful, sassy, sharp, shrewd, and wise authors in marketing. Is that you?

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★ The Steveology Blog Now Accepting Guest Posts ★

My blog has a more narrowly defined editorial mission than it did when I started it. It now focuses on digital marketing for senior marketers, VPs of Marketing, and CMOs of mid-sized to small enterprise companies, e.g., less tactical or basic 101, and more practical for these forward thinking smart marketers.

I am very open to any topic/post ideas as long as they are written for senior marketers, and the post gives them a deeper understanding of how to do their jobs better. No offense, but if you are not sure what would be of interest to these professionals, this blog is probably not a fit for your work.

However, just to nudge you in the right direction, a very small sampling of interesting topics might include:

• agile marketing
• sales and marketing alignment
• marketing operations
• building the marketing organization of the future
• inbound marketing
• brand ideals as growth driver
• social business
• big data and marketing
• the secret formula for driving engagement
• storytelling to increase brand preference
• digital effectiveness
• leveraging social data to create more powerful content
• driving marketing effectiveness through business intelligence

…you get the idea.

If you think you have an awesome idea that senior marketers would love, and can live with rejection if I feel it doesn’t meet all the requirements below, you can apply to be a guest author and have thousands of readers and newsletter subscribers to see your work.

With me so far?

Requirements

• Your post must be written specifically for senior marketers, VPs of marketing, and CMOs. If it’s not for Sr. marketers and about marketing, please don’t send it to me. If you are not sure if it is a clear fit for those readers, then it probably is not a fit.
• Specifically relevant to mid-sized to small enterprise companies. (200 to 2,000 employees).
• Be an original article for the Steveology blog.
• Your post should be well written. Exercise a good command of grammar, punctuation, clarity, style and tone. While I have my fair share of mistakes, I try. And for the love of god, please run your article through a spell check.
• Use sub-headers and bullet points to break up the article and to make it easy for readers to scan.
• Include a strong wrap-up/conclusion.
• My readers want interesting, useful, practical, thoughtful, actionable information that helps them be smarter marketing leaders. Educate, teach, and provide insight and strategies that enable them to stay at the top of their game.

Basics

• I reserve the right to edit or change the title and subheads as needed, without author approval, to improve clarity and increase SEO value.
• I may make minor edits to the copy if needed for formatting or clarity, but I will not intentionally change the author’s meaning.
• You’re allowed to include a link or two in your article, but only if they are relevant and point to material that adds value to my readers.
• I’m flexible, but in general, the article should be 300 to 500 words.
• Affiliate links are forbidden.
• I will take care of sourcing a good photo to run with your post.
• Please submit your posts in word doc file format.
• Provide clear credit for all sources, and use common sense when citing anyone’s material. Please respect their copyright.
• Post submissions must be your original work, contain no copyrighted work of others, and must not be offered or published in another place.
• You will retain copyright. However, if your article is accepted and published by me, you grant an exclusive license to me, Steve Farnsworth, to republish the content, with full credit to you as the author, in any format royalty free. You can republish extracts, but the article in its entirety may not appear elsewhere without written approval from me, Steve Farnsworth.
• If your article is accepted and published by me, you consent to the full article, extracts, samples or extras appearing in other Steve Farnsworth products and/or services. If I should use it elsewhere, again you’ll receive full credit as the author.

Must Read Last Bits & Fine Print Before You Submit

So, what’s the next step?

1. Before you send me your guest post, first read The Steveology Blog posts from the last six months to see if your idea is a good editorial fit.
2. Only after you have read everything and agree with it, send me your guest post by email as an attachment.
   • If you want to float an idea by me first, you can. However, you must send me a very strong title and a one paragraph description of your post. If you just send me a headline and no description, it will probably be rejected.
3. In the first line of your message, you must write. “I have read and agree to all The Steveology Blog guidelines.”
   • If you don’t do the above, I’ll know you didn’t really read these guidelines and will automagically reject your submission.
4. In your email, tell me what makes you are an authority on the topic you are writing.
5. Include an author bio (Max 50 words) with your submission.
6. Include a link back to your website, blog, or LinkedIn profile.
7. I will provide a image for the post, but if your post refers to an image or diagram, please include a hi-res version in jpeg or PNG.

