Making Everyone Feel Part Of Something When Your Work Has A Name
Giving what you make a name, or overall title, means you create your own domain.
This article is all about creating a sense of belonging. Giving something a name relates to you taking onboard a side project, a piece of work that is going to be continuous, or an initiative that ties your approach together. You call it something.
This article is about starting something with a means to go on.
We all acknowledge that trust is in short supply (as heralded by the Edelman Trust Barometer from earlier this year). Let’s not abuse a sensitive position by coercing others with soulless sales messages that have no backbone.
Your Hands Made This
It is better to create something that has an added attraction where you crafted something with your own hands.
More importantly, giving a name is a huge step to the value that others see from you. It feels good to contribute to something you have made, that has a sense of rawness to it.
Whilst the Edelman Trust Barometer highlights a bleak picture of us all being wary of others, what it also represents is that people are willing to put their faith in others who have the guts to share the truth and deliver it on a consistent basis.
In a recent LinkedIn article from entrepreneur and investor, Gina Bianchi (16th November) she highlighted a new dawn for those who create and build their own audience. “The professionalization of creators and influencers will continue unabated. Emboldened by the fact that their followers are now willing to follow them to new places (and increasingly even pay for access), these emerging brands will look to own their engagement and relationships, not rent them from Facebook.”
This is about creating something where you proudly say, ‘I made this’ and taking on board a philosophy as a publisher with a point of view delivered on an ongoing basis.
A Name Puts You Closer To Others
Brands and individuals use this as a way to connect closer to their audience. For example, Dollar Shave Club does it with Mel, their men’s lifestyle publication, Mark Schaefer does it with {grow}, his marketing blog, Farrow & Ball do it with The Chromologist their online magazine, Michael Grubb Studio does with Snacktime, their lighting email.
Giving something a name immediately creates a sense of association. You can gravitate towards it, or give it a wide berth. This has been with you since childhood. Whether Smash Hits, The Economist, Beano, GQ, Viz or Tatler, the name becomes the glue to bind you before you have made a commitment to open it and read.
This is something that you can do for your business. The best thing is, it doesn’t cost a thing. The biggest investment is coming back to the title that you have created, rather than let the good work fester and everyone loses interest.
So, How Should You Go About It?
The worst thing you can do is shoehorn your company in there.
Let me tell you what’s wrong with calling an email, a live event, a newsletter, an online magazine after the name of your company.
– It looks like you are ready to sell something sooner rather than later
– The name may already have connotations in someone else’s head
– It may easily slip back into ‘work talk’ where the star of the show is always you
– People may think that before they have read anything, there is an agenda already in place
– Our companies may sound brilliant to us and our mum’s and dad’s, but to everyone else, we’re just companies selling things to others, by any means necessary
Things Changed When I Had A Name
Let me share from my own perspective something that I stumbled upon but became the strongest thing to place my hat upon that connected everything when it comes to building a content brand.
I started the weekly You Are The Media email in October 2013, before that it was known as ‘ID Group News’ (when you opened, it would say ‘we made this’). You would think completely differently from me asking you to subscribe to the ‘ID Group News’ as opposed to asking you to join the You Are The Media community.
I can guarantee you that if I had progressed with ‘ID Group News’ everything probably would look a lot different, including my business.
It is as simple as that.
Let me prove it even more.
What sounds more welcoming for you to leave your email.
– Subscribe to the ID Group News
– Come and join the You Are The Media community
You can switch the tables by making what you do approachable and giving a name is a huge leap.
Even if the content shared would be the same, I very much doubt that an audience would have barely grown if I had pinned everything to the ID Group Newsletter.
Giving something a name and creating a separate identity makes you approachable. It makes you feel like you are joining a club, even though the message is from your company. It makes others believe that you have crafted something for them to be a part of.
More importantly, it looks like you have made a genuine commitment to others rather than a half-hearted approach with something that doesn’t have the drive and the continuum, apart from being in the business of treating the world as leads. If someone recognises you have hardly put in any effort for them, why should they commit?
What sounds more welcoming to be the hook to leave your email address:
– Leave your email for our regular company newsletter
– A weekly email about the loyal audience you build in the spaces you own
You want people to feel like you have crafted something with your own hands and want them to be a part of the whole process. Giving something a name and creating a separate identity makes you approachable.
By starting with You Are The Media provided something to grow from. As the tree started to slowly grow (the weekly email), the branches that started to form still connected to the overall tree. Whether the You Are The Media Podcast, Lunch Club or the Conference, it all connects. The seed was called You Are The Media, not the name of my company.
What Can You Do?
In its most basic way, the process is this: create something; give it a name; stick with it; slowly find your uncontested space; build people around the approach.
Seth Godin says in his latest book, This Is Marketing, ‘I made this is a very different statement than what do you want?’ The first place is to make that commitment to something.
It is good to make others feel like they are joining something. You can create your own media stamp.
This is what you need to take on board when it comes to discovering a name, or a title, that you will share and becomes the intro to everything you do from a masterhead to an audio intro.
Remember, what starts as an email can start to branch out into a video series, print or live event. Choose it well, but be loose:
– The more random the name or detached from your business, the easier to connect. This makes you look more normal and approachable to others.
– Your ideas have a place to build from. It all connects to the role you serve for others, but there is a central space that people become attached to
– Giving a name to your work makes you feel obliged to show up, every week or month
– It is not the name that is important it is how your overall message is aligned with others
– Be bold by what people will take away and what they will learn, the name is just the hook to something much more deeper
– Stick with building within one channel to build momentum and rhythm before you move onto introducing the name in a new space
– Recognise how you can make people feel safe and respected
– This is about an endurance race, ready for it?
People will feel more obliged to connect to content that matters to them.
The name that sits at the top of your porch to what they are going to experience can open the door to the subject matter you care about and to win them over and to stay with you.
Let’s Round Up
The name to what you create is the first step in creating your own domain. It also comes back to the essence of what marketing is all about, we just dress things differently. Marketing represents the basic human needs in us all where we like to feel a part of something.
What is different today is that we have access to spaces, where your approach and narrative deserves to be seen to those who matter and will fly your flag with you.
Find your name to your creation, give it the brevity and guts it deserves.
Those people and companies who invest in building direct connections within a marketplace will lead. If it has a name that makes it easier to associate, you have something that is truly yours.
You just have to act and untangle how the rest of the industry behaves, so others ‘get it’ from your side.
