How To Promote A Trending Topic
Now that there have been a handful of promoted trending topics on Twitter, I think it’s time for me to weigh in.
To start, I believe having a promoted trending topic in the first place is a too much like traditional media, in that it interrupts. Up until now, there was a part luck and part genius equation involved with going viral. Now that you can pay for these services via Twitter, I think it cheapens Twitter as a social media. The big guys are still able to throw cash around to grab your attention, rather than earn it. But if you are going to promote a trending topic, here is how to go about it.
DJs Understand Social Media
While many businesses and industries fail to get social media, I’ve come to find one sector of individuals who mainly understand it. Many of them never graduated with marketing degrees or anything social media related. They may even be inclined to tell you they graduated with a degree from Street Smart or Common Sense University. I’m talking about DJs and their tendencies to share their work, but more importantly, the work of others.
There is a certain type of camaraderie among DJs - a mutual respect, you can say. I think the camaraderie is what many brands and businesses fail to have with other brands and businesses in their industry.
Regrets Only
Regrets only. It’s a mindset I’ve been using to help create content both on and offline. I think sharing this type of mindset can help others (maybe you) when it comes to getting content out; meaningful content, that is.
Regrets only means I do not particulary care if you don’t read my blog or don’t attend my events. I do however care for those who do read and attend. Having the “regrets only” mindset allows me to focus on those who focus on me and therefore, build from within. When you create content with this mentality, it forces you to put out amazing work, every time. If you fail to put out something noteworthy, you’re not really using the regrets only attitude. Who is going to regret anything if what you put out is common knowledge or is irrelevent?
Show & Tell
When we were kids, we all participated in show & tell. It was a break in our stressful day from learning cursive and the fundamentals of math - it was a time to learn about the Venus Fly Trap and Canadian Money (or maybe A-Rab Money). You’d show something unique and educate your classmates about it. Such a simple concept, right? So how come many of us aren’t embracing show & tell anymore?
As we’ve grown up, we have gone away from “show & tell” and have gone on to “tell & maybe show.” As adults, there are plenty of things we all are guilty of saying we’ll do, but either never get around to, or get discouraged and simply quit on. Show & tell is not just a child learning technique, it’s more of a man’s (and woman’s) game than you realize. The ability to go out and show something you’ve already done and tell people about it is much harder than saying what you will do; it is also more valuable.
Imagine a child going up in front of his or her class and telling them about something they will show in a few weeks before returning to their assigned seat. Unless the child promised to bring in Hannah Montana or Justin Bieber, how engaged do you think the group of seven and eight year olds will be if he or she had nothing to show during the presentation? Just like children, adult’s do not want to hear what will happen, they want to see something tangible and they want to see it now! As we grow older, our attention span shrinks because of all we have going on. I’m probably not half as busy as most of the people reading this, but at times, I think my attention span is shorter than one of a gnat - an intelligent gnat on Adderall, if that helps me out at all.
With the help of Twitter, Facebook and other social networks, it is easier than ever to “tell” and forget about doing. All you have to do is update your status and pow, everybody knows what you’re planning. If you’re a Twitter/Facebook addict and must talk about what you’re going to do, but still want to embrace the show & tell technique, try speaking in the past tense (despite what your English teacher told you in Junior High). Speaking in the past tense allow you to show what you’ve already done. Take it a step further by including a “&” and talk in the future tense about what you want to do with your idea you’ve already established in the first half of the sentence.
Now, if I were Seth Godin, I’d say “Go do the work,” if I were Gary Vaynerchuk, I’d say “Crush it!,” if I were Nike, I’d say “Just Do It,” but I’m The Real Mike Clemente, so I’ll simply say: “Show me!”
DJ’s Can Do This
Over the past year, I’ve found myself downloading more and more mixes and sets put online by DJ’s; so much so, I’d bet I have more memory taken up by mixes than individual songs on my iPod. It’s pretty practical to press play on one mix, go for a run and when the mix is done, so is your run! There are some DJ’s who clearly put in more time and effort with their productions than others and because of it, now have demands for their mixes even before they drop. The new demand for DJ mixes (as opposed to traditional musicians’ albums) got me thinking as to how DJ’s can come to leverage their somewhat new found celebrity to continue to get their mixes downloaded outside their immediate cadre of fans.
While I hope this does not deter rookie DJ’s, the idea I have will work easily for mid to well known DJ’s who put out mixes on a semi-set schedule. If you’re a DJ who puts together a set to share every month for example, your fans are aware of it and look forward to downloading it as soon as you tell them it is available. With that sort of demand, albeit from a small circle of people, you have the ability to create a substantial amount buzz for yourself - here’s how. Tell your fans you’re going to release your latest mix several days before it is officially available for those who want to donate money to your favorite charity. Pair the mix with a story fans can read explaining why you are passionate about the cause while stating you hope your latest set can benefit others. Set a goal, a manageable one, and communicate it with your fans where you tell them you’re looking to raise “x” amount of dollars. With the internet, donating and raising funds for charity is easier than ever for most causes, so you’ll be able to track everything online and see (and have others see) who is donating. Make sure you’re the first donor so everybody knows you’re dedicated to actualizing your goal.
