This article is a transcript from a talk I gave (with Katharine Holmes) to the Applied Communications Program students at Camosun College.
Enter stage left
Jodie chatted with class for 5-10 minutes asking questions:
- Anyone come to go to school here from out of town? (Threw a chocolate to who answered.)
- How do you find Victoria? (Threw a chocolate to who answered.)
- For everyone, even those from here: Will you be staying in Victoria after? If not, where are you going to go? (Threw a chocolate to who answered.)
- What career are you working towards? (Threw a chocolate to who answered.)
- Noticed everyone in the class has their own websites through the college’s site – what did you guys use to build it? (Threw a chocolate to who answered.)
- What is your dream job? If ANYTHING could happen once you complete this program, would be the most excellent? (Threw a chocolate to who answered.)
- How many people here have a Twitter account? How have you found it so far? Same with Facebook, LinkedIn? (Threw a chocolate to who answered.)
Thank you so much everyone! We are going to start the session – by the way, while Katharine speaks, I will need to go plug the meter – anyone have a loonie can use to make sure I don’t get ticketed?
(A good quarter to half the class starts digging for change – someone in the front row offers up a loonie to Jodie.)
Held up loonie
This is the power of social media right here. Not necessarily money or people buying products from you; sometimes it’s an ear to listen; sometimes it’s help to move your couch; and sometimes it’s about getting a job. Whether you know it nor not, what we just did there was social media, it just happened to be without a computer.
Class clapped.
How less likely would it have been for you have given me the loonie if I had asked the room before I started; before I started giving “rewards” and engaging? How much more likely would it be at the end of this lecture? If I gave a second lecture? If I were your teacher who had been instructing you for a year? You’re more likely to give things (trust, time, money) to people you know and trust – people who have more social currency with you.
Remember that old story of the Little Red Hen? The one where the little red hen finds some grains of wheat, asks if anyone will help her plant, reap, grind, and bake the bread, only to be met with a chorus of “Not I” from the rest of the barnyard crowd? Then she dangles the fresh baked bread in front of the hungry animals “PSYCHE!” and says “No, you can’t have any, you didn’t help me when I asked”. We’re supposed to side with the little red hen because she did all the work. Well… what a sanctimonious, self-righteous so-and-so. I say SHE was the one who was wrong. To come out of the blue, trying to rope all the other animals into working for HER purposes with no tangible reward given or mentioned at any stage? Then she wonders why no one wants to help? If she had played cards with the other animals… had tea… was in the band… whatever, she might have had hope of asking for the other animal’s help.
And, I can hear some of you thinking “Ya, but… people should help, it’s what mom and dad taught us to do”. Really? If someone you didn’t really know came up to you and said “Here, go finish writing this paper”… then said nothing else. No reason why, no talk of a reward after finishing…
You hear me talking about rewards a lot here. People are reward-based; you need to give them rewards. (think of “Good dog, here’s a biscuit”) You remember at the beginning when I was throwing out chocolate to everyone who responded? That was my representation for “reward.” To get what you want out of social media, you need to give people rewards – you need to actually PRE-reward them.
How do you do that – I’m glad you asked.
In social media, attention and acknowledgment are the sought-after rewards. You can’t go around giving out a piece of chocolate to everyone online but you can give @ replies, retweets, comments, responses and likes. Show people you are listening to what they say (notice I didn’t say “reading what they write” here – we are talking to each other, not simply writing). It can’t be all elementary school “but he didn’t do it, so I’m not going to.” – you need to engage freely WITHOUT expectation of reward. Paradox, eh? Your engagement of people needs to be almost altruistic; people can smell inauthentic behaviour from a mile away.
Remember all the animals in the barnyard, the ones the Little Red Hen asked for help? While you shouldn’t be taken advantage of, as much as possible be the animal that actually says “I will” when asked to plant the seeds (otherwise known as “Listen to me! talk to me!) so that when the Hen has baked that bread, she knows who she wants to share with.
Thunderous applause… standing ovation… they picked Jodie up on their shoulders shouting in pure JOY and JUBILATION! Fireworks blasted, bands played and… ya… no. But they did clap ;)
Twitter
Facebook
LinkedIn
Buzz