Jul
23
The power of pink
Absolutely no doubt, social media is a powerful force
Recently in Bristol I managed to get a room full of business owners to wear pink, what you see above is actually an accountant. Why did I do this? Because I could, perhaps too simplistic but my reasons went a little deeper. Belive it or not there are still many social media doubters out there. Getting a room full of business owners to wear a little pink was a social media stunt of mine. It provided a little bit of fun but it did have a very serious objective at heart.
Social media in business
The way I see, there are two types of businesses. There are those that get social media and those that don’t. I appreciate it’s a fairly simplistic view but why over complicate things? So, having being involved in the business community in and around Bristol for some years now I had been wondering just how do you really open the eyes of those who just don’t see what’s going on around them. I wondered how best to demonstrate to those that don’t understand the power of the internet society the very real benefits of getting involved.
Of course the only reasonable conclusion to draw was that I needed to get them to see the effects of a social media strategy first hand. I need them to see a little pink.
Why on earth pink?
Well it really was a combination of factors that presented a great opportunity for a little bit of social tinkering. As I have mentioned I am a member of the business community in Bristol. I am sure you will appreciate its a fairly broad community. You can divide and subdivide a group of people or community to an almost infantesimal point if you want but that can get a bit pointless so I won’t.
Recently there was a networking event in Bristol called Network Central 2010. It brought together all the main face to face networking organisations under one roof. It just so happened that this also coincide with several other factors.
- A networking group I am a member of called 4N were having a breakfast meeting that day
- The group normally held its meetings at Redwood Lodge
- It was the first time that Chris Harding would be taking on his new role of Group Leader
- For reasons only known to Chris he has branded himself as Pinky
- 4N is supported by a national online forum
- Many 4N members already have a social media presence
It was like an astronomical event, all these factors came together perfectly and were crying out for a little bit of social tinkering and #Pinkwood was born.
I worked with Chris mentoring him, providing him with the strategy and guidance he needed to get the message out there. We used the tools that were available and most accessible to the members, Chris’s website, the forum, Twitter and of course good old fashioned word of mouth. The response was incredible. The breakfast meeting was massively oversubscribed. You would normally have expected around 25 to 30 attendees, perhaps a few more as this was at Network Central. In the end we had 73 in the room from all over the country and the best thing for me was that most of them were wearing Pink.
Of course social media is not something that is suitable for everyone but this was a measurable, tangible result and something those not involved could clearly see for themselves.
The results
It was a bit of mucking about really, I was just playing but it demonstrated the power of social media to a wide audience of people by bringing it back into the real world. Of course not everybody wore pink and the ones that didn’t were generally those who didn’t use social media in their business.
If you want to have a look at the results for your self then please view this slideshow where the flavor of the meeting was documented by D & D Carrington Photography. Alternatively, have a little dig around on Google for #Pinkwood as the content it produced got all over the place.
