Where’s the Color?
What do you do in a situation when you are publicly called out for doing something wrong, even if it is unintentional? It can be a cold, hard truth to look in the mirror and see you are indeed in the bad. Trust me, this experience is not an enjoyable one, and I was in this position recently. In retrospect, though, I realize that look in the mirror was exactly what I needed.
A while back I had a black blogging friend reach out to me via Twitter. She tweeted, “I love your conferences, but where’s the color in the presenters?”
My first reaction was one of anger. I had never been accused of being racist, and my defensive mechanisms immediately had me thinking of ways to show her she wasn’t right.
But. She. Was.
As I looked back at my conferences, 99% of the speakers were white.
I hadn’t done it on purpose; I hadn’t even noticed the speakers’ skin colors because it wasn’t something that I had ever paid attention to. My implicit racism had never required me to consider that it mattered who was speaking at my conferences as long as the information they presented was good.
But it does matter.
Research shows people learn best when they identify with the person teaching. Having a diverse set of speakers is not only the inclusive, culturally correct thing to do, it is also the best way to convey information to attendees at our conference. The blogosphere is not white. It’s not black or brown or any singular color but a plethora or colors and nationalities. And what’s the best way to engage any audience? Give them something to identify with, and I had forgotten this basic concept.
So how did I respond to my blogging friend’s tweet? I could have gotten defensive at her blatantly calling me out. I could have made excuses. Instead, I asked her to coffee.
We sat down the next week at a local Starbucks and I explained my criteria for selecting speakers for FLBlogCon. We do a “call for speakers” and bloggers fill out a form proposing a topic on which they’d like to speak. The simple truth was not a lot of speakers of color apply. But instead of leaving it at that short explanation, I asked her what we could do to recruit more minorities to speak.
She helped me brainstorm ways to connect with and encourage more bloggers of color, and we even hosted a meet-up in order to kickstart the process. This meet-up in turn introduced me to some new bloggers who have since become good friends whose opinions and friendship I value greatly.
Don’t Ignore Your Audience
Marketers who ignore entire segments of their audience end up paying the price. Having learned this lesson the hard way, you now see Mattel making 33 new Barbie dolls are available in 3 new body types — petite, tall and curvy — and in 7 skin tones, 22 eye colors, and 14 “face” sculpts. Not only is it the really awesome thing to do, but it is also good for the bottom line.
But I am writing this post today not to discuss diversity (or the previous lack of) in my speakers, even though it is an extremely relevant and important topic, but rather I am writing to ask you if you are ignoring large segments of your audience?
Have you looked in the proverbial mirror to see if your marketing reflects upon and engages with your entire audience? Have you even taken the time to truly identify who your typical fans are? It is a worthy exercise.
Develop Your Fan Personas
If you interact with your fans/clients/audience/readers/customers on a regular basis, you are probably already familiar with your main target fan. And yes, it makes sense to develop marketing materials for this main target fan as they are the bulk of your audience. But don’t make the mistake of missing out on engaging with entire segments by assuming all your fans fall into that one persona.
For example, the fan persona that makes the most sense for Florida Swim Network is a Swimmer Persona. This a competitive swimmer between the ages of 13 and 25; more female than male; college-bound; extremely social media savvy.
But we recently decided to do an exercise of analyzing our audience with the sole purpose of developing fan personas. If we hadn’t taken time to do this, we would have been ignoring several other important segments. We discovered we also have 3 other main fan personas:
- Coach Persona — typically male, over 35 years of age, less tech savvy.
- Parent Persona — come from a middle to upper middle class family who can afford to participate in organized sports, travel to swim meets, etc.
- Grandparent Persona — generally live away from their children and grandchildren, less tech savvy.
We were surprised with how many grandparents follow Florida Swim Network in order to see their grandchildren swimming, and so we’re beginning to create some content geared toward them to place on Facebook. If we hadn’t spent time analyzing our audience, we would have been ignoring this sizable part of our audience.
And guess what else we discovered through this exercise? As the swim season changes from year-round club swimming to high school swim season, our Swimmer Persona does, too. While swimming may be perceived as a predominantly “white” sport, there is plenty of color in high school season.
Sure, we will still be creating most of our content for our typical Swimmer Persona, but with our new fan personas in mind, we have a game plan of what other type of content to create, which social media platforms to place it on, and the types of topics to include.
Even our Facebook advertising can be better targeted to each individual persona. We’ll obviously target seniors with different content than we will teenage swimmers. But this way we are effectively starting to reach our entire fan base.
Be Thankful for that Look in the Mirror
In retrospect I am very thankful to my black blogging friend asking, “Where’s the color?” Not only did it lead me to have a very meaningful look at my business practices, but by applying across the scope of my work, it also has allowed me to develop new ways to reach a greater audience in a more relevant way. Are you able to say the same about your marketing?
Remember, leading up to the November 1st launch of the new community I am creating specifically for marketers/PR reps and small business owners, I’ll be writing a series of posts here on Medium. I’ll continue discussing the reasons behind my new project as well as sharing tips that you as a marketer can utilize right away.
I’ll also share case studies and show ways brands have gained a true ROI by working with online influencers. And remember, my new project is limited in availability: only 20 individuals for 6 months will have access to me and my knowledge and my database of over 1,800 bloggers and online influencers.
Until next time, may your marketing be meaningful and your time well-used
