Say it Better

Deadbeat Parents or ….

Good Parents Pay? Like so many things in life, we can attempt to paint a positive “spin” picture with words, yet the true colors show through.

So what would you call a web site that invites friends, neighbors, work colleagues and even family members to turn in parents who try to skip out on their child support payments?

Another jurisdiction also puts a positive spin on its program called SupportKids and still another is simply called Office of Child-Support Enforcement.

In one of those synchronistic happenings I heard about this from two people, one a librarian who signed up for my newsletter after reading about my upcoming keynote for the Canadian Library Association. Then Donna Papacosta posted wry commentary about it at Trafcom.

There are many ways to speak English like it tastes good or grab their attention. Also visit Azriel Winnett's bountiful and well-designed communications skills portal, Hodu.

Still the best book on Influence is the one by Cialdini.

You as unforgettable

A reporter once breathlessly approached, Calvin Coolidge, the U.S.’s 30th president, most notable as a man of few words. The reporter said, “Mr. President, I bet my colleague here I could get you to say three words.” Coolidge’s reply, “You lose.”

When novelist Stephen King was asked how he made his stories so gripping, he replied, “I cut out the boring parts.” 

He’s also said, “People want to know why I do this, why I write such gross stuff. I like to tell them I have the heart of a small boy -- and I keep it in a jar on my desk.”

With a one, two punch King pulls you in.

The opposite approach looks like underbrush, obscuring anything that might be significant.

Consider, for example, this excerpt from the Urban Tulsa Weekly, “At last, the lip service that education has been lathered in for the past couple of decades seems to have found the razor’s edge among people who are willing to do something about improving it here, at the elementary level all the way up through public universities. But as budgets continue to be shaved, will the arts once again be trimmed from the programming?”

Indeed. As The New Yorker puts it, “block that metaphor.”

turning an idea viral

Thomas Baekdal identified seven "tricks" to viral or word-of-mouth marketing, where "your campaign will suddenly get a life of its own...Everyone want to see it, and when they do, they all want to share it."

Seth Godin and Malcomb Gladwell and many others have covered this this topic.

Thus this is an old topic in Web time yet his points are straightforward.

Here's the first two:

1: Make people feel something

The most important trick of all is to create a very strong emotion. You need to have an opinion, to express an idea with commitment and dedication. You want people to:
• be filled with love or hate.
• be very happy or insanely angry
• be an idiot or a genius
• be deeply compassionate or an egoistic bitch

You want people's blood to be pumping of excitement. Forget neutral, trying to please everyone, supporting several target groups or any of the many ways to be unbiased. Viral marketing is 100% about emotions.

2: Do something unexpected

Forget about trying to promote your products as just being great - everybody does that. Forget about trying to make it look cool - everyone else has "been there, done that". Remember the bear being attacked by a man? That was unexpected - and it is one the most effective viral advertisements ever.

Methinks the music world continues to blaze the viral trail.

Well, here the medium is the message. It's an attempt to start a viral campaign by offering a free book on (what else) how to jumpstart a viral campaign. Ironically, when you attempt to access the URL it times out.