Social Traffic | Social Media Marketing

Words of inspiration: “Alone we can do so little; together we can do so much” – Helen Keller

A little background before I go on: I have a knack for curiously exploring, testing and solving problems in situations. As a kid, complex puzzles that repelled others attracted me – solving them gave me satisfaction. I understood from a very young age that if something was easy, everyone would be doing it. For whatever the reason, I have always known that real success in business came through initiating change in the way things are done for the better. My passion has always been to lead change, to lead a thought process away from the path it’s on. The challenge is that people are naturally change averse, change represents discomfort, frustration and inconvenience so we avoid it where possible. Although, the truth about life is that change is the only “constant” there is. The risk we take with change is that if we go for it, endure the discomfort without reaching a point of value. The entrepreneurs I have tagged on this note know this space well, its a space where we prefer to do business. I look forward to reading your comments at the end of the note!

Since I have never been one to accept ‘being told’ how things are without first understanding why they are the way they are – I found my own journey into learning the art of doing business over the internet, to have become more about how I can improve the journey for others heading down the same path. This focus has more to do with my own hunger for challenges, and less to do with the notion of earning lot’s of money (money will always come with successfully effecting change for the better), the focus however, must be fixed on the goal and the motivation behind it, not the money.

You have to understand the difference – the motives of the former person driven by a desire to effect change for the better will inspire him/her to explore, learn and grow with every challenge, the former person will beat all challenges put before them because the fuel that drives them burns from within; while the latter person driven by money becomes impatient and agitated if things don’t work as expected. When the going gets tough, all they see is their money rainbow disappearing before them, their inspiration to fight dries up as the rainbow looses its color. Business life is such, that even the most expected and calculated actions often lead to the most unexpected reactions and results. Which is why, the former person always holds ground through the tough patches entrepreneurs needs to get through to facilitate change that is their success. The tougher the challenge, the greater the success.

When I came to the online world a few years back, I was excited by the infinite problems that needed solving for such a large and growing number of people as a catalyst to success. Business is about solving other peoples problems for them and every CEO or business principle needs to be a marketer at heart. Marketing comes down to finding a market of people who have the same problem and articulating solutions for them. Solutions that reflect high value can only come through change. The challenge is for us to deliver a message that instills an assurance that a consumers problems will be solved, with little change required. To be able to solve other people’s problems entrepreneurs must first solve the problems that stand between them and being able to deliver solutions to customers. Entrepreneurs understand the learning curve traveled before the point we are able to reflect on how things are done, is what stands between influencing a change in the status quo, and not.

A little more about agendas: While embarking on my journey of learning to do business online, I noticed a common trend of people who knew stuff exploiting those who didn’t under a premise of ‘helping’ them. When I looked around, I noticed the people selling consultation or information in this market place were all focused on the money, they would instill their credentials based on how much money they had made (the trend seemed to be publish pictures of your bank account) and they would sell products and services on the basis of how much money a prospect will earn. Money, money, money, I did not seen many campaigns focused on relationships, creating value or long-term success. From where I stood coming into this industry as an off line entrepreneur, It seemed online business marketers were less accountable for the depth of relationships they established with customers because they don’t meet them face to face. Since arriving on the scene this seems to be changing with enhanced social media technologies, all for the better. But here’s the thing…

Seth Godin says this about his Squidoo content sharing website members and I am not at all surprised;

“Nine people out of ten members on Squidoo earn little money. One person of very ten earns thousands a month. The difference; the nine people who don’t earn any money are only there to earn money? The one person who earns money, is not?

The person who earns all the money is a member of Squidoo because they are passionate about what they do. They love putting out great content about their passion which attracts an audience who bond with them around their passion. Money finds these people, they don’t need to chase it.”

Passion: The reason I share these notes with you guys is to get a higher level of conversations started. I want to feel like I learned something or grew into a better person every time I invest time interacting with you through these mediums. I need for you to want the same outcome for me to achieve mine.

