Is Your Style Conducive to Digital Marketing?
Putting personality into blog articles, email campaigns, or social media posts can be a unique and engaging way to approach your target markets. But if not done tactfully, it can also be alienating to the group you hope to interact with.
Trainers, consultants, and professional coaches often have magnetic personalities that serve them well in training sessions or consulting meetings. Since their personality is an asset in front of people there is often an assumption that it is equally advantageous in digital marketing. That assumption is not always the case.
A client we have worked with for years is a straight talking, to the point, type of person. However, when speaking with him, he will soften his statements through tonality or with a smile. So his directness is often appreciated because verbal or visual cues clue people in that while he is bluntly pointing out an area that needs improvement, his intention is to help.
Those subtle cues don’t translate to digital marketing.
After some encouragement to be more active with his social network this client made his initial post to Twitter, “Sales people: If you can’t stop talking in a sales call you should be punched in the face.”
His intended point was that sales people should listen a considerable amount of the time. I have no doubt he’s said this same thing to a group of sales people he has trained and it went over well. However, on social media, with none of the subtle cues to emphasize the humor in his statement, he just wished that his target audience suffer a random act of violence.
This came in the midst of a campaign to generate invitations for key note speaking. A punch in the face is a difficult introduction to convert into a speaking engagement.
Inserting your style into digital marketing is a great way to add some personality to your campaigns. It can help distinguish your communications from other drab marketing messages. But be careful that the intent in your message accurately translates to digital marketing and that it’s not portraying a personality that is counterproductive to your marketing goals.