Blu Maya Digital Marketing Agency

Talk about uniqueness, only Michael Jackson could pull this off! This got me thinking…

If you took any artist (pick any artist that tries to imitate MJ) and replaced him with MJ in his performances, would it be the same? Of course not. Now think about it this way, if you swapped employees with one of your competitors would your business change?

If your answer is yes then you’re on a good path because that means that your culture is unique.

if your answer is no then you’re a ‘me too’ because your people are a commodity (they can easily be replaced) and therefore your product and service also is.

What if you could change this? Start by having a point of view of how you think your product or service could be different and what the benefit to your customers would be. In short think about what makes you irreplaceable? Is it your customer service, how you deliver, how you create?

Takeaway: Inject what’s unique about the way you think into what you sell to make it something no one else can offer.

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The sad thing about marketers on Twitter and all these ‘social tools’ is everyone thinks that by simply signing up and posting thoughts and links that this encompasses a strategy. Tough luck!

Setting up an account on Twitter doesn’t mean you have a strategy, it means Twitter is part of your strategy because you think it suits you.

Remember the very first mobile phones? Remember when you first got one? Did you actually believe that was going to solve all your business issues back then? Probably not. Leap forward to when you got a smart phone say the iPhone, did you get one because everyone else got one and you didn’t want to be left out or because it’s capabilities opened up opportunities for your business?

And here then is the point: the capability a technology enables you to do is what you should look at and then ask yourself what does this tool’s capability let me do for my business?

It’s imperative that in order to know how to use these tools as part of your overall strategy, first ask yourself ‘why’ are you are using these tools and how does they fit in our overall business strategy?

Once you know why you can then figure out the activities that take advantage of the tool’s capabilities and then you can get to work!

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I’m a gamer and can value a great game when I play one because a great game produces a craving that I must have it, own it, play it and talk about it. There are lessons we can take and apply in business..

What do you get when you mix a great storyline, great gameplay, great graphics, great game design with greek mythology? You get God of War.

Did you notice I used the word ‘great’ not ‘innovative’ to describe this game? Santa Monica Studios didn’t set out to reinvent the wheel with the recently released God of War 3, they used the same formula that worked before (story + design + lots of action!) and brought in bigger and badder opponents that are simply a joy to look at. Look at the video in HD!

It really is all about the experience

If there’s one word I would use to describe the God of War games is memorable because it truly makes you feel you’re in another world. Everything about these games is from another world! It doesn’t do anything fancy, it’s just great. The experience you feel is what truly sets it apart from other games!

Just like there are only a handful of businesses that I consider memorable, so it is with games. But what then makes them memorable? I think it’s a combination of identity, something otherworldly and authenticity.

Identity because it provokes your feelings and you can empathize with it (think Kiva). Otherworldly because the experience you get is beyond anything you’ve ever imagined (think Disneyland) and authenticity because it just feels real, you can talk to anyone about it and it’s real to them too (think Avatar).

Raise your hand if you know anyone setting out to create a business that’s memorable? A product? A service?

To focus on the overall experience people get when interacting with your business, ask yourself: How are we being memorable?

What makes something memorable? Would love to hear your thoughts.

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If you spend a good amount of time on the internet then I’m sure you’ve heard and watched OK Go’s latest video masterpiece. These guys have built a following by their sheer video producing talents. I didn’t know who OK Go was until a few days ago, when I watched the above video, it was enough for me to do some research and conclude that their music isn’t appealing to me but I have much to say about their dedication to producing pretty damn good videos.

Their videos alone are word of mouth worthy!

The band OK Go is probably more famous for their videos than their songs. That’s more a testament to the greatness of their videos than anything else. When these guys put out a video, you can be sure it’ll make your jaw drop at least once or twice. "How did they do that," is a typical reaction.

And that, is exactly what you want. To be known for something!

Just like Common Craft has built it’s reputation on creating ‘explanation video that anyone can understand’ and own that space in people’s minds, OK Go is doing the same with their music videos.

OK Go probably didn’t set out to differentiate themselves with videos and most likely didn’t have a ‘what do we want to be known for?’ brainstorming session. Most likely they started experimenting with ideas and kept going at it until something stuck and became so good at it that they can do these videos on a single take!

The takeaway here is you want to experiment with ideas with the goal of doing something distinctive that pushes boundaries. Do you think you could produce videos like OK Go? You probably can but have you ever tried?

Ask yourself: What do I want to be known for? And experiment with something that will push your boundaries.

What do you think? What are you experimenting with?

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We’ve seen that clients and prospects ask for and want a secret ‘recipe’ to start a social media programs that they can ‘plug and play’ into their business without considering the ‘why’ of their business, this leads to ‘more of the same’ strategies that lead nowhere.

To help you answer the ‘Why’ we recommend you read Jay Bear’s 7 step process on how to develop a social media strategy and then come back here.

Thanks for coming back, now on to the ‘How’.

Framing the challenge

Since we’re always in the ‘let’s shake things up’ mood we’re testing a new approach to develop strategy, here are some questions to help you ideate a social media strategy around the most important things:

• In what ways might we spread the word about our product or service?
• In what ways might we create a following on Facebook and/or Twitter?
• In what ways might we create content?
• In what ways might we publish content?
• In what ways might we create engagement?
• In what ways might we help people subscribe to our newsletter?
• In what ways might we help people share our content?
• In what ways might we help people take useful action from our content?
• In what ways might we show people the benefit of doing business with us?
• In what ways might we prove to people the benefit of doing business with us?
• In what ways might we make our product or service be talked about?
• In what ways might we convince our customers come back?
• In what ways might we convince our customers to tell their friends about us?

These questions are meant to open your mind and create a list of possible options. The next thing you have to do is get a group together of no more than 5 key people and brainstorm around these questions and stop once you have enough answers for each question. At this point you have all sorts of ideas and now it’s time to start making choices depending on your strategic goals.

*For another approach check out Steve Koss’s comments below and clickthrough to his website for more depth.

Strategy should be unique to you

Next, to get really creative instead of going out and seeing how other businesses within your industry would answer these questions, think about how businesses in other industries would answer them. Why? Because all the good ideas in your industry are already taken and they’re called best practices.

The whole idea of strategy is not to replicate what your competitors do but to create a strategy that’s unique to you. 

We’d love to know what you think? What’s your approach to developing a social media strategy? What questions would you add?

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