These aren’t just ramblings – I sense there is so much potential in the individuals around me on social media, I cannot surround myself with the same talent in my home town. I am excited by what could be achieved by harnessing this potential into a collective social media force by establishing a ground breaking business model, tailored to being a snug fit for new media. My excitement is not fueled by the prospect of making money. What excites me, is the thought of leading a movement of thought leaders who, through collaboration, can establish a groundbreaking business model that can be used in marketing and consulting in a new media scape that will lead a global industry into the next decade. I touched on this potential in my book launch. Ian David Chapman coined the term, “the circle of trust”, throughout the launch we defined this term in a way that inspired a group of thought leaders to collaborate together to achieve a common goal. The principle was for the individuals in the circle to hold a focus on adding value to the others, that we all hold faith that this value would be reciprocated. The focus of my “circle of trust” was on adding value to the “Social Traffic” group launch, together, 8 people built a Facebook community of 1000+ people in just 5 days. This success carried over to 1500 copies of my book being download in as short a period of time.

After the launch things went back to the way they were. The group that achieved so much together with such little effort went back to focusing on their own business, doing their own thing. It wasn’t said, but I know their was confusion about how the “circle of trust” reciprocated. I sensed the mood came down to how would the value each individual contributed be reciprocate and I plan to address that question in a later note. The collective power of this small but effective leadership group was dissolved into a group of individuals aspiring to succeed on separate paths again.

My“circle of trust” did an amazing job for me with little effort through a common focus, I believe the enjoyment we all shared throughout the journey was reciprocation enough, I think most members agree. In saying that, the satisfaction we all felt is not enough to motivate people beyond the initial buzz to do it a second time, If the end gain leads to one persons benefit. What I know about the human dynamic in social marketing is that to have content distributed by users organically, the content needs to be to be very good, we know we can motivate a group of people to distribute content more diligently than they naturally would, if we initiate some sense of value in it for them.

The benefits of a group diligently focusing on distributing our content for us consistently is the holey grail in social marketing. For this mechanism to work long term, the end gain must be enjoyed equally by all the participants if we want the momentum to carry beyond a short spike. If it’s not, any effort beyond our natural inclinations are short lived, human nature kicks in, we look for our return on investment in time and or authority before we continue to invest. Since my book launch I have been busy evaluating (in consultation with Sam Adkins, Axel Henrikson, Pierre Faillettaz, Glen Crosier and Ian David Chapman), just how individuals settle back into being individuals again after our collective voice dissipates and the magic expires. Do we just go about fighting to have our own voices heard above all the noise again or do we look for new communities that are on the move to collaborate with. Most of us belong to multiple groups, we seem to invest minimum effort into each of them long term, by the same token we seem to expect little in return for our membership.

I would like to ask you this question and look forward to seeing your answers in the comments?

“How many internet groups have you belonged to that have a goal, a common focus for members where the outcome was tangible, something that inspires you to want to contribute, collaborate and promote the message for your own gain, long term, beyond the short term buzz of being a part of a fast growing group?”

Let me tell you why I have become fascinated with this element of social media; I recognized at the end of the Social Traffic launch, I needed to re-think everything, if I am to reach my expressed goal of leading a movement of thought leaders who, through collaboration can establish a groundbreaking business model that can be used in marketing and consulting in the new media scape and lead this industry into the next decade. You see the Social Traffic book launch was ultimately self serving me at the end of it’s sales funnel. This dynamic meant those in my Circle Of Trust felt compelled to see a return on their investment for contributing to my personal campaign success. Now please, don’t get me wrong, my circle of trust and I ended on great terms, I am eternally grateful for their support and each of them know I am available to reciprocate in what ever capacity I am able to add value to their next campaign. In fact my post launch analysis was undertaken with some key members of the same Circle of Trust for the sole purpose of us understanding the insights so we can construct a better model from the lessons learned. Always looking to move forward we have taken what we learned and we are currently collaborating on how we can apply it to shoot for new heights not seen before in Social Media.

We must let go of the status quo to achieve this. My favorite quote is;

“Knowledge comes from learning, wisdom comes through letting go of what you think you know,…”

We recognized at the end of the Social Traffic launch, although it was extremely successful on a small scale, the model needed to change if were going to achieve a much bigger picture goal. In fact, the last 3 weeks has seen me tear up my conventional marketing book’s all together…

What do I mean?

