Blue Helm

I was a pretty quiet kid, at least in public. At home I would let loose and be my loud, outgoing, and sometimes annoying self. At school I had a close knit group of friends and I kept pretty much to myself outside of that group. Most people liked me and never gave me much grief outside of the occasional jab at my last name, which I didn’t mind. But then came the sixth grade, and I was faced with my first bully.

His name was John and he sat in front of me on the bus. He wasn’t a very big guy, but he had a very bad attitude. At some point during the year he decided to start picking on me. He would turn around and say mean things to me and make fun of me. At first I just ignored him. After all, why should I dignify his stupidity with a response? Ignoring John just made things worse as he graduated from verbal to physical annoyance. One day he decided he needed to lightly slap the side of my head a few times to get a reaction out of me. His weak slaps only hurt my pride. Unfortunately his ploy worked. As I got off the bus I walked past his seat and slapped him in the back of the head. I was safe at the time because if he chased me off the bus the driver would have stopped him. As the bus pulled away I looked up at his window and saw him staring at me full of rage.

The next day on the way to school John told me he wanted to meet at a certain location during recess. The rest of the day leading up to recess I was pretty nervous. I told my predicament to a few of my friends and my larger friend told me not to worry. I was still worried, but had a little more confidence.

The designated hour came and I met with my foe at the chosen location, my friends in tow. He didn’t have any friends with him, but that didn’t stop him. He mouthed off to me. My buddy whispered in my ear to go and push him. I was hesitant but I stepped up and pushed him pretty hard. John rushed at me, but my friend stepped in front of me just before John got to me. John looked at my formidable friend and took a step back. My friend then said “I don’t want you messing with Chad anymore.” John’s confidence was shot; I could see fear in his eyes. He backed away and I never had problems with him again.

I learned a great lesson that day about networking. When I had a problem with John I had a network of friends willing to help me. I may have been able to handle John on my own, but there was no need. My network was there to help. I learned that a strong network can save you in a pinch.

Business is no different. Your business is going to run into bullies. There will be competitors, customers or just random people that will attack you. Sometimes they will attack you for no apