I’m a Storyteller, Not a Marketer
Let me tell you about a little adventure I went on. It was awesome! I went camping at a fancy hotel in San Francisco. Advocamping to be exact.
See, I was lucky enough to score enough bonus points with my boss to get this awesome adventure added to my “to do” list this year. Ok, truthfully, my co-worker who was scheduled to go had other obligations and I lucked out. Man, oh man, did I luck out! Did I mention that this was awesome?
Advocamp is a conference put on by Influitive. They tout it as “The biggest customer experience, engagement and advocacy event of the year.” It offers a load of great, experienced speakers who are expert marketers, entrepreneurs, consultants, strategists, founders, authors… well, you get the idea. These are people who know stuff about the kind of stuff I’m doing every day!
Advocacy
Interestingly, however, though there was a huge variety of speakers, there were some definite resounding themes — themes that I loved. Many were captured in quotes I was able to grab during the convention.
· “Lead with generosity. Follow with authenticity.” ~Keith Ferrazzi
· “The customer is really the hero.” ~Rajul Raj (and can we talk about Ecobee? I want one so bad!)
· “Your customers are your most influential salespeople and your employees are your most credible.” ~Joseph Jaffee
· “Stop selling and start educating. Stop selling and start helping.” ~Jill Rowley
· “Not answering complaints decreases customer advocacy, but answering customer complaints increases customer advocacy.” ~Jay Baer
· “Not everything we do is going to be measured, but we need to do it because it’s what’s best for our customers.” ~Jim Williams
Just about any advocacy expert will tell you that if you take care of your customers first, then and only then, will they be willing to take care of you. Sure, you can buy followers and pay people to say things you want them to say, but in the end, we all know that’s not authentic. There are many bloggers and social media influencers out there who don’t want to play that game anymore. I know because I’ve met them. Why wouldn’t they want to play? It’s simple. Promoting something you don’t believe in is inauthentic and it’s obvious.
Relationships are key. If you, as your brand, are engaging with and appreciating your customer, that’s going to elicit a much more genuine response than if you offer them free product or cash money for their compliments.
What I’d rather read is a story about what happened between you and a product. Whether good or bad, tell me a story. Be a storyteller, not a marketer. That’s me. I’m a storyteller. I don’t want to market to you. You know who I am. You know where I work and what I do and I will tell you how much I love and believe in my employer and my career, but I won’t sell it to you like a salesman. I’ve never been good at asking people to buy things — which is weird because I was an Avon lady for 10 years. Yeah that happened… moving on…
I will help customers in any way I can to achieve what they want to achieve. I believe one of the best ways I can help is by telling their story and sharing their content and helping them to grow their own influence. By being and advocate for my customers and my followers, I’m supporting them and their business.
Don’t get me wrong — I’m a fan of thanking people for their contributions and paying for shareable content. I actually send oodles of gifts and goodies, and I’m not just talking SWAG. I truly love to find out what one of my connections will appreciate and then enjoy the surprised voice in their tweet (because I’m not there to see the look on their face — thank you Social Media) when they receive their package.
I could ramble on for hours about this and I’m sure another post will occur, and hey, I’m totally engageable. Is that a word? I’m open to engagement. Not that I want to be engaged. I mean I want to be engaged, but not in the traditional sense. I just mean that I enjoy conversations and love answering questions so hit me up if you’ve got them.
