The 7 Triggers To Yes -- How it applies to Social Media

In his book, The 7 Triggers to Yes: The New Science Behind Influencing People, author Russell Granger examines the latest research in neuroscience to draw conclusions as to how people make decisions and discovered these seven triggers:

1. Friendship Trigger — Activates trust and agreement through bonding.
2. Authority Trigger — Creates a perception of expertise that activates acceptance.
3. Consistency Trigger – Appeals to motives consistent with past actions.
4. Reciprocity Trigger – Taps into the rationale that when you give, you get something back.
5. Contrast Trigger – Makes your request more appealing when compared to other options.
6. Reason-Why Trigger — Gives reasons that activate an automatic “yes.”
7. Hope Trigger — Instills positive expectations that deliver agreement.

The first three triggers really hit home with me and I cannot get them out of my mind. I recognize their actions on a daily basis as I work with colleagues and co-workers and interact with family and friends. The author states that the friendship trigger is the most important trigger and has the greatest affect on people. As I have reflected upon this, I agree. 

As a leader, it is much easier to get people to follow if you establish friendship. Friendship is built on trust, common interests, listening, patience, understanding, and, yes, love. Here are my thoughts as to how social media is an excellent tool for achieving at least the first three triggers of yes.

1. Friendship trigger - I can honestly say that I have developed friendships online. Friendships take a long time to develop and social media provides a medium of communication that fosters friendships. I believe it is more efficient than traditional networking, but not necessary more effective. The most effective approach is a combination of the two. Social media bridges the gap between face-to-face meetings, but does NOT replace them.
2. Authority trigger - The biggest key to effectively using blogs or microblogs is posting valued content. Content that your readers find valuable establishes your authority. This takes a lot of reading of others' blogs, books, and magazines (i.e. listening). Find content that is relevant and share it with your followers. Again, web tools provide the most efficient means of sharing your content to a wide audience, but not necessarily the most effective. I love Mark Guinness' post Get More Followers by Spending Less Time on Twitter. He writes, "So if you really want to get more followers, you should do two things: (1) Get to know people outside of Twitter. (2) Do something interesting outside of Twitter... The most popular people on Twitter tend to be those who are doing remarkable things elsewhere." 
3. Consistency trigger - What better tool for consistency is there than a microblog, blog, and social media? I tweet about seven posts per day: 64% conversations, 15% links, 8% retweets, 11% content, and 2% hashtags (Twanalyst.com/louisvillesoup).

Have you built friendships and established authority by using current web tools? Have they added value to your life via knowledge, caring support, or sales? Let me know by sharing your comments below.

Posted via email from Mike Campbell's posterous

CEOs and microbloging. (Too busy NOT to Twitter)

I've worked with enough small business CEOs to know that they are fast-paced, driven people that love to be in control and want it done yesterday. That's exactly why they should microblog and why the argument that it's a waste of time doesn't hold water.

Fast-paced - Microblogging is limited to 140 characters. You don't get much faster than that. Could you imagine if your inbox was limited to 140 characters per email? If conversations were quick exchanges 2-3 sentences? How much more could you accomplish in a day?

Be everywhere - Microblogging services enable one to be in all places at all times. The audience is global and includes employees, customers, and vendors. You can reach a huge audience with lightening speed.

Control your message - Microblogging and blogging put you in control. You don't have to wait for ad agencies, press releases, employees, etc. Have something to say? Say it. It's unfiltered communication directly to your audience.

Stay on top of your competitors, employees, and customers. Microblogging has ushered in real-time search and given you immediate feedback.

Here's how to start in less than 5 minutes:

• Go to http://twitter.com and sign up for an account. It only takes a couple minutes. Here's a couple things to do:

• Use your real name as your ID. Add a number to the end if it's already taken. Be quick, you can change it later.
• Include a description in the profile. Be brief, you're only allowed 140 characters.
• Upload a picture of yourself.
• Set goals. Your microblogging goals should be aligned with your company's marketing goals. (read more)

Start following people. 

• Forget the Twitter search tools, they're always broken. 
• Forget the tons of Twitter apps; who has time. 
• Follow me (http://twitter.com/LouisvilleSoup). Don't be afraid of occasional, shameless self-promotion.
• Follow a few social media experts like Jason Falls, Chris Brogan, and Mark Schaefer.
• Email three employees you know who use Twitter. Follow them. 
• Follow who they follow. Chances are they are following other employees and clients.
• Go to http://exectweets.com and start following other CEOs.

