Speaker 1:
Our external keynote speaker has come to us all the way from the US. She is a visionary strategist for the digital age, a web and TV personality, a bestselling author, and the award-winning CEO of Zen Media, which is a global online marketing and digital PR company. She has been dubbed the Zen Master of Marketing by Entrepreneur Magazine and Millennial Master of the Universe by fastcompany.com. Here to show you how to find the Zen in your social media marketing and to build momentum in the digital age, please welcome Shama Hyder.
Shama Hyder:
So when I was looking at social media, when I was doing my graduate thesis, I looked at why do people use it. Have you ever wondered this? Why people use social? Why are we even… How did everyone get so into it? Everyone’s wondered this at some point, right? And so my question was the same thing. It was like, “Why do people use social media? What drives us?” And I thought it was to have a sense of community, so people felt connected, so they can keep in touch, but I was wrong. Do you guys want to know the primary reason people use social media? Super important. Do you guys really want to know? Okay.
Shama Hyder:
It’s to showcase their own identity. Okay? It’s to showcase their own identity. And I promise you, if you truly take this to heart, it will change how you market your business online. It’ll be so dramatic. Because here’s the thing. We as human beings have always grown as human beings by self-reflection. So the earliest paintings that we did, like drawings and caveman, aside from cows, is of ourselves. This urge to know who we are and reflect back and have society reflect back to us, it’s really ingrained in us. And technology doesn’t change that, it just amplifies it. And I’ll prove it to you. How many of you have made fun of the friend who takes so many selfies?
Shama Hyder:
And then how many of you have turned around and taken a selfie of yourself and you’re like, “Oh, my God?” Right? How many of you are that friend? There’s no shame here. Okay. Awesome. No shame. No shame in the selfie game. But if you really think about it, you think about… And I’ve done it. I’m like, “Why am I taking this selfie of myself right now? I look cute, but why?” And what it boils down to is we do want to share who we are to the world. So if you think about this in social media, this is what it means for your customers, this is such a branding question. When you sit there and you think about what your brand stands for, who you are, and that’s great. It’s important to know where you come from. And you guys heard a lot about that. So important to know what your strengths are.
Shama Hyder:
But if this research is right, and it’s right, then the next question you should really be asking yourself is, “What does doing business with me allow my customer to see about themselves?” I know, it’s a little deep. I’ll explain. So your customers aren’t buying from you because you’re so awesome. They’re buying from you because they think they’re so awesome. Right? And hanging out with you, that makes them awesomer, for whatever reason. So if someone is buying vitamins from you, they care about it says something about themselves, right?
Shama Hyder:
So if you are expecting them to share that picture on Instagram and be like, “Check this out, or I love tea. I saw some great tea back there that I was sampling. This is my favorite tea,” whatnot, they’re not doing it for you. Or if they are, it’s going to be limited. But if they’re doing it because they want to showcase, “Look, this is so crazy. My life is hectic, but I still love taking a little bit of time for myself at the end of the day. And my favorite way to do it is this tea.” Do you see the difference in those two scenarios? Do you guys follow? If you can really make it about your customer, how can you empower them?
