A 1000 Little Pictures, A 1000 Little Conversations

Gary Vaynerchuk makes a great point here about the effectiveness of mass marketing vs. conversational marketing.  In this case he argues that telling stories about your brand on a daily basis is more effective than blasting out a generic press release and hoping that it gets covered.

The part I like the most is when he’s talking about “painting a thousand little pictures”.  For me, these little pictures are also conversations.  By interacting with consumers on a daily basis, you’re planting the seeds of PR.  Journalists today don’t need press releases.  They have Google, Twitter, Facebook and REAL people to tell them what the stories are.  They don’t need (or believe) BS press releases that pound their inbox everyday.

Instead of taking the short cut and *hoping* that a journalist will buy what you’re selling on press release, go out make it real and make them *want* to write about your brand.

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Another Point for Authenticity

Today I was reading Peter Bregman’s piece on Harvard Business Publishing called Why Small Businesses With Win in This Economy.

The crux of the article is that people no longer trust big companies. Duh.  But the new insight is that people no longer trust the big companies they work for, which is leading to a trickle-down effect of mistrust and corporate suspicion.

As I read this piece, I realized that the word “small” could be interchanged with “authentic”.  Authentic companies will win in this economy because:

• People want to have REAL conversations with REAL people.
• Employees who are authentically excited about their job/employer/company sell their brand or service without even knowing it.
• An authentic brand creates sustainable word-of-mouth recommendations

Small companies have an advantage in that it’s just easier to be authentic.  But even the biggest of companies can authentic – they just need to think and act small.

Mark Silva Interview

Mark Silva is internet pioneer.  Not only does he run one of the best interactive agencies in the country (Real Branding in San Francisco), he also started RealBeer.com way back before blogs and user generated content were buzz words du jour.

I had a chance chat with Mark Silva before we headed into the Great American Beer Festival this past week.  In less than 3 minutes, Mark manages to summarize how companies need to connect with consumers in the web 2.0 age.  Then we went inside and drank some beer.

For more on how Mark thinks, check out his blog.

For those of you reading via RSS, click here for the video.

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