How to Market a Movement - 7 lessons

Let's face it. Social entrepreneurship requires marketing just like any other new idea. And suffering as it does from being neither charity nor business, its business model ires investors and philanthropists alike. But when the Internet started, there was no clear business model either, so I remain undaunted. What makes people flock to new ideas? I think its all in the buzz, the art of creating a movement that people want to be a part of. So I went to hear the buzz-meister Geno Church (of WOMMIE, EFFIE and ADDY awards fame) of Brains on Fire (brainsonfire.com) at the NewComm Forum 2009. His specialty is creating a Word of Mouth (WOM) movement using "brand ambassadors". His brand ambassadors are not highly paid celebrities, but unknown people who are not paid. They build a movement because they want to, and so it grows. His 7 key factors are:
1. WOM marketing is built on passion - find people to be brand ambassadors who are passionate about the cause
2. Have inspirational leadership
3. Empower people with knowledge - provide hard data to ambassadors for their use
4. Encourage ownership
5. Make advocates/members feel like rock-stars
6. Create supportive communities that live on-line and off-line - bring people together 5x a yr
7. Move the Media - practice random acts of advocacy
Rage Against the Haze (South Carolina's youth led anti-tobacco movement) started with just $800K in funding which was used to train the ambassadors - called viralmentalists. The movement consisted of kids talking to other kids about smoking as a choice. In the end he says, the power lies in supporting a cause, enabling an experience and telling a story. Now if we can translate the lessons to creating a buzz around the field of social entrepreneurship!

How would you advise a friend who wanted to get promoted from manager to director level?

Typically at the Director level, leadership is reflected in having additional breadth - including scanning external factors and making new proposals. What I would do, in such a situation is: scan organisation for director level people I admire; list typical things they do; list the sorts of things I do - make a match and identify gaps if any between the two lists. If gaps are there, develop proposal to fill gaps. Approach your manager to let them know that the organisation will benefit with your proposal; you are the best person to follow on proposal; explain why this is a good thing for the organisation - work off of your list- be concrete - its about the work. If no support from manager (could be because they don't have the authority), inform that you want to go to next level etc - make presentation and ask manager to be there to show support. Meanwhile garner support from peers and employees for initiative.
The same method works for leading change management - which social entrepreneurs must deal with.
Question - posted by Betty Lamarr on WITI group -

Making a little company look Big - International Herald Tribune

The basic principles of social or activist entrepreneurship are no different from "regular" entrepreneurship. At the end of the day other folks want to invest (their money or time) in what succeeds. As entrepreneur, if you believe you can succeed, you will succeed. Its called "inventing the future" in Silicon Valley. Help yourself: make yourself look successful. Two reasons why this article is so relevant:
1 -it gives good advice and even more importantly
2 -it says its Ok to create the illusion
Check this article from the NY Times (no registration required) "To build a successful company, entrepreneurs need to play a variety of roles -- visionary, sales representative and morale builder, to name a few. " But, in some cases, especially in the early years, they may need to play another, less obvious one: illusionist. "That means finding resourceful ways, like renting temporary office space or using answering services, to make themselves seem larger and more firmly established than they may actually be." http://www.iht.com/articles/2007/07/13/technology/12sbiz.php. (Reminds me of how Hewlett and Packard gave their first product the model number "200A" to give the impression that they had a product line. --cg)