Digital Strategy - How to Diffuse your Ideas effectively?

Digital is the new buzz word and everybody wants to go digital and leverage it for their business. Let us first try and understand the vastness and scope of this digital world and then look at how we can go about using it for diffusing our ideas.  

Image source: http://bizbrag.files.wordpress.com/2012/09/social-media-people.png

Some Interesting facts about social media:

• If facebook was a nation then it would be third largest country in the world 
• 50 % population of the world is under 30 years old 
• More people own a mobile device than a toothbrush
• 1 in 5 couples meet online & 1 in 5 divorces involve social media
• "Selfie" is now a word in webster 
• Every second 2 new menbers join linkedin
• Grandparents are the fastest growing demographic on twitter
• 53% of twitter users recommend products in their tweets
• 93% of buying decisions are influenced by social media
• 90% customers trust peer recommendations
• Average person has attention span of 7 seconds 

Facts Source : http://mashable.com/2014/04/23/social-media-marketing-facts/

I will not get into the usual stuff you already know about and which is talked about a lot often. How Big the data is or what kind of impact it has on end user or how that data is of utmost value to the businesses or how they can monetize this data.  When we talk about such huge data and look at how it is generated by correlating with the  Internet usage – searches, networking, sharing, we observe that the usage done on mobiles is much more than the desktops and other devices and this trend is expected to continue with mobile devices becoming smarter, convenient and intuitive to user needs contributing the major part of the pie in internet browsing and continuously increasing its share. This is also a great opportunity for the marketers as most people have their mobile phones with them almost 24/7 and hence location specific targeting of customers has become simpler and effective.

But how are we going to leverage this  huge opportunity and are there any things which we need to consider before taking the plunge , let us talk about how we want to diffuse our ideas so that they catch up quick and spread rapidly. 

One important aspect here is to follow a proper process wherein we select the right entities at every step to achieve the intended result, But what are these steps we talking about ? Well i think that propagation of our ideas/products involve four main steps which are connected and cyclic, they are :

1. Right People

2. Right Medium

3. Right Content

4. Right Catalyst

Let’s try and understand them one at a time

1.   Right People :

The most important aspect is identifying your key people who would initiate or trigger this rapid reach and instant buzz.

              

You must be aware about the innovation diffusion curve given below :

Image Source: http://innovateordie.com.au/2010/05/10/the-secret-to-accelerating-diffusion-of-innovation-the-16-rule-explained/

This innovation diffusion curve depicts how a new change is accepted and propogates across various stages. Maloney suggests here that once you achieve 16% of your targeted adoption you must change your messaging and media strategy.  But this need not be the case when it comes to  digital strategy. Here you can leverage the traction generated so far to incrementally build up further. 

Also Even though 68% of yours buyers / diffusers lie in the Early Majority and Late Majority group, our focus when it comes to our digital media strategy should always be on the Innovators and  Early Adopters.When you have the digital strategy focused and targeted around these individuals they will eventually translate it and give it the required traction  across the  remaining stages of  diffusion and acceptance amongst people. The most difficult part in  this evolution is crossing the chasm which  is very apt as there is this reluctance initially before any idea gets accepted and spread further but when we leverage social media we get a chance to interact directly with the people and understanding their point of reluctance we can immediately act and eliminate this resistance and make the journey of our idea/product smooth ahead.

2.    Right Medium

     Choosing the right medium is the next important thing after you have identified the right persons to target. This steps is extension of the first step as now that you are aware about whom are you going to target, we just need to ensure that we reach them at right time, with right content and most important through right medium. So if we are targeting innovators and early adopters you cannot just kick start a campaign on Facebook/Twitter inviting everyone to like and follow instead we should target specific technology blogs and relevant Facebook communities, twitter groups, in some cases even instagram communities will be relevant just from the visual appeal point of view to attract the right audiences for your cause. Once you rope in them and got their attention towards you its only matter of feeding them with appropriate content and then they will take care of the propagation.

3.     Right Content

Content is very important aspect if you want to catch the attention of your intended audience. Identifying right people and reaching them through right medium will make sense only when you feed them continuously with the right content which will keep them excited and result in propagating the ideas further. The content should be clear in what message we want to convey and what aspects we want to highlight and what exactly are the benefits / advantages of the concerned idea/product to the end consumer and how that is going to transform the dynamics of the current market. Once you are clear on these aspects the rest of the things will take care of themselves as you have already channelized your right personals for further action.

4.    Right Catalyst

Right catalyst is the final and essential aspect in order to keep the momentum going which you have established so far.  The catalyst is timely keeping a check on whether the diffusion of your idea is progressing in the intended direction or not and accordingly feeding your chosen media channels with boosters such as incentivizing the innovators and early adopters, feeding timely relevant content and surprises, competitions, videos etc. to keep the curiosity factor fresh in minds of the propagators and followers. The most important aspect here is to establish integration between the various digital medias you are targeting and bringing those propagators and their discussions across different medias together to increase the scope, reach and connect with the intended audience.

This is a cyclic process as we want to nurture the right people with right catalyst (triggers) from time to time alongwith the right content and through the right media. Isnt it Right ? :) :)

Disclaimer: This article was accomplished by author (Aniket Samant) in his personal capacity. The views expressed in this article are the author's own and do not reflect the view of any organization or body he is/was associated with.