8 Ways To Succeed With Social Media From Dave Carroll (United Breaks Guitars) – Video Interview

(Before It's News)

Yesterday I had the pleasure of spending a few minutes with Dave Carroll and hearing more about his story and journey.

While so many of us get in a tizzy about content marketing, social media marketing and more – Dave’s advice is that authenticity and simplicity are what’s most important.

If you’ve been to ANY social media event, content marketing event (etc) you’ve probably heard Dave’s story.

United Airlines broke his guitar (Dave’s a musician) and would not apologize and/or resolve the issue. So Dave wrote a song about it (make sure you watch all 3 videos) and he’s had over 12 MILLION views of that video since posting it a about 3 years ago.

Today Dave is still a musician and also a speaker, author (United Breaks Guitars) and has launched a company Gripevine (all about helping big companies connect to their customers and helping customers connect with and get quick resolution to their complaints…or gripes)

TODAY, of course, every company knows that they MUST treat their customers very, very well or their one on one exchange with a customer could very well be heard by dozens or millions of others. If they screw up, like United did, then MILLIONS will see that screw up – thanks to social media.

Dave’s fame was due to luck (all of us have thought) and creativity (it’s available to all)  and anyone can do what Dave did!

This does NOT mean your video or blog post is going to go “viral” but it doesn’t have to – as long as the right people (your customers) are seeing it.

Here’s a few tips from Dave and be sure to watch my video interview with him as well:

• Don’t be afraid – don’t be afraid to dive into the waters of online content (posting videos, Tweeting and etc). Just do the right thing and you’ll be fine.
• Just start – you’ll never build your online audience if you don’t START.
• Engage – instead of trying to sell each time you write a blog post or post something on Twitter just look to ENGAGE with your audience and have an online discussion with them
• Be human – don’t hide behind a PR firm or some social media “professional”. Just be yourself and have a great time
• You don’t need virality – if you’re TRYING to make a viral video, you probably will fail. Instead your goal should be offer your customers the best content you can that THEY find useful
• KIS – keep things simple and just be reliable and offer great information
• Creativity – sure, maybe everyone is not as creative as Dave. But if you OPEN your eyes and look for inspiration in life all around you, you’ll succeed
• Tell a story – the success you’ll have with social media is all about being able to TELL A STORY. It’s very simple. Check out my presentation on personal branding (slide 27 – I echo this insight)

Here’s my video interview with Dave where he offers a tip on the importance of story telling

Lesson learned? Stop focusing on social media marketing or content marketing and instead think of how you can add VALUE to your audience.

Ramon Ray, Editor & Technology Evangelist, Smallbiztechnology.com
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