UnMarketing & the Social Brain
‘The notion that there is a ‘social brain’ in humans specialized for social interactions has received considerable support from brain imaging and, to a lesser extent, from lesion studies. Specific roles for the various components of the social brain are beginning to emerge. For example, the amygdala attaches emotional value to faces, enabling us to recognize expressions such as fear and trustworthiness’
So starts Chris Frith’s Royal Society article, The social brain?
I was reminded of this as I review my highlights from the start of Scott Stratten’s fast-paced book, UnMarketing: Stop Marketing. Start Engaging. Most of the highlights relate to the social/ trust/ engagement elements of what he writes. I make the links because my observation is that the most successful (Un)marketing comes from the act of engaging the social brain with an individual, company, product or brand. Creating and then building initial trust. Sharing and reciprocating. Acting together for a greater good.
A few of my initial highlights:
Marketing happens every time you engage (or not) with your past, present, and potential customers
….a tremendous trust gap. This is the amount of trust you have to earn before your potential customer will consider buying from you.
….most companies are guilty of hypocritical marketing. Why do we market to people the way we hate to be marketed to?
You’ve got to invest in something before withdrawing. Investing your social currency means giving your time, your knowledge, and your efforts to that channel before trying to withdraw monetary currency.
People don’t care about your business until they know you care about them. Look what gets shared on Facebook or retweeted on Twitter. It’s not ads or pitches. It’s knowledge. It’s stuff that makes people say “awesome” and they need to tell others about it.
Build a small stage—your platform—that you’re going to stand on and get people to come to. Pick one place where you want people to find you and play your best “show” there for as long as it takes to build a solid following
There are three steps to successfully building your platform: Traction, momentum, and expansion.
Momentum is the time when you switch from looking for new relationships toward enhancing current ones.
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