One of the hot trends in Silicon Valley start-up, midsized, and even enterprise companies these days is to bring in yogis, Eastern gurus, or Buddhist teachers to help executives and staff to practice being mindful in their business day. Being mindful is great for your business and your everyday life, but does it have a place in social marketing?
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What Is Mindful Social Media?
Absolutely, you should be mindful in your social marketing, Janet Fouts told me*. She is Tatu Digital’s CEO. You should also be mindful in all your marketing. A lot of people tend to forget that. They tend to automate too much. They tend to squirt out a whole bunch of marketing spiel that nobody could possibly care about.
They need to be a little more mindful of who their customers are is and how they want information delivered. There’s a lot of factors that bad marketers tend to just blow off because they think that marketing is still the old school marketing; A time where you could just get a billboard, broadcast your message, and everybody would be happy. It’s not.
I’m not suggesting that everybody needs to go meditate, though that wouldn’t hurt, but marketers need to slow down and pay attention to what they are doing.
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Stop. Take A Moment. Comeback To The Now.
When I say mindful I mean thoughtful. We need to actually be mindful of who our audience is, what our message is, how they want to receive it, when they want to receive it, and who that person is. Often marketers don’t tell their full story, or don’t bother to even tell any of the story. They just spurt out a bunch of stuff. That’s not an effective way to market and it’s also taking up way too much time. We can be more efficient by being more mindful.
It’s analogous to how journalists get a ton of emails everyday flooding their in-boxes. Blast emails that are not customized or relevant to them. Bad or inexperienced PR practitioners just shoot them out using the proven failure recipe of “Spray and Pray.”
Be Engaging. Be Present. Be Relevant.
It’s like the old press release mentality. Who reads press releases? Nobody reads press releases. They go out and sit in some email junk folder. Nobody pays any attention unless those press releases are interactive like you use a great services like PitchEngine. There you get videos, photos, and relevant hyperlinks. So those are more interactive and more engaging. But maybe there is a little more interest there, and the press can find relevant content.
There is no point in sending out generic, so-what stuff anymore because nobody cares. So, stop, take a moment and ask, “Who am I sending this to, and is this something that they would actually find interesting or is it just interesting to me or my boss?”
About Janet: Tatu Digital is a marketing agency helps brands deliver their story to fans by using social media smartly. Janet has advised many organizations on the business of social, including renowned human rights activist and Nobel Peace Prize Desmond Tutu.
* This is an excerpt from an interview. Watch The Full Interview Mindful Social Media: Janet Fouts Interview.
Interviewed:
Janet Fouts, @Jfouts
CEO, Tatu Digital
Creator and host of the popular digital marketing show, The Friday Hangout, and I’m one of her co-hosts, too!
About The Author
Steve Farnsworth is a Demand Generation Strategist for The @Steveology Group: A Content Marketing agency that drive sales and dominate markets for high tech B2B. You can contact Steve or connect with him on Twitter as @Steveology.
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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.
And a special thank you for the very cool team at Racepoint Global for their outstanding work and continued support.
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Posted on June 25, 2014