Want to Change Audience Behavior? Give ‘Em a Nudge.
Effective public relations and marketing stems from understanding human psychology. We spend hours, days, months brainstorming unique campaigns and strategies to mobilize people and prompt action based on perception of an audience’s past and future thinking and behavior.
We’re also big idea people. With any new client or project, there is a natural tendency to assume that a campaign or idea needs to be drastically BIG, BOLD and revolutionary. We pride ourselves on paving new ground.
The reality is that many business problems can be solved when a moderate change is made and effectively implemented. In other words, a solution is devised to address the exact problem. Easier said than done but think about the number of times your team has created a big idea to win a piece of business, only to end up implementing the idea on a much smaller scale that focuses in on effective tactical execution.
In short, we don’t always need to create ideas that move mountains. Instead, think in terms of creating a “nudge” – a small change that generates the desired impact on target audience behavior. Huh? Let’s look at a very practical example of a nudge.
I would imagine that when you open the fridge in your office’s kitchen, it is stocked full of sugary liquid goodness ranging from sodas to fruit juices, Rockstar energy drinks and beyond. Not exactly the dream setup for a company HR rep looking to establish a healthy office environment. Now imagine if those eye-level shelves staring back at you were filled with bottled water and the other sugary drinks were a bit harder to reach. Naturally, people will begin drinking more water because it’s the first option presented and easiest to access. That’s a nudge (see the Nudge blog for plenty of more examples). No drastic cost. No drastic change in methodology. Rather a simple adjustment from what’s deemed the norm.
But how does one figure out how to arrive at what creates a good nudge? Great question.
There are many approaches that can be implemented. One method is to think in terms of negatives. It’s always easier to get a group to think about the ways or reasons something can’t work or reasons why your target audience would not do something. From there, you can flip your ideas and see which ideas surface as really strong reasons your audience would take a certain action oriented towards your desired goal. So in the example above, an HR rep would start by brainstorming all the reasons someone in your office would not want a bottle of water. From that list, the HR rep would reverse engineer positioning around why water is an excellent first choice.
Think about your client base and the business problems you’re working to help clients solve on a daily basis. What can you do to step back, simplify and start thinking nudges as opposed to revolutionary change?
*Photo courtesy of Ben Terrett.
Three Keys to Becoming a Successful Digital Strategist
"Thinker" by J.A.C.K.
So, you’re a digital strategist. But, what exactly do you do?
It’s a question I field at least twice a week and I’ve come to realize that I rarely answer the question in exactly the same way.
In short, I help clients achieve online marketing goals by crafting creative social campaigns and managing a variety of digital projects. I research and dig up communities, brand advocates and other target audiences and think about the best way to reach those audiences. I trendspot and think about new ways of connecting clients and brands to their target audiences and key influencers. I shoot videos, manage website builds, drive brainstorms, analyze design elements, plan blog content and drum up creative marketing and community engagement strategies across a variety of social channels. I help measure, analyze and assess the results of the effort, tweak and do it all over again. Oh yeah, and I drum up new business. That’s just the start…
One thing is for certain – being a digital strategist is never a dull gig. As I’ve specifically focused on digital strategy for the past six years, I’ve naturally had plenty of opportunity to interact with other digital strategists in the industry. In my opinion, there are three key personal qualities that regularly surface among good digital strategists.
1. Flexibility
It’s easy to be impatient in our hyper-connected, million mentions and messages per minute industry. It’s also absolutely critical that a good digital strategist be patient and flexible. A digital strategist at an agency will typically be pulled into five or six completely different projects on any given day. It can be demanding not having 100% background and insight into a project yet still having to deliver input by a set deadline. That’s also what keeps the job exciting and challenging at the same time. My biggest piece of advice for any aspiring digital strategist is to make every effort to get your hands on as many projects as possible. The learnings across different brands and industries will be invaluable down the line.
2. Creativity
Digital strategists are most frequently utilized at agencies to manage particular online marketing projects to support account teams around an integrated communications strategy. Personally, I source creativity from a variety of channels at all points throughout my day and through a LOT of reading and analysis. Oddly enough, most ideas for projects I work on rarely surface during brainstorms or on demand but instead often bubble up while driving, surfing the Web on my own time, working out, or doing something completely non-work related. The end point being that it helps tremendously if you’re rooted in thinking outside the box and good at inspiring and training others on your team to think differently. You will thrive if you are someone that constantly thinks ahead and looks at things from a unique perspective. Proactive creativity is often a distinguishing factor that elevates a digital strategist from good to great.
3. Drive
There is a reason that most digital strategists seem as though they are online or connected at all times. They are.
Some of this certainly stems from the nature of the industry but strong digital strategists have a natural drive and passion to learn about new trends and gather insight well ahead of the curve. We want to be the first ones to apply a new effective creative strategy or tactic that will help our clients achieve their goals. As a result, you often see digital strategists running multiple blogs on their own or actively creating content across the Web to gather, organize and share their thoughts in a coherent format.
BONUS: Ability to Roll With the Punches
In their book Rework, Jason Fried and David Heinemeier talk about how it’s pointless to waste time creating long-range plans. It’s true. In today’s communications world, plans and priorities change in a moment’s notice and things rarely go exactly how you intend. It is a point I stress repeatedly when speaking with college students that are preparing for graduation. If you want to be successful, you need to move quick, be flexible and learn that success typically occurs when you hit 75% of your intended vision.
These three are certainly a start but what other strong personality traits do you often see in solid digital strategists?
Image courtesy of J.A.C.K.
4 Key Storytelling Lessons to Learn From @the3six5
Last September, I had the pleasure of contributing a post to the3six5 project. Since 2010, I’ve tracked the project closely and have fallen into the routine of waking up, rolling over, checking my phone and reading the day’s new post before hopping out of bed. The routine may seem a bit odd to some, but I’m a storytelling nut and these posts often satisfy my yearning for a quick This American Life-esque nugget to kick off my day.
the3six5
If you’ve never checked out the project, I highly encourage you to click above. Recently, I paired it down to three core elements that I think the Project does well to captivate and maintain attention and community with their approach.
1. Photos First
The era of visual sharing is exploding. With so much to explore and share across the Web, images remain a primary asset that people love to share. By requiring every post to incorporate an image, the3six5 forces authors to present something that captures the creative nature of their post while also serving up a strong point of entry to pique interest from readers.
2. Consistency
Where many blogs fail is on the consistency front. At the beginning of each year, the3six5 recruits editors to manage the ed cal throughout the year and ensure that every single day is covered with a new post and author. It’s beyond impressive and of course the project wouldn’t live up to its name if this wasn’t the case. Regardless, it is this consistent nature of one new post a day that keeps people like me intrigued and reading/engaging with the content on a daily basis.
3. Simple, Digestable Format
I love how the team has kept the site incredibly simple through the use of a Posterous blog. Easy backend management and the chosen layout keeps the posts front and center with quick load times.
4. Spontaneity and Emotion
You didn’t think I would forget the content piece did you?
I’m always impressed by the diverse set of voices the editors recruit for a year’s worth of content. When submitting a post, editors request that you truly use the blog as an opportunity to capture the moment of the day and as a unique reflection point for your post topic. The approach pushes authors to dig deep and serves as a proof point that there is a story behind every person, every action, every encounter that we experience on a daily basis. We’re humans and we love human stories.
For me, it’s a constant reminder that each and every day is an adventure in and of itself and that no matter what, we should all aim to treat the next 24 hours as such.
Go. Get in the mix. Tell your friends. There are still plenty of spots to fill for 2012 authors.
We’ll see you around the 3six5.
