On February 11, 2011 I attended a workshop with Jeff Quipp of Search Engine People as the keynote speaker. I was amazed at all of the valuable information Jeff was giving to the attendees. It was the type of information most small businesses would pay hundreds of dollars to hear from a consultant. The workshop was a mere $25, so I couldn’t help but feel like I was stealing the knowledge from Jeff’s brain!
At one point in his presentation Jeff put a quote on a slide from the founder of Geek Squad:
“Advertising is a tax for being unremarkable”
When I heard the quote I was instantly intrigued by the concept that social media can do for a great product or concept, what millions of marketing dollars can’t do for something that is average.
I started to think of all of the remarkable things that I have come across via social media. Jeannette’s Custom Cakes came to mind. Jeannette is a very talented baker in my hometown of Sault Ste. Marie who started to bake and decorate cakes out of her home as a side business. The cakes are absolutely stunning and with each photograph she shared on Twitter, Facebook or her blog her business grew more and more. Jeannette’s Custom Cakes is now a full time business with many loyal customers. (She even created Lucidia’s 10th Anniversary Cake!)
Jeannette’s cakes are remarkable, so she doesn’t need a fancy ad in the Yellow Pages, or a commercial or a billboard. She just needs to continue sharing what she is doing via social media and the news and good reviews will spread like wildfire.
Jeff mentioned in his presentation that social media is an accelerant to word of mouth. It is like gasoline to a fire. If something is authentic and remarkable it will spread through your network with very little effort on your part. I recently found an example of this in the Baby Emerson video on YouTube.
Emerson is an adorable baby who found the sound of his mother blowing her nose both hilarious and frightening. The video was posted by Emerson’s mother Karen Yeo who wanted to share the moment with her friends and family. The video makes you happy and it makes you smile, so your first instinct is to share the feeling with someone else you know. The sharing took Emerson’s video to 9 million views in under a week. Emerson and his family were even invited onto the Today Show and Good Morning America. (Fun fact, Emerson’s grandfather lives in Sault Ste. Marie and they shared the link on our local news site Sootoday.com)
On the flip side, this type of accelerant can work against you. Customers can complain about companies online and gain the attention of millions. A prime example of this is the United Breaks Guitars YouTube video. David Caroll created a music video about his experience when a United Airlines employee broke his guitar and the company refused to compensate him for it. The video generated 5 million views in a month and a half. By the time United Airlines responded, their reputation was tarnished by rapid word of mouth.
After four hours, I was over the moon excited about everything I learned in Jeff’s presentation. The cherry on top was how Jeff got me to think about how social media is affecting me and how remarkable things are coming to me daily because of the power of sharing. An example of this is ModCloth.com. I used to see ads online for ModCloth online daily. They were everywhere and I never clicked o them because I often do not trust online advertising. One day I saw a friend of mine posted a link to ModCloth.com on her Facebook, and because I trust my friends I decided to visit the site.
Jeff’s final slide of the presentation summed it all up perfectly:
“You can’t just say it. You have to get the people to say it to each other”
–James Farley, FORD
Jeff Quipp’s workshop was organized by the Sault Ste. Marie Innovation Centre. You can find his presentation here.
