Engage?
So, I asked a simple question. I've been doing a lot of thinking about assembling a tribe. The trend, in internet marketing circles has been to outsource and leverage everything. The holy grail, it seems, is the tribe leader barely interacts with the tribe except under very controlled circumstances. This can work.... Exhibit A - Steve Jobs. The thing is, just because Steve keeps his social and public profile to be a minimum, does that mean he's not interacting with the market? When you think about it, “Apple" interacts with the tribe in very significant ways. The first, is the extraordinary community, dare I say it, industry around Apple commentary. Every day, there are literally thousands of stories written about Apple. When you throw in tweets, status updates and the like I would shudder to think how many times Apple is mentioned in a day. (I'm sure some of you would say I contribute a fair percentage to this!! So to use Steve as an example of somebody who can be hand off and still “lead" a tribe, I wonder if that's really correct? You see, I don't have the luxury of hundreds of thousands of people coming in to my stores around the world each day. Nor do I have the luxury of hundreds of bloggers talking about how cool http://www.immediateedge.com/ is. It's funny, as I dictate this, it occurs to me engagement with the market is purely a function of Dr Michael Hewitt Gleesons checkmove theory. --------------------------------------------
The Other Extreme
-------------------------------------------- So, if we look at the other end of the spectrum, we have Gary V, the author of “crushing". Just listening to Gary V makes me tired! He is always on, always ready for interview, and his interaction levels are amazing. In checkmove terminology, he's a check-move machine! The first boring of my icy approach to interaction came about thanks to the awesome people in my mentoring program. In the act of working with this awesome group of students, I became the most humble student of all. I learned so much! When, in some controversy– I remind you! I started to use Facebook comments across my blogs and moved my core information strategy to Facebook Pages.
The fact, people were not anonymous, raised the tone of conversation immensely. This week, in the immediate edge, we have really opened the forums and Dan and I are in their each working day. Again, even after a few days I realise how awesome this. I also realise how stupid I've been. I'd like to think, in this community, I'm not one of these fair weather social hit and run merchants. Sadly, it seems you can set your watch by some people's interaction with when they have a new launch coming - I like to think I don't fall into this category. But I think I was seduced into thinking that if Steve Jobs didn't have to interact. Neither did I. I'm not the dirt on the shoe of El Jobso. This was stupid. I do not have a few hundred Apple stores nor a few thousand bloggers talking about my stuff everyday. To eat some of my own dog food, being a leader of a tribe means publishing content that matters to the tribe on a consistent basis. In check-move terms, every time somebody reads something I've written and has the ability to respond I have just created a check-move. The more check-moves I and our company make, the more successful will be we will be. ED, PS I think I'm more comfortable doing this because I've started to figure out this creating content thing. It is a process. I've a way to go, but i'm starting.
The Other Extreme
-------------------------------------------- So, if we look at the other end of the spectrum, we have Gary V, the author of “crushing". Just listening to Gary V makes me tired! He is always on, always ready for interview, and his interaction levels are amazing. In checkmove terminology, he's a check-move machine! The first boring of my icy approach to interaction came about thanks to the awesome people in my mentoring program. In the act of working with this awesome group of students, I became the most humble student of all. I learned so much! When, in some controversy– I remind you! I started to use Facebook comments across my blogs and moved my core information strategy to Facebook Pages.
The fact, people were not anonymous, raised the tone of conversation immensely. This week, in the immediate edge, we have really opened the forums and Dan and I are in their each working day. Again, even after a few days I realise how awesome this. I also realise how stupid I've been. I'd like to think, in this community, I'm not one of these fair weather social hit and run merchants. Sadly, it seems you can set your watch by some people's interaction with when they have a new launch coming - I like to think I don't fall into this category. But I think I was seduced into thinking that if Steve Jobs didn't have to interact. Neither did I. I'm not the dirt on the shoe of El Jobso. This was stupid. I do not have a few hundred Apple stores nor a few thousand bloggers talking about my stuff everyday. To eat some of my own dog food, being a leader of a tribe means publishing content that matters to the tribe on a consistent basis. In check-move terms, every time somebody reads something I've written and has the ability to respond I have just created a check-move. The more check-moves I and our company make, the more successful will be we will be. ED, PS I think I'm more comfortable doing this because I've started to figure out this creating content thing. It is a process. I've a way to go, but i'm starting.
