Dan Zarrella spends more time crunching the numbers on social media than anyone else we know. He recently proposed something he calls Zarrella’s Hierarchy of Contagiousness, which breaks down thusly:

  • First, someone must be able to receive your message
  • Then, they must be interested in your message
  • And then they must be motivated to take action

Zarrella’s analysis makes sense to us. But, as he admits, that means there are pitfalls every step of the way.

If you want someone to see your message, they have to know you exist.

If you want someone to pay attention, you have to give them a reason to care.

And if you want someone to take action, you have to provide a value or solve a problem that they recognize as a problem in the first place.

Yes, you can work diligently to improve your message’s odds of being noticed, cared about or acted upon. But in order to do that most effectively, you need to understand your audience. Otherwise, you’re shooting in the dark.

Lead Generation Isn’t Customer Retention

In a guest post for Lauren Fernandez’s blog, Mack Collier makes 6 great points about how to build a successful online community.  But Mack’s definition of “success” is fairly altruistic: he champions values like interaction, engagement, loyalty and respect.

Do you?

Social media makes it easy to share your message with millions.  But broadcasting to numbers is different than broadcasting to people.

You may have an email list with 20,000 names on it… but how many of those names do you know?

How many of those names know you?

If you’re marketing to strangers, you’re forever playing catch-up.  But the more aware you are of who’s listening to you, what they like and what they need, the better the chances that the solutions you provide them with will stand out.

And when you prove that you care about your customers, your actions invite them to care about your business the same way you care about your business.

You do care about your business… don’t you?

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