I’ll email you a confirmation when I receive your submission, but it may take up to three weeks for me to review and let you know if it’s accepted for publication.

Steve Farnsworth’s Email

Often companies “roll out the new re-branding” to employees. and the marketing team then quickly puts a check mark in the done box and they’re on to the next. Often brand managers focus only on the communications deliverables and not the holistic reality of creating passionate brand ambassadors from within the company.

B2B, midsized companies, and especially tech companies are notorious for this painful disconnect. Not many companies are deeper tech than Xilinx. They design and supply programmable electronic systems. For simplicity just think semiconductors. Yet, they are a well branded company, which is unusual for their industry.

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How Do They That Make That Happen?

They have warehouses full of uber smart engineers who are also passionate about the brand. One of the reasons is a concept that communications and branding pro Rachel Watkins‘ calls “Drawing a Line of Sight.” Engineers love creating their hard tech, but they are human, too. (Who knew?) They have the same need to understand how what they do impacts the real world. Xilinx has research to prove employees’ need for understanding their connection to the customer and the bigger picture.

Rachel is Xilinx’s Director of Internal Communications. She and her team look to make that connection for the employees. They seek out opportunities that let them see what they are a part of and the important things their work make happen.

Click to Tweet: ★ Connecting Employees And Their Passion To The Brand ★

Touching Mars

One of her team’s goals is to show employees that the technology or system they created enabled an advanced surgical robot to save lives, allowed the Mars Rover to travel across another planet, or even let millions of people back here on Earth talk to they people they love. This simple act ignites their passion for what they do. Now when a Xilinx’s employee is asked what they do at a party or backyard BBQ, they can talk about how they change peoples lives or ventured to other worlds.

Now, not every company has gadgets that have been shot into space or save lives, but all companies have a product or service that makes their customers’ lives better. If you don’t already know what that is for your company, you need to go talk to them right now! There is branding gold in those stories.

Watch The Video Here

This post was written as part of the IBM for Midsize Business program, which provides midsize businesses with the tools, expertise and solutions they need to become engines of a smarter planet.

About Steve Farnsworth @Steveology

Steve was named by Forbes one of the Top 50 Social Media Influencer in the world. He’s a communications and content marketing strategist with 20 years of hands on experience. He works with high-growth tech companies to generate targeted leads, grow brand engagement, and increase customer retention by effectively using owned and earned media.

Contact 650-331-0594 to discuss how you can use digital marketing to dominate your competition.

Social marketing is often thought of as elusive or it’s over simplified. Venture adviser and marketing strategist Andy Smith, and noted brand researcher and author Jennifer Aaker, have used extensive data and their collecting insights to break it down to a straight forward formula that midsized business can use to deeply impact their marketing and even make a difference in the world.

Click to Tweet: ★ Understanding The Dragonfly Effect To Improve Your Social Marketing Strategy ★

The Dragonfly Effect looks at the most effective campaigns in modern history and attributes their success to social media. They note that by 2009 that 94% of consumers didn’t believe the claims that advertisers made. However, people are influenced by colleagues and friends. Traditional media may not be dead, but unless you are including a healthy mix of social marketing your days are numbered.

Using case studies from companies such as Starbucks, Twitter, E-Bay, Charity:Water, Gap, Nike, Kiva, and Facebook the authors demonstrate how companies, organizations, and individuals can strategically employe social media more effectively.

