Early in the movie Lethal Weapon 2, Detective Martin Riggs dislocates his shoulder so he can escape a straight jacket and win a bet. The amusing scene appears to be a bit of comic entertainment while the audience waits for the next action scene. In reality, it is an extremely important segment because it provides verisimilitude. If you are a fiction writer, verisimilitude is a good word to know because your success is dependent on it. According to Webster, it is the quality or state of appearing to be true. In other words, it makes your story believable.
When the bad guys place Riggs in a straight jacket and throw him in the water, the audience believes that his escape is possible because they've seen him do it. There is an appearance of truth. But, what if the betting scene had been left on the editing floor? We've all watched movies or read books where something happens and we wonder how it was possible. When there isn't anything that provides realistic support for the event, the audience feels betrayed. It's as if the author forgot to let us in on a secret. In a breath, we go from being involved with the story to being an outsider.
Social media success depends on people belonging.
There are many names for collections of people online: community, tribe, group, fans, and so on. Call them whatever you want, but never forget one reality. If the people who fund your venture aren't part of the inner circle, the lifespan of your business is limited. Getting your core customers involved is critical to your long term success. And, that requires credibility.
The secret to social media success is credibility. There is a big difference between verisimilitude and credibility. Verisimilitude is the appearance of truth while credibility requires truth to exist. Following the model of social media mavens is dangerous because they are masters at verisimilitude. The illusions they create are designed to manipulate people (us) into buying their products and subscribing to their services without allowing us into the inner circle. The manipulative process begins with the rules of engagement:
Rule: Promote others: Maintain a promotion ratio of twelve to one where you promote others twelve times for every one time you promote yourself.
Reality: The twelve to one ratio is reversed so the majority of posts are self promotional. To keep others from noticing, periodically they promote their friends.
Rule: Be transparent: Be honest about your motives so your community trusts you.
Reality: Their failure to mention affiliate links resulted in FTC involvement requiring disclosure.
Rule: Be accessible. Your tribe needs to connect with you 24/7.
Reality: Most appear accessible via social platform, but rarely respond to anyone outside their inner circle. (Just for fun, try this test. Go to search.twitter.com and enter the user ID for a social media maven. Review the conversations for a few days. Is he or she responsive to everyone or just a chosen few? Or better yet, try getting a response via email.)
Rule: Be awesome. Or, be remarkable. Or, be remarkably awesome. (Sorry, I have nothing else to add.)
Reality: This is a great way to blame others when things go wrong. When you add this rule, anything that isn't a roaring success is due to the failure to be awesome.
This behavior hurts people and the social channel instead of inspiring trust.
It's little wonder that Gary Vaynerchuk calls social media experts "clowns." Who can take someone seriously who manipulates people and calls it building relationships?
A better approach is to invest the time and effort required to insure your customers trust your company. The credibility that makes people buy again and again doesn't come from one-off stunts or viral campaigns. It comes from consistently delivering on the promise and resolving issues quickly and effectively.
The value of your company's name is determined by the service and product quality provided to your customers. Playing fast and loose with it in an effort to create a viral campaign is a dangerous game. Don't let people trick you into it. If they try, tell them that you are not willing to trade tomorrow's trust for today's traffic.