To my knowledge, I haven’t witnessed any DJ attempt this (I can be wrong and I hope I am) but what I have seen is DJ’s tweeting their mixes all day long to their followers, attempting to spread it to raise awareness for themselves. When you do something like this however, it is special and bigger than the mix itself, so it is more likely to get retweeted on Twitter and shared on Facebook and other social media outlets without you self promoting for hours upon hours.
If you’re making the mix anyway, you might as well set out to raise some money for charity, while increasing your brand image as a DJ; philanthropy is always in style! Borrowing this idea will also allow you, the DJ, to monitor who is downloading your mix because you are individually emailing the link/file to them, so you’ll now know who your true fans are to better pay attention to in the future. You’ll likely be surprised at the number of people who will be down to donate to get a copy of your mix ahead of time.
I’ll even take it a step further for the first DJ who attempts this and be your second donor (because you’re the first donor, remember?). Sound good? Email me at: Mike@TheRealMikeClemente.com when the mix is complete and you’re looking to kick off your campaign and I’ll throw in $25. Scouts honor!
Don’t Make This Twitter Mistake
If it isn’t every day, it is every other day I see people or brands trying to persuade others to follow them on Twitter. The best way to get followers is to engage with amazing content day in and day out; however, it seems like people and brands like giving things away to the 100th or 1,000th (or whatever number it may be) follower they get on Twitter. Let me tell you why this strategy, well, sucks. When somebody’s Twitter page is up to it’s 97th follow, it makes that person or brand long for its 100th follower, for example. You didn’t get the first 97 people to follow you by giving out something publicly, so you don’t need to start now. When you tell somebody the 100th person will get something, like a free drink or free food if it is a bar or restaurant, or a discount on clothing if it is an department store, you are setting yourself up for failure. Not only are you talking to those who already follow you (so it is useless), but you are going to halt those who are likely to follow you. Who will want to be the 98th follower and miss out on the drinks/food or discounts?! Not me for one; most will just wait until the 99th person starts following you and swoop in to claim their prize. This is similar to a radio contest, where the 100th caller wins tickets to a concert, except, Twitter, unlike radio, is transparent; you can’t see the 99th caller with radio, but you can see the 99th follower. For that reason, it’s a pretty ineffective tactic. Moving forward, let’s not oversee what effects this has on the original people who have been following you since day one. I’m a firm believer of inbound marketing, or focusing on those who already focus on you – so in this case, the original 97 followers. When you offer somebody new something, you are in a way screwing over the original people who saw something in you to follow you. While this may be unintentional in your attempt to garner new followers, it is happening. My recommendation is to engage with your original 97 followers in ways where they’ll want to share your Twitter page with friends, family and colleagues. The best way to give out free things in an attempt to do something for your original followers is to do it unexpectedly. If you have a Twitter tactic where you follow everybody who follows you, then you’ll be able to direct message (DM) people and be very personal with them. Maybe you want to reward somebody for having the insight to follow you and being your 100th follower. While you’re not announcing you’re giving out a free drink to your followers, you are still doing something for your follower, who will hopefully be grateful and in turn likely tweet your page to their friends saying what they’ve just won and how awesome you are. Having them, rather than you talk about your page is so much more effective. It’s why people have agents, managers or PR teams working for them – you always want a third party talking about you, so you don’t seem like a self-promoting machine. A final reason you do not want to announce the 100th person will get X, Y & Z is because you never know who that person will be. It is out of your control who decides to eventually be the 100th person, so if you’re deciding to give out a free dinner to that person, and that person lives in New Hampshire and your restaurant is in New York, for example, well how likely is it that they’ll be able to come enjoy a dinner at your place? Not very likely. So now you have done something negative to the person who will clearly miss out on the deal. And that was just an example of an actual person following you, but what about if the 100th “person” it is one of those accounts following 1,507 people with 3 following them – do you really want to reward a robotic like Twitter account? Didn’t think so. Here is what you can do if you’re adamant on telling people you’ll be giving something away for your Twitter followers. Tweet that you’re going to do something special for one follower who emails you at your personal email address. State what the prize will be, so if it is a geographic sensitive prize, like dining at a restaurant, only those who actually live in the vicinity will email you, this way, no body will be let down. If you’re a department store, you don’t have this problem because you should have a website where people can shop online; in that case, just give that one person a special code they can use at the checkout for a discount. When your inbox starts filling up with people who are interested in winning, you’ll need to respond to each and every person, whether they are the winner, or not. These are clearly your fans who care enough to email you – if they took out 2 minutes of their day to email you, you most assuredly better respond even if they haven’t won to keep them engaged with you as a person or brand. They’ll still feel like it was worth their time to email you, so they’ll likely email you again for your next contest.