To understand the foundation strategy must include, Smith and Aaker use the analogy of the dragonfly’s four wings. The four wings are: Focus on a single goal, grab attention, engage people in a cause and empower them to take action. When companies have all the wings of the dragonfly working in concert with one another, it creates a ripple effect that will connect with people in a way that makes people will feel empowered to participate, co-create, and engage.

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The authors describe the four wings in more detail as:

Wing 1: Focus.

How you identify a single, concrete, measurable goal.

Humanistic. Focus on who you want to help rather than jumping to solutions. Empathize with your audience to develop Points of View (POV): [USER] needs to [USER'S NEEDS] because [SURPRISING INSIGHT].

Actionable. Use tactical micro goals to achieve long-term macro goals.

Testable. Identify metrics that will inform your actions and help evaluate success. Run low-cost trials to test your assumptions. Set performance metrics to measure progress, and plan how to solicit feedback from your audience before you launch. Establish deadlines, and celebrate small wins along the way.

Clarity. Keep your goals clearly focused to increase your odds of success and generate momentum. Start with the simplest behavior you can change at a low cost.

Happiness. Ensure that your goal is personally meaningful such that the thought of achieving the goal would bring happiness to you and your audience – in some way.

Wing 2: Grab Attention.

How to catch someone’s eye. It’s like standing in the middle of a busy street, activating your target’s fight-or-flight survival-based neurons. (Think of it as: “Made you look!”)

Personal. Find personal hooks, ranging from physiological to self-actualization needs that can be understood within seconds.

Unexpected. People like consuming and then sharing awe-inspiring information. Draw them in by piquing their curiosity. Look to reframe the familiar.

Visceral. Design your campaign so that it triggers senses– sight, sound, hearing and taste. Music is powerful and can often tap underlying emotions.

Visualize. Show, don’t tell. Photos and videos speak millions of words. Synthesize your thoughts with quick visuals and show them to your POV for feedback.

Wing 3: Engage Others.

How to create a personal connection, accessing higher emotions, compassion, empathy, happiness. It’s about empowering the audience to care enough to want to do something themselves…and actually do it. (Think of it as forging a connection, deep and real.)

Tell a story. Find compelling, sticky stories to convey critical information. Remember: less is more. Stories have arcs.

Empathize. Build a 2-way relationship with your audience. What really matters to them in your campaign?

Authenticity. True passion is contagious. The more authentic you seem, the easier it is to connect with you and your cause. Build common ground by sharing values and beliefs.

Match the media. How we say something can be as important as what we say. Align your communication with the right context.

Wing 4: Take Action.

Enable and empower others to take action. It’s about creating, deploying, and continuously tweaking tools and programs designed to take audience members from customers to team members, in other words, furthering the cause beyond themselves. (Think of it as enlisting and enabling an army of evangelists.)

Easy. Make it simple as simple as possible for others to act. Prioritize your calls to action. Your campaign is more likely to succeed if people understand what you need and can take immediate action.

Fun. Consider game play, competition, humor, and rewards. Can you make people feel like a kid again?

Tailored. People glom on to programs that they perceive they are uniquely tailored to them – where they are uniquely advantaged to do well and have disproportionate impact. Here, people feel special and a part of something bigger than themselves.

Open. No one should have to ask you permission to ask. Provide a frame – your POV and a story – and empower others with accessible tools.

Watch The Video Here

This post was written as part of the IBM for Midsize Business program, which provides midsize businesses with the tools, expertise and solutions they need to become engines of a smarter planet.

About Steve Farnsworth @Steveology

Steve was named by Forbes one of the Top 50 Social Media Influencer in the world. He’s a communications and content marketing strategist with 20 years of hands on experience. He works with high-growth tech companies to generate targeted leads, grow brand engagement, and increase customer retention by effectively using owned and earned media.

Contact 650-331-0594 to discuss how you can use digital marketing to dominate your competition.

Andy Smith, @kabbenbock
Co-Author of The Dragonfly Effect, Speaker, Trainer
Principal at Vonavona Ventures