I grew up practicing direct marketing. It’s a “fire and forget” profession. Send a thousand packages, get a 5 percent to a half percent response. Immediate drop-off.
We obsess about improving the list and the package, straining for quarter percent increases.
Joe Shumard and I launched the Internet Engagement Forum at the Alexandria Chamber of Commerce consciously using social marketing practices.
We started with a list of 20, 15 came to the first meeting, including two who were not on the prospect list.
The next week more than half of the people in the meeting were communicating, as well as three further new people.
In a week we are up five new contributing members…while the quality of the posted discussions is much more valuable than what I took notes on in the original meeting.
We believe the group can continue to grow and discover important ways to improve their businesses largely from social interaction.
That same week as that first AlexChamber meeting, I met Ghassan Haddad who leads the Facebook translations project, 380,000 volunteer translators working in over 300 languages, using computing technology to extend and leverage human efforts.
What I saw Dr. Haddad practicing was a different type of management, building a networked environment where people are playing, at the same time doing large volumes of important work.
What is different?
It turns out that planning and control are less important than I was taught. People who communicate their own interests quickly show real value for the whole group.
What seems to be most important is encouraging and facilitating velocity of communication.
Useful is coming from that.
Saturday, 12 July 2025
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I just bought two. The Intention Economy, which lists at $27 and has been
sold at that price or close to it by Amazon since the book came out, is now
just ...
Direct marketing is divisive by definition. You're playing the odds. Social networking is cumulative. You're playing the numbers. My $0.02.
ReplyDeleteHi Dan!
ReplyDeleteZackly what I was trying to say! Thank you!
Hi, perhaps I can get more info about the Alexandria Chamber initiative? I'm essentially driving the same sort of thing out here in Loudoun County....
ReplyDeleteSeth Godin saw something similar in "Viral growth trumps lots of faux followers" http://sethgodin.typepad.com/seths_blog/2010/02/viral-growth-trumps-lots-of-faux-followers.html
ReplyDelete