I finally had the conversation. It was with Mike Thompson who for a number of years has been our organizational development coach. His firm is now called peoplesmartllc. (The site is not fully running.)
These days Mike is breaking into new ground as colorful and as varied as his many interests. One of them is marketing and selling small crosses made by the homeless in Kentucky (who receive part of the sales price), with the cross being distributed to the U.S. military In Iraq and Afghanistan.
The whole initiative is run by Catholic Action Center,a non profit that has worked with the underserved and marginalized for the last 15 years. “Sometimes faith can be challenged when facing adversity. Sometimes a simple thought or promise that there are those who care can mean all the difference in the world,” the center says. They are right, I know, from being in a similar situation at another time.
But the cause (whle great) is not my point here. Their marketing challege is my point. Bcause this was another one of those conversations which, as so happens frequently today, led me to strongly recommend that Mike and his team consider social media as a means of helping create and sustain buzz. It would be at a price they can afford (almost nothing) and rise from the months of conference events they will attend in which one-to-one connections with like-minded folk willtake place. Like minded folks by the thousands with iPhonse, Facebook , and Twitter.
But then come the questions. What is it? How does it work? Why social media? I tried coacing back, explaining the dynamics of social media and slowly the light began to glow!
In eclectic markets whose members have distinctive interests, traditional marketing can be challenged to reach the 2 in 100 who share an interest. But the people who have an interest they are passionate about do connect with one another in person and on line.
We can ignite communities of interest with an awareness that flows from one conversation to another into a viral online babble of like minded members cross connecting across the country, across the world. Soon a trend is born that, in turn, energizes demand.
Social marketing
