Selling the Dream Using Social Media

An Evangelist is not a well known role but is experiencing a resurgence in the age of Social Media.  Guy Kawasaki was probably one of the first to popularize the roll of the evangelist working for Apple computer.    I was recently re-reading his book on evangelism called "Selling the Dream"  It is still inspiring.

 One of the jobs of a product evangelist is to consume, distill and disseminate vast amounts of information.  And like Guy says - an evangelist must "eat like a hummingbird and poop like an elephant" - meaning they must consume more information than most and then be able to spread it around in volumes.

So now that an evangelist has distilled this vast amount of data and has turned it into information that will help customers be successful - how can it be deseminated?   With Social Media we have many more options available to use than a decade ago.  Not only that - we can encourage others to create content and spread the word too.

• Create video content and share.   Carry a Flip camera everywhere and do informal interviews.
• Create webinars that can be repeated and shared
• Make event presentations interesting by mixing media - using photos, video and text
• Create engaging PR using non-traditional PR methods as PitchEngine.
• Author e-Books on how to be successful using the companies products
• Invite thought leaders to blog on your site
• Use social media tools to find out where people are talking about your product and start to share in those spaces.  I like SM2, Radian6, PostRank, Google Alerts and SocialMention
• Create a Facebook Fan page and funnel pertinent blog entries to the wall using RSS aggregators as xFruits.com.
• Create a repository of quotes, videos, links, facts and other content to share with influential bloggers.  When you ask a blogger to do a review of one of your products - give them plenty of resources to use.
• Video tape and share every presentation that someone does for your company.
• Ask the engineers to talk about the product and give informal demos. 
• Ask thought leaders and book authors who are using your products to write ebooks that you can promote on your site.
• Create something viral and fun.  You might create a Facebook app using your product that gets shared easily.
• Get all employees to be ambassadors for the company by giving them copywriting training and allowing them to respond to conversations about your company.   Train them to understand the brand and how that is shared.
• Create Twitter lists of thought leaders in the industry.  This recognizes contributions but also helps others find solutions.
• Engage openly with your community using forums, blogs, twitter, facebook etc - when you can.   If you offer solutions in a private email - then no one else can benefit.

Can you think of some other ideas?

photo http://www.lilytherese.com