Did you know that using the ‘Law of Liking’ can ignite your social media network into an excited tribe, eager to get their hands on your brand?

Let me tell you a story about a recent client of mine. My author wrote a powerful story about coming of age in the 60′s. Once we started her social media campaign, one of her readers reached out to use to share her story and reaction to my author’s book. The reader’s story was just as powerful as the author’s story. So, we asked her to write a guest post. Additionally, she was eager to share her work with her friends in Facebook,  Twitter, and her other networks.

Once we published the guest post, the author’s blog traffic skyrocketed and we quickly built an exciting tribe. With just one guest post, the author’s traffic to her blog doubled. Doubled!

So how did the author’s campaign take off so quickly? We used one of the oldest rules of engagement known to mankind, the ‘Law of Liking.’ Want to know how it works? Read on.

Most of us wouldn’t find this surprising, for the most part, we tend to say yes to who we like. What’s surprising, however, is that as simple as this Law of Liking sounds, we can use it to get hundreds of strangers to do what we ask. Even build a remarkable tribe.

Social media channels have given companies a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to shed the fortifications of the corporate culture and let employees, which is who they are, (a collection of people working toward a common goal) connect with stakeholders. Both are people who care and share and want to be recognized.

As a public relations professional working the Literary angle for the minute, I find empowerment through three characteristics of the ‘Law of Liking’ grows social media tribes efficiency:

• Appreciate stakeholders publicly.
• Accept stakeholders as part of the business culture and openly acknowledge their input.
• Affirm stakeholders commitments and contributions large and small for everyone to see.

Using this method, savvy companies have built empires out of friends of friends who like buy from friends that like the same products and services. In fact, when this law is applied to marketing, “the strength of that social bond is twice as likely to determine produce purchase as is preference for the product itself,” according to Robert Cialdini, a leading researcher on the psychology of influence and persuasion.

Let’s think about this and your brand. After all, your brand is  produced for mass consumption, so one way to increase the likelihood that people celebrate your brand lies with your stakeholder’s friends.

To increase the odds people will celebrate you brand,  consider two additional points:

1. Make sure your product is fairly priced.
2. Create a likable persona, because people buy from people they like.

An additional point to consider is the halo effect. This occurs when something positive happens to a stakeholder, and others view of that person. If your brand happens to be the catalyst that set things in motion, then your stakeholder’s friends will notice and spread the word.

Furthermore, researchers have discovered that talent, kindness, honesty and intelligence are traits to which we automatically assign favor. So, exercise these in your social engagement.

Creating Similarity with the ‘Law of Liking’ Drives Awareness

A simple fact about similarity is this. We are attracted to people like us. This holds true with opinions as well. Strengthening your social network online requires a creation and sharing of similar, and favorable opinions.

With this idea, business executives should invite one or two people with similar opinions about the their brand to begin a conversation and share those thoughts with others. You will find that shared opinions grow wildly when they are the topic of discussion, especially positive ones.

Use Compliments to Spread Positive Energy and Excitement

Earlier, I briefly mentioned the three A’s of the ‘Law of Liking.’ Compliments affirm and the simple ones are the most powerful. We soak up flattery like sponges, and we tend to like those who praise us often.

As a rule, we instantaneously  have a positive reaction to compliments. I might add, however, that these should be genuine. Research says we cling to false praise as well. This type fails to honor people and typically can be detected by any bullshit radar. Be genuine.

Spread Your Message Widely for Maximum Impact

Studies have also found “often we don’t realize that our attitudes toward something has been influenced by the number of times we have been exposed to it in the past.” Use this tactic to your benefit.

As you build a social tribe around a brand, look for opportunities to spread the good news and stories about your new product. Ask others to do the same. This is much like farming and seeding a field. Lay out seed generously wherever bare ground shows, you’ll find, that seed germinates into beautiful crops, and so will you harvest more people interested in your brand, and more stories about to share. This is truly a bumper crop strategy you can’t afford to pass up.

I’d like to hear your brand stories. Share them below.

What do journalists want to see in online newsrooms? There’s been studies to suggest media professionals are looking for this information:

• Public relations contact information
• Basic facts about your organization
• Repository of principal position
• Online media kits

A recent study by the Nielsen Norman Group highlighted reasons journalists visit online newsrooms. And numerous other studies have concluded similar findings. Your online newsroom needs at least have four basic components.

Offer the contact information of your organization’s public relations representative up front. The web is the Yellow Pages of the twenty-first century. Journalists get cranky when they have to search for information that should be easy to fine. They get testy because of the tremendous deadline pressure upon them. When you make this contact information easy to find, you make a journalist’s job easier. That might be just what they need to experience nirvana.  Include the following contact information:

• Phone number(s) including  mobile number
• Email
• Twitter handle
• Skype

Provide basic organizational facts, names of key leaders and dates of action. Media professionals know its easier to research facts on the Internet, than to call your public relations representative. Because both your organizations public relations staff and journalists are busy, offering this information in an easy-to-find format will eliminate the incessant phone calls from journalist about simple questions, and it frees up the PR staff to work on more pressing issues.

The online newsroom should be the repository of all official actions and statements an organization makes. The information should be organized logically by category and in sequence in which it happened in time. This is the living history of your company. Organizing information any other way seems to make journalists cantankerous.

Supply reporters with online media kits. In these media kits, make things easy to download. Provide images for print and web. This last point is important because journalists may come to your website to download artwork to augment their story creation. This includes written work that is ready to be downloaded and dropped into stories. Additionally, artwork should be 300 dpi for broadcast reproduction, 72 dpi for web production and high-res artwork for print production.

Building an online newsroom into your website is important for journalists to do their jobs better. It makes their work easier. More importantly, it could quite possibly turn out more media coverage for your organization. This always shows your stakeholders that the organization is on the move and gives an impression of growth.

How important are online newsrooms, any way? Read my post Using Online Newsrooms to Gain More Media Coverage.

How do you covert news that’s happening in and with your company into bona fide media to drive sales? Adding to your website an online newsroom my just do the trick.

Research conducted this year found a growing number of media professionals believe online newsrooms available and open to the press are very important. In fact, nearly every journalist surveyed for this study expected businesses to have an online newsroom. Additionally, nearly all of the journalists said it was very important to have public relations contact information readily available in the newsroom. And, these same people want to have access to news releases and over vital company information at their finger tips.

Here’s the kicker. Nearly all of these folks reported that the ability to search news archives within an online news isimportant.

Bottom line? Journalists expect you to have an online newsroom.

According to one report, “journalist have increasingly found online newsrooms useful and important.” And if you thought online newsrooms were for large corporations. Think again. “With the rise of social media and the increasing need for search engine optimized content, all organizations need to take advantage of online newsrooms,” cites the study.

To compare last year’s data read my summary: Are Journalists Discounting Newsroom

Since nearly all journalists prefer to use online newsrooms because they increase productivity, then isn’t providing easy-to-find, relevant, timely content  certainly one way to help increase your chances of coverage. Let’s not forget, journalists actually like working in these environments

In fact, next to providing newsworthy content, making it easily accessible is probably the most important media relations activity your company can perform.

So What About Driving Sales

Studies have shown time again, sales increase in proportion to media coverage. In one such study, researchers tracked sales in relationship to the amount of media attention a product received. I wrote about this study in “Do You Want to Increase Your Profits.”THe data is staggering. That’s how to gain more media coverage.

As a journalist, I learned headlines had to grab a reader’s attention. If the headline was sloppy a reader lost attention. So, if getting leads from blogging is important to you, sloppy headlines might be costly.

But if you make people curious they investigate things further. They follow proverbial breadcrumbs to the answers that sparked their interest in the first place. This is how the Law of Curiosity works. And it can be used to make powerful headlines.

 

When you create the right gap of information between what people know and what they want to know (or need to know), this becomes a powerful driving force. People just want to know more and sometimes they just don’t know why. Yet, they follow the breadcrumbs.

Here are a few headline ideas you can use to attract more readers and perhaps gain more leads to grow your business.

• Learn how (put your thing here) can (add the benefit here)

Example: Learn How The Curiosity Can Drive More Readers to Your Blog

• Do you know how to earn (add the benefit here) with (put your thing here)?

Example: Do you know how to earn online authority with strategically planned editorial calendar?

• Did you there’s a way to (add the benefit here) with (put your thing here)?

Example: Did you there’s a way to be a better financial advisor with a highly targeted media campaign?

The basic formula for developing headlines that use the Law of Curiosity goes something like this:

[Your Product or Service] + [Benefit to the Reader (typically tied to a specific business problem)] = [Curiosity in the reader]

Your can switch the benefit and put it before the service, and you should also consider posing headlines as questions. But at times, it’s effective to pose the headline as a statement, like I did here.

Joe Paterno’s is alive and well, but a viral message — a lie, in fact — spread like wildfire from a seemingly innocuous report from a student-run blog. Poynter Institute’s Jeff Sonderman reports on the blunder here, “How false reports of Joe Paterno’s death were spread and debunked.”

This is a perfect demonstration of the viral nature of social media, on the one hand. And, quite frankly, the sloppy fact checking of mainstream media outlets on the other. So, there are two forces that worked together, a juicy lie about a celebrity that’s been hammered in the news of late, and the absence of due diligent, gold ol’ fashion fact checking by mainstream media outlets.

While I’m not writing to point out another sloppy reporting job, if a lie about your company goes viral overnight, you may choke on your morning coffee at “news” headlining CNN. Having a social media strategy and public relations tools in place could advert and ameliorate such damage control.

Here are the tools you need to save your brand:

• A listening platform, such as, SM2 or Radian6
• A blog
• A twitter account
• A Fan Page on Facebook
• A YouTube Channel
• A media distribution service

You will also need a well-defined crisis communication plan that defines EVERY scenario that could effect your organization. While addressing a comprehensive crisis communication plan is out of the scope of this post, here are some very tactical tools you need prepared BEFORE disaster strikes:

• Media Standby Document
• Talking Points
• Pre-Written Media Advisory
• Pre-Written blog post

In addition to these, your organization should have a communications professional and a senior manager on speed dial, as well as key media contacts you trust. Your communication professional and senior manager should be on-call 24/7.

MAKE SURE TO ALERT YOUR EMPLOYEES FIRST.

UPDATE: January 22, 2012, 12:49pm: A statement from the Paterno family says Joe Paterno passed away early this morning. We will have more on the college newspaper’s leak, if it was one indeed later.