Engaging: The Naked CowboyPosted by Chad on February 19th, 2011

“The internet is Time Square. It’s Billboards, it’s everything, you’re getting hit by stuff left and right. How do you stand out?… You’ve got to be engaging.” – C.C. Chapman

I’m a visual person.  You give me an analogy and I have to run with it.  Back to Times Square: What, of all the signs, lights, billboards and ads, do you remember about Time Square? Sure, you can think of one or two, but what about Time Square, the epicenter of advertising, is truly memorable to you?

I think of two things when I think of Times Square: New Years Eve and The Naked Cowboy.

On New Years Eve, you have the ball dropping, but the staggering part about being there or watching it on TV is the shear amount of people on the streets. The allure of Time Square might be the lights and all, but what happens on the streets with the people is the truly memorable part.

The naked Cowboy is a celebrity because he’s there… and he’s naked… and he is on the street… with you, not on a sign 100 feet in the air (that would be scary). For the rest of your life, you will remember a naked guy with a guitar trying to talk to you as you walk through Times Square.

Applying this to internet marketing and community management is simple.  You have to engage people where they are.  Join them on the streets, in the community.  Reach out to them. But nowadays, a new problem arises with everyone having a dog in the internet fight…

How do you engage on the internet full of billboards and now full of naked cowboys?

Be creative, be you, put yourself out there (not literally), be there or be square (not Times Square).  The most notable part of the Naked Cowboy is that no one can replicate him (although the naked cowgirl tries); he is the original him.  Be the original you. Be the you that no one else can be and you will stick out in the crowd.

Community StirPosted by Chad on February 2nd, 2011

“I shake people up until they lose control and forget to hide their emotions.”
- Tim Roth as Dr. Cal Lightman

Community is essentially an emotional event.  It happens.  It’s not something that is there permanently. It comes and goes, waxes and wanes.  If you want to build community you must give people something they can feel, something that moves them or something they can move towards.  A study of NY Times articles shows that the most shared articles are the ones that inspired awe or triggered an emotional response.

While the Lightman quote above has nothing to do with building community, it hits home on the issue.  Execs, pastors and leaders in general often try to force community on people. We all know that doesn’t work.  You can’t force people to do something.  You can’t throw people in a bowl and expect them to sing kumbaya.

You can’t make them do anything but you can make them want to do anything.

A wise guy once said, “you can lead a horse to water, but you can’t make him drink.”  As Cal Lightman would say, “Bullocks!”  You can lead a horse to water and you can make him drink, you just have to make him thirsty.

Like Steve Jobs said, “people don’t know what they want until you show it to them.” Now tell me this, how many of you are thirsty for what Apple’s got going on?

That brings me back around to your bowl full a people.  What you need is a spoon… or a whisk… something to mix things up a bit.  Your spoon is not your product, sorry to say.  Your product is the bowl everyone is marinating (or stagnating) in.  Your spoon is your vision… your passion.  Your passion for music, your vision for the future of business, your desire to make this world a better place.  So how do you use passion to build community?  You take that giant spoon of passion and you stir, baby!  People will not be passionate about something until you are passionate about something.

I can’t always tell you what will work for you and what won’t.  I can tell you that if you believe in something and put that passion behind everything you do, you’ll create a stirring in the people and they will get behind you.  I’ve seen it hundreds of times from many incredible leaders.  Like Dr. Lightman says, just shake people up until they forget to hide their emotions.  As I said before, community is an emotional event.  Stir people up enough and they will move to action and community will build itself.

Don’t Believe me?  See Example A:

Example A : Click to View a Larger Version

Try it and see, then tell me what you think.