Start listening.

• Check Twitter a couple times a day for a couple minutes at a time. 
• Don't read every tweet, just scan and listen. It's the best way to learn.
• Install a Twitter client on your mobile device so that you can listen from anywhere.
• Use Twitter search for real-time mentions of your brand and your competitors.

Start posting content.

• Don't answer the question What are you doing. You're right, nobody cares. Answer these questions instead.
• What books are you reading and why?
• What articles are you reading that I should read?
• What motivates you?
• What message about your brand do you want to communicate?

Keep listening but start joining the conversation.

• Use the @mention feature to connect with people.
• Be careful, you might get addicted.
• Stay focused and remember your goals.

Oh, and if you think social media is just a fad, watch this:

Social Media is a fundamental shift in the way we communicate.

Posted via email from Mike Campbell's posterous

Twitter is dying and what to do about it.

Twitter is dying. There were two significant news stories and a few anecdotal stories that convince me Twitter is dying. First, Twitter suffered a denial of service attack that shut it down for several hours. It just has not seemed to recover. To this day I still see complaints of sluggishness, lost tweets, or accounts that crashed. Second, Facebook purchased FriendFeed. Personally, I haven't dived deeply into the story to fully digest the ramifications, but at first blush I think it's Facebook's competitive answer to Twitter. I have also noticed recently more subscribers to my FriendFeed account, even though I hardly ever use it (that may change). Here are my reasons why Twitter is failing:

Twitter is not scalabe - the recent denial of service attack convinced me that Twitter is not scalable. There are now numerous calls on the web for a distributed network. "Twitter is run by a single company in a single office building in San Francisco... But for Twitter, centralization is also a curse... [It is] too popular for one company to handle." (Slate.com)  

Twitter is a first mover innovator - Historically, fast followers often beat the first mover innovators. For example, Google was preceded by AltaVista and iTunes by Napster. Google was not the first search engine, it was just a better search engine. Twitter is the first microblog, but I believe there will emerge a better microblog.

Twitter is inundated with spam - I get so many spam followers that I've pretty much stopped checking my new followers. I don't follow everyone who follows me and it's a shame that I may be missing out on some cool new tweeps because I just don't have the time to filter out the crap. I also get tired of auto-DMs and "How can I help your business" DMs. And the number of "1000 FREE follower TODAY", "whiten your teeth", blah, blah, blah is incredibly annoying.

Twitter has an identity crisis - Recently I read co-founder Evan Williams stated that Twitter is a messaging service. Then I read that co-founder Biz Stone "said instead of thinking of the service as a social tool to connect with friends, he wants Twitter to be seen as a communications and information network for discovering and sharing what is happening right now." Without a vision, Twitter will perish. It will continue roll out tools that people don't want like retweeting, and neglect useful features like groups, filtering, and better web interface.

The value is in the apps - Like thousands of others, I have paid for Twitter. I've bought three iPhone apps (Tweetie, Twittelator, and Twitterfon), but Twitter has failed to profit from these sales. The best thing Twitter has done was open up it's API. This allowed developers to write tons of apps and foster growth. The value of Twitter is in clients like PeopleBrowser, HootSuite, TweetDeck, and Seesmic.

I agree with Slate.com that microblogging is here to stay and is too important for one company. So what should can we, as consumers, do?

Keep a watch out for the next big thing. Better yet, be the next big thing. Early in my Twitter experience a lot of my followers went to Plurk. Most of them came back. Then there was Identic.ca. It proved to me that people are loyal to mircroblogging, but not a specific brand. Twitter is just a brand. Unfortunately it's brand is tarnished from fail whale, lack of revenue, and being in kahoots with the CNN / Ashton Kutcher PR stunt. Furthermore, too many people have too much trouble answer the question, What is Twitter. 

Backup up your network. My goal for Twitter was, and is, simple: build a business network. I have spent a lot of time building a network of CFOs, CEOs, small business leaders, tech, marketing, and social media gurus. This network has been hugely beneficial to me both professional and personally. Twitter has lost followers/following and tweets before and I have to anticipate that happening again. I've used Tweetake and Twistory, but really like the concept of Lifestreambackup.com. It's automatic and includes all your social networks (Flickr, Zoho & Google docs, Gmail, and more).

Posted via email from Mike Campbell's posterous