Guy Kawasaki is regarded as the father of evangelism in business. Evangelism is a religious term. He drove loyalty to Macintosh computers by converting followers to the gospel of Apple. This loyalty is akin to a religious belief and carries on unabated today.
In his books The Macintosh Way, The Art of the Start and How to Drive Your Competition Crazy, he praises evangelism as the act of wanting to make the world a better place by building a critical mass of support for a technology or product.
His latest theme book Enchantment extends his evangelistic crusade. It is done out of pure belief and hope, doing it for money may even offend the pure evangelist.
So it is with being a Social Media Missionary.
You can’t help but share the gospel of social media. You are drawn to it. You love it. It doesn’t work without converting friends, family, and following celebrities, colleagues, and business prospects.
Some regard it as a mission, a crusade, others aren’t offended at all by huge amounts of money that come their way for being a social media missionary. The whole point of social media is sharing ... it doesn’t even work without sharing.
What is often lacking is a clear strategy.
Here are the 6 Levels of How to Be a Social Media Missionary:
- Level 1: Core
- Level 2: Coach
- Level 3: Curate
- Level 4: Create
- Level 5: Collaborate
- Level 6: Consult
LEVEL 1: Core. These are the very basics of social media I call the Core.
Most people don’t get past the 6 Core Skills:
- Complete
- Content
- Community
- Connect
- Comment
- Call to Action
Skill 1: Complete.
The obvious rookie is the one without a picture on their profile who wonders why nothing is happening. The next has a picture that is so small or of so many other people that nobody can see who they are.
80% of the battle is completing the 7 P’s:
- Purpose
- Platform
- Plan
- Passion
- Prioritize
- Profile
- Persist
First define your Purpose: Why use social media?
Second choose your Platform(s): LinkedIn for business. Facebook for personal use and consumers, Blogs for serious authors and thought-leaders. Google+ is for showing up in the Google search engine. Twitter to amplify and broadcast your message. Pinterest and Instagram promote images of your thoughts and expression.
Third form your Plan: Spend time searching Google for How-To’s, Best Practices, Tips, Tricks, Top Mistakes, etc. The one article that really opened my eyes for my original blog www.KenKrogue.com was 31 Days to Build a Better Blog by Darren Rowse of ProBlogger. Darren gave a plan; 1 thing to do every day.
Fourth Prepare your resources: Once you have your purpose, platform and plan, prepare your resources for the other social media skills and stages. Continue to prepare your knowledge and experience by daily and weekly study of thought leaders and what is working.
Fifth Prioritize your resources: Many social media platforms allow you to Tag, Circle, Group or List people by categories. These categories should reflect your purpose and plan, which most people forget. LinkedIn connections should be targeted to your market and community. Facebook Groups allow you to follow, like and share with like-minded people by hobby, interest, locale, etc.
Sixth complete your Profile: Now make your profile accomplish your purpose. Take the time to incorporate all you have done into the structure of your profile. If your purpose on LinkedIn is to promote your business, then don’t make it look like an online resume that is trying to get you a job. My good friend Koka Sexton, the #1 Social Salesperson in the World, according to a roundup commissioned by KiteDesk, has curated his Epic list of LinkedIn Profile Tips … start there.
Seventh Persist: Consistently work your plan. Weekly is a minimum, daily is ideal. Tools like BufferApp and Hootsuite and TweetDeck provide incredible leverage.
Skill 2: Content.
First is the content for your own profile. If you are a good writer, speaker or videographer, you can generate your own content. If not, you can do just fine by curating, or shaping and promoting other people's content.
Follow the 6 B’s:
- Bio
- Background
- Backstory
- Beliefs
- Bridge
- Benefits
Your Bio. Tell the world who you are with your elevator pitch. When someone asks, “So tell me about you.” You have 30 seconds … go! On Twitter you have 3 seconds or 140 characters.
Your Background. Why should somebody believe you? Do you have credibility? Do you inspire confidence? Are you real? Share pictures and videos. Show (don’t just tell) where you came from: your family, your friends, your education, your work experience, your hobbies, your passions, your mistakes, your successes. What have you done?
Your Backstory. This is the deeper part of your background, your struggles, your growth, your setbacks, your success. This is your heart and soul, the part that makes you human. Don’t be afraid to share some of this with your audience so you become real.
Your Beliefs. Share your own unique slant on things, your opinions, what makes you unique. Open up. I’m not a fan of political correctness; too politically charged and skewed. It doesn’t allow people to be themselves. Don’t be afraid to stir the pot a bit by speaking out. A little controversy is OK. The best conversations come when you take a stand with a strong opinion.
Social media is about real content.
Provide a Bridge. A bridge is a common connection. My specialties are inside sales and social selling. I get sales leaders and marketers talking. This is a bridge. The best conversations I have on social media are when I constructively connect to people not in my everyday communities.
State the Benefits for following you. Why should someone join your conversation? What’s in it for them? What memories, knowledge, gossip, ideas, prestige, or career advancement do you offer?
Skill 3: Community.
What is a community? A community is a group of people with common experience or interest:
- Family
- Friends
- Neighbors
- Schoolmates
- Military
- Work
- Professions
- Hobby Groups
- Networking Groups
- Common Passions (aka Mac owners)
A good strategy as you join or rejoin communities is to start with your past, move to the present, and plan for the future. The best communities are those that already exist with common interest or common experience. Not just an audience, but fans and cheerleaders for your ideas.
I focus on business communities, but these Core Skills apply just as readily for individuals, families, nonprofits, churches, gamers or hobbyists.
My friend Trish Bertuzzi formed a LinkedIn Group years ago called Inside Sales Experts. At most recent count there are 48,550 members who are active in her community.
Prepare your community resources. Just this past week, I decided to reconnect with my former classmates at the United States Naval Academy. Where did I go?
My yearbook …
Skill 4: Connect.
Connecting to other people is a skill all its own. In 2007 as a newbie on LinkedIn, I tried to connect to people everywhere, whether they knew me or not. I about got banned because people didn’t know me. I soon learned that to connect I need awareness or an existing relationship.
Skill 5: Comment.
Comments are the basic element of interaction on social media. Comments start engagement.
How should you comment?
Be thoughtful. Show that you have read or viewed their content. Don’t just make a “drive-by comment.” Ask a compelling question or make a strong statement to start conversations, which are two-way comments going back and forth.
A conversation is key to engagement.
How do you get others to comment?
- Ask a question.
- Request feedback.
- Stir the pot.
- State a strong opinion.
- Prime the pump with a first comment.
Make comments on Facebook posts, blogs, books reviews on Amazon, and articles on Forbes. As you do so invite the author or other commenters to respond to your comment, you now have a conversation.
Skill 6: Call to Action.
The simplest call to action is to ask a question or to elicit a comment.
Next would be to get someone to follow you, friend you, share your, pin you or to fill out a form to capture an email address, or to bridge to another media like email or the phone.
If your purpose is generating leads, a call to action would include offering a valuable piece of content in exchange for a name, phone number and email address.
If your purpose is supporting a cause, a call to action would be to join a group, or perhaps to make a donation, or provide a referral.
LEVEL 2: Coach.
Now it is time to preach the gospel of social media, time to share. Coaches are more powerful than teachers because a coach teaches, demonstrates, models, provides feedback, and stays with their subject over time to make sure they know how to do the skills, not just understand the skills … big difference.
LEVEL 3: Curator.
What a strange word. Where do you find a Curator? In a museum or an art gallery. They arrange content, usually from other people. They shape the flow of people to optimize and maximize enjoyment and education. They arrange content to increase value and engagement.
LEVEL 4: Creator.
A Creator writes, designs, directs, photographs, records or generates content instead of arranging content from other people. Forbes.com calls their non-staff writers Contributors. They contribute well-written or quality content in categories with which they have expertise.
LEVEL 5: Collaborator.
Now that your campaigns generate results, it is time to increase the effect by aligning with other social media missionaries.
My favorite story about collaboration is Lindsey Stirling, the dancing dubstep violinist with 700 million views that is one of the most popular stars on YouTube. Her most popular original music video Crystallize alone has 104,152,469 views. Crystallize - Lindsey Stirling (Dubstep Violin Original Song)
Her backstory was that three years ago she was thrown off America’s Got Talent and rejected by normal music labels as too different. No market … Wrong!
She tried her hand at YouTube and did her first Collab music video with Devin Graham, known as Devin SuperTramp; the master videographer. Her followers followed Devin, and his followers followed her, a true win-win.
Devin had already made a huge name for himself on the team with the Orabrush videos that went viral, claims to have finally solved bad breath, and drove sales through every Walmart in America. Clients soon followed like Ford and Mountain Dew and crazy extreme video projects like filming the Worlds largest rope swing (24 million views!)
Lindsey Stirling collaborated with new independent recording artists like The Piano Guys, Pentatonix, Peter Hollens, Alex Boye, Kuha'o Case, John Legend, Tyler Ward and many more.
She tapped followers from well known video game communities with her rendition of music themes from Zelda , Pokemon, Halo, Assassins Creed as well as lovers of Phantom of the Opera, Star Wars and Mission Impossible.
Watch closely for more from Lindsey Stirling and Devin SuperTramp!
LEVEL 6: Consultant.
The final level is the one that helps others through the 7 Levels of Social Media. Now that you Coach others through the Core Skills and have proven you can Curate, Contribute, Campaign and Collaborate, it is time to Consult to help individuals and organizations do the same.
When I consult with a client I ask, “What would I do if I were you?” Then I help them accomplish their purpose with a plan. Guide them through the pitfalls and accelerate their learning curve.
Social Media Missionary friends like Jill Konrath, Jill Rowley, Gabe Villamizar, Matt Heinz, Lori Richardson, Joanne Black, Jamie Shanks, Craig Elias, Mike Damphousse, Jeffrey Gitomer, Jim Keenan, Josianne Feigon, Kyle Porter and many others make a living consulting and spreading the gospel of social selling and social media.
Evangelists like Koka Sexton, the product manager at LinkedIn on the Sales Navigator product, and Jorge Soto of Twitter share their own platform's flavor of social media.
The ultimate minister or preacher of the gospel of social media is a Consultant, someone who has mastered the the 6 Levels of Social Media and beyond.