I have spent three weeks collaborating with other leaders In Social Media on ways we can build a campaign that will motivate a group of passionate soul leaders excited by what we achieved in phase one of building the Social Traffic group. This group understand the set backs in the model and together, we would like to apply the lessons to build a social media campaign of a scale never seen before. I look forward to introducing you to this team in due course. Just to give you an idea of what I mean by “groundbreaking business model” the passionate soul leaders I’m talking about here are not affiliates – there is no affiliate program, we will not be selling anything to anyone (aside from our passion and ideas) -

there will be no “product launch”, no ebooks for sale, membership sites, coaching programs, cds or dvds yet we aim to add value to hundreds of thousands of people and turn over millions of dollars…

When we say a movement that will be groundbreaking we mean it, this model is not pursuing a business line of selling information, life coaching or business expertise… Social currency is about sharing information freely, that’s what makes Facebook, YouTube, Wikipedia and the world wide web so successful – we are now firmly entrenched in the original vision of the early web pioneers who shared information freely to create value collectively – knowing personal gains and benefits will come as a natural byproduct of this…

We are all in agreement that to lead this movement and have an impact on any social networking society we have to unlearn everything that makes us want to ‘fit in’ to it, every emotion that drives us to conform must be set aside. We have to instill a reason to break the shackles of mediocrity. The most shocking fact that looks me in the eye every time I try to find solutions, is that most people just want to follow the lead of others,.. most people are content to conform… most people have been implicitly trained since their childhood to do things in a certain way; get a job… plan to get a car. When they have a car they plan to get a house… Get married. Settle down (so as to speak) Buy a bigger TV. Then buy a bigger house.. and soon they realize that their entire life just got swallowed into a black hole of sorts. Conformity,….For proof, you need not look past the fact that if the Son of a chauffeur driver comes home having secured a job as a chauffeur driver, his family celebrates. If the son of a law professor does, his family commiserates, they want to know why? Why are our children not being taught to be unique in schools, to be different. To think outside the square? It seems we are churning them out, placing them on pre-defined path to their coffins.

Wheres the passion? Where are the challenges? Where is the questioning of everything that happens around us to understand why? Where is the originality that inspires constant change?

I want to ask you to think about what being part of a massive social media marketing campaign of a scale never seen before would mean for your life today. Would having something like this under your belt be a story you would proudly tell your grand kids. Do you think being a part of a story about a group of thought leaders launching a massive global event for hundreds of thousands of people, without spending a dollar on marketing or advertising would be a good or bad thing to have participated in? Is the first question you ask yourself how much money you can make? Or is it, how can you get involved?

Bob Geldoff brought the worlds leading entertainers together to raise money to reduce world poverty – and although raising funds was the motivating factor, money was removed from the interactions of those leading the movement and I dare say, had it not, the movement will not have succeeded in moving forward. They moved the world through the collaboration of a passionate few who gave the world a common focus that included a goal that everyone could look forward to.

Imagine how much we could achieve by bringing 1000 social marketers together with a common focus of achieving one goal. Alone we can do so little, together we can do so much? The model needs to be right, we have already attracted some of the sharpest and most influential minds in social marketing who are excited by the thought of leading a new model that will shift all the boundaries.

Would you be interested in participating in something like this if we can get it off the ground?

I look forward to introducing an amazing collection of talent and authority who are already moving forward on this idea in the coming weeks. This vision will only transform into a reality if we all get behind it. For front row seats please join our Facebook, Social Traffic group.

NOTICE: The public doors will be closing on the Social Traffic group on January 18th. Beyond this date our objective will be to tighten this community, grow it’s authority, not it’s membership. Our goal is for it to become a high impact network of active, influential contributors and together the group will realize this dream.

Please add your comments, thoughts, opinions and excitement in the comments below.

Simon U Ford (SUF.EDBD)

Visit my “event line blogs”

Social Traffic – The book

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