Mar
22
Organic, and other annoying buzzwords
Organic gardening starts small, but yield big fruit (or veggies)
“Organic”, like “viral” is a buzzword. I hate buzzwords.
Does anyone besides overpaid consultants and businesses who hire overpaid consultants like buzzwords? Maybe, but buzzwords, like cliches, quickly lose their meaning. The problem is that I really love the word organic, I just hate that it’s overused, because words with such great meaning and application shouldn’t lose that meaning being applied incorrectly.
So let me redefine organic — 0r perhaps I should say “define it” for those who only know it as an annoying business marketing buzzword. I’ll define it by putting it back where it belongs: in the soil.
One of my favorite hobbies is gardening. I love the sights and smells of well-groomed plant life. I really enjoy eating from something that I put in the ground. I am a big fan of organic gardening. There’s the word.
So what is organic gardening? Quite simply, it’s all-natural gardening. The emphasis is on using naturally occurring products, such as compost, molasses, seaweed, turkey litter fertilizer, citrus oil, etc to encourage plant growth and discourage bad insects and disease. Essentially what you are doing is encouraging a balanced ecosystem in your backyard. You don’t want to kill all insects, fungus, and bacteria, since there are good insects, fungus, and bacteria. You want to encourage the good, because they will naturally take care of the bad. In the end, you get healthier plants and a healthier you, since you aren’t exposing yourself to the poisons and carcinogens found in many household fertilizers, pesticides, and cleaners.
However, an all natural approach takes time. My lawn has a lot of weeds right now. But I know that by nourishing the soil, I will encourage the grass, which will then kill the weeds. The remains of the weeds will the decompose in the soil, feeding the grass. It starts with healthy soil. The emphasis is not on healthy plants; it’s all about the ground. Why?
Healthy soil has healthy plants.
So what does an organic approach to marketing look like? Feed the soil. You want to create an environment where healthy interaction can take place. Create a healthy video library full of short, informative, entertaining web videos, and you will encourage your supporters — and future supporters — to interact with you. Ask questions on your social media sites. Post interesting tidbits about your day on Facebook. Respond to questions and retweets in a timely, affable manner. Be consistent.
What you are doing is creating a healthy environment where your supporters feel comfortable interacting with you. You’re encouraging the good, and you’ll find that a chorus of good voices will drown out the bad ones — just like good insects in your garden (though I wouldn’t refer to your customers as insects).
The important thing to note is that to be truly organic, it has to be natural. Sure, you can pay bloggers and professional commenters to rapidly increase your social media presence overnight. You can go viral with the right amount of money. But maintaining that level of support after the initial “infection” will be challenging without the good soil beneath you. The best place to put your money is in a gradual, consistent campaign
You probably won’t get 1,000 twitter followers overnight, but if you set a long-term goal, which may be a month, three months, or six months depending on the size a scope of your business, you can achieve it through a consistent effort.
And your organically grown audience will make your business thrive!
