Recently Entrepreneur Magazine hosted Guy Kawasaki‘s talk “Enchant and Engage More Customers with Social Media” just outside of DC. The session was based on Guy’s current book, Enchantment: The Art of Changing Hearts, Minds, and Actions. The event wasn’t your typical social media conference, and it highlighted one core truth – no matter the tools or message, the act of PR is enchantment.
This idea was solidified when post-event I started reading Guy’s book and saw that the first few chapters reinforced that enchantment is present whenever people are trying to make the world a better place. Making the world a better place is why we work with mission-driven clients at CFox Communications. We tell our client stories as our small part in making the world a better place, and we can tell more stories the more enchanting we are.
Below are a few enchanting tips from Guy’s presentation. You can buy his book here, and check out the TwitterChat from the session using the hashtag #smallbizworkshop. Agree or disagree with these tips? Leave a comment below or tweet me (@TMStrategy) or Guy (@guykawasaki).
1) Be Perfect – be deep, intellectual, complete, empowering, and elegant.
2) Messaging – always make your messaging short, sweet, and swallowable.
3) Mission – think mantra not traditional mission statement for your business and your personal brand.
4) Prepare – don’t wait for an issue to arise, conduct a pre-mortem. Pretend you fail and figure out what you can fix before you actually fail.
5) Audience – enchant all influencers. Don’t assume who is the decision maker, interest and engage all members of your audience.
6) Proof – provide social proof of your messaging. Example is the white earbuds of Apple products – they grew in popularity because seeing more white earbuds made you think more people thought Apple was best.
7) Case Studies – Guy said best enchantment case study is the movie Never Say Never and companies to study using premiere PR and social media campaigns are Virgin America, Ford, and Comcast. The event sponsor, Hiscox, also unveiled their new video campaign called Leap Year (leapyear.tv) which is an online TV show which never mentions their brand – something to keep an eye on for sure.
8) Grateful Dead – not my cup of tea musically but loved hearing how they enchanted and evangelized their concert goers. They would set up taping stations at all concerts so that fans could take their favorite songs home and share with others.
9) Social Media – sure, Guy gave some tips like using Holy Kaw and Posterous as far as social media tools, but his most important tip was to think like a “baker not an eater” when it comes to social media. Bakers look at what they can create for others and eaters look at what is immediately available to them.
10) Main Takeaway – have the likeability of Richard Branson, the trustworthiness of Zappos, and the quality of Apple.
I’ll leave you with a quote from Guy that can apply personally, in planning social media tactics, and for overall brand strategy:
“I don’t do anything by accident – I am always thinking….”