There are different ways to get talking to the groundswell. The following four techniques have been the most popular ones to use to talk to the groundswell.
1. Post a viral video
This is simple. Just put a video online and allow people to share it. But before doing that, it is important for you to learn a few things.
- Get training: There are thousands of online references that you can use to learn how to use video or upload a youtube video. Take advantage of this! Most of these references are free to the end user and do not take much time to review
- Worry free about budget: Your video does not need to be the highest quality and look like you spent thousands investing in it. Some of the best videos come from a digital camera or include voice over images.
- Buy a video editing program: A lot of computers today come with a video editing system, however if you don’t have one, you can probably find one for fairly cheap out there!
- Try doing it: The best way to learn how to make a video is to go ahead and do it. Worst case scenario, you learn something new!
The following video is a compilation of videos that have gone viral.
2. Engage in social networks and user-generated content sites.
Create personal social networking sites like Facebook is a step to put your brand name out to the public. It is hard though to turn it into a conversation, therefore it is important to engage in a conversation with your customers using the social networks. In many cases it is possible for the conversation to happen without you being involve and it can result is a positive result.
User generated content site includes all digital media technologies such as question-answer databases, digital video, blogging, podcasting, forums, review-sites, social networking, mobile phone photography and wikis.
3. Join the blogosphere
It is important to educate and empower your employees and executives to write blogs that relate to your business and products. It is essential to listen and respond to others blogs because you are on top of what is happening out there. For example HP uses different blogs for the products that it sells. HP has benefited from using blogs because customers are being helped. The dialogue between the representatives from HP and the customers is frequent and diverse with many updates.
4. Create a community.
Creating a community allows you to engage the customers and to create value for them. They can help you to spread your message about your company or your product. For example Procter and gamble manage to create a community with young girls explaining to them everything that they deal with.
