I read two interesting marketing perspectives this morning.
- In the first, Chris Brogan asked his audience not to ask for ReTweets unless they’re doing it for charity.
- In the second, Seth Godin talked about the difference between yelling and whispering in marketing.
I think you need to read the second to really understand the first.
Should you ask for ReTweets? It depends. Do you want people to share your message and your content? If you do, then ask. You should ask for it in your content and its okay to follow that up and ask on Twitter or in other social outlets. If the content is worthy, the asking will sound like a whisper. It’s like a secret between friends, something they’ll want to pass on. Not everyone will think to share content on their own. Sometimes, as marketers and business owners, we need to whisper it in their ear to remind and encourage them.
Actually, it’s our job to whisper.
They key here is that your content needs to be worthy of the share. Because if it’s not, then asking people to ReTweet your content doesn’t sound like a whisper. It comes off like a yell.
That person is yelling at me. And that turns people off – the yelling. That’s what we all want to avoid.
Coincidentally, I tweeted this morning that the louder someone has to yell it – the less true it is. And I believe that whether you’re a brand trying to convince your audience of your product’s super benefits or whether you’re talking to someone you once dated trying to show them HOW. HAPPY. YOU. ARE! If you’re telling them the truth, it comes off as a whisper. It’s when you’re not being real that you have to yell.
Yelling is bad marketing.
Whispers assist people in finding content they should be aware of. Because, as much as we’d like to pretend otherwise, the Internet isn’t a level playing field where the quality stuff naturally rises or gets seen. If it was, the good folks wouldn’t have to work so hard and Google would have a much easier go at things. Until that day, we need to be comfortable sending out whispers and self-promoting.
The saving grace in all this is as long as you’re putting out quality, helpful and authoritative material, you shouldn’t feel slimy about whispering in someone’s ear and asking them to take a desired action.
Whispers help people find stuff. Whispers are good.
[Now that you’ve read this once for ReTweets, switch out [ReTweets] with [Online Reviews] and read again. We can end that debate, too.]
