Increasing Our Good Online Marketing Karma
Sep 1, 2010 | Posted by Brandsplat under Blog Marketing , blog content management , online brand management , social media business , twitter marketing
“Like gravity, karma is so basic we don’t even notice it.” – Sakyong Mipham
That little golden rule of treating others how we would want to be treated is a simple yet revolutionary concept in our current era of beating celebrities and politicians to a pulp in blogs. In media and marketing, we stand in line to hop on board the latest bash fest of whatever product or person has made a bad judgment call or seen better days. This little billboard campaign out of Denver made headlines this week for making fun of Domino’s. Domino’s? Really? While it provides some chuckles, the old “kick the big money competitor in the groin” tactic is pretty exhausted at this point. Nevertheless, our current snark-as-default-setting climate got us thinking about using our marketing powers for good. After all, small businesses rely on positive word of mouth and feedback, so shouldn’t we take positive actions to insure good marketing karma?
The road to marketing enlightenment is one paved with little, selfless acts of kindness that over time prove your company has heart, integrity and a good sense of humor. For instant karma in action, take a look at Twitter marketing. On Twitter, by re-tweeting blogs in your same industry, you’re giving props to your comrades while winding up in their newsfeeds. Things like “Follow Friday” and mutual following are other ways to get good Twitter juju. Another great way to perhaps gather more followers is by doing an old-fashioned Twitter shout-out. The shout-out consists of naming an author of a blog or an entrepreneur who has posted something worthy that deserves more than a simple retweet. By name checking folks with big followings, I have found almost immediate retribution wherein the person in question either follows me in return or returns the name-check in a separate tweet. Think of it as tweeting how you would like to be tweeted.
E-mailed newsletters are another outlet to increase your marketing brownie points. Slipping a quick customer questionnaire into your newsletter that in turn offers free goods or discounts is a nice way to reward your readers while gathering their thoughts about your company. It’s another old-fashioned mutual back scratching technique that also builds goodwill.
You also can show that your business gives a damn by providing links to causes and non-profits that are important to you on your website and social media pages. No, we can’t all be Bono — but we can do little things to help out fellow do-gooders. Plus partnerships of this kind are PR gold that almost always yield new customers.
With all of this spreading of happiness around, let’s not forget to have a laugh, either. Infusing (ahem, clean) humor in your Facebook pages, website and blogs is doing a good deed. First off, everybody loves a good laugh. Secondly, posts with humor and the “you gotta see this” factor get forwarded like nobody’s business. This can be in the form of a great video or weird news story — whatever. Have fun with it and your readers will, too.
Now it’s your turn to tell us, gentle readers: How have your acts of kindness helped your business? Enlighten us in the section below (and increase your good comment karma)!
