Did you know that brands which are able to inspire a higher emotional intensity see 3x as much word of mouth discussion as less emotionally connected brands?
Given that the average attention span of a human is approximately eight seconds, and that it takes 6-7 brand touches for someone to remember your brand, you better find a way to make your brand memorable.
Yes, you can spend the next year mastering Facebook advertising, Instagram stories and live video - these, of course, is what every marketer is going to be focussed on. However, it's not just about throwing more money at paid media to get more eyeballs, viewers and listeners. What are you going to do once you get them to listen, watch and learn?
How are you going to truly connect with your customers in a human way, leveraging the best technology and communication mediums that the "always-on" social web has to offer us today?
Take a listen to the latest Social Zoom Factor podcast to get some ideas on how to boost your strategy.
We Are the Media
We are all bombarded by the media.
It's not just the big media outlets or big brands that are the media today, it's the people - we're all, in different ways, 'the media'. You're the media. I'm the media. Your brother, dad, sister, mom and even grandma can be the media.
Given that anyone that hops on the social web is now 'the media', the digital world is now also noisier than it has ever been. Did you know that 90% of the data in the world was created in the last 2 years? Or that our current output of data is 2.5 quintillion bytes a day?
Given this, you need to find a way to stand out from the crowd, and connect with your customers emotionally without breaking the bank.
Bringing the Fun
Every day I am contacted by brands big and small, writers of huge media outlets, begging for tweets, retweets, shares and the option to add a link on our blogs, or a mention of them on our podcast. The truth is that people connect with people and the power of personal branding is real.
What is it that attracts humans to other humans? Is it that they can write fancy corporate lingo in their tweets, or bore them to death with a long boring blog post? Nope. It's the fact that as humans that share our life on the social web - we're sharing a part of who we are. We share the good, bad and ugly. We share what we do in the morning, where we go for lunch, and how good or bad we performed during our workout at the gym at 5 am.
I share, almost every morning, my journey towards losing 50 pounds, starting the keto lifestyle and being addicted to Orange Theory workouts. I share these experiences on an Instagram account I launched specifically for that purpose in 2017. I have less than 1,000 followers, yet I get approximately 500 – 2000+ views on every story I publish.
Why? Because I'm real, sweaty and raw. I'm crazy, funny (at least sometimes) and share a very personal part of me.
I initially launched my fitness-focused Instagram account for fun, and to avoid driving my more business-minded followers crazy. The funny thing is that this crazy, silly Instagram account has resulted in numerous new leads, customers, international speaking engagements and more. The ROI on sharing my 'fun factor' is through the roof - people love the fact I share the bad with the good, and inspire them to get out of bed at 5am like I do and hit the gym to dance with their other crazy 5am friends.
This doesn't really surprise me. I've worked in the technology, marketing and branding field for over 20 years. Facebook, Instagram or cat memes didn't invent fun. People did. People have been having fun since the dawn of time - there hasn't been a brand I've built or product I've launched that we didn't include the 'fun factor'.
Heck, look at my personal brand, agency brand (Marketing Nutz) - they both have “NUT” in the name, front and center stage.
It didn't take an elite brand scientist to create - we built a brand off of what we believed in, and who we are, and you should do the same.
Tapping into the 'Fun Factor'
Have you thought about sharing the 'fun factor' in your business? Have you thought about sharing something wild and crazy that makes even you laugh when you simply think about it?
Embracing the power of fun to connect with your customers, audience and future customers may be just what you need to take your online brand and business to the next level.
How to listen and Subscribe to Social Zoom Factor Podcast
A version of this post was first published on the Pam Moore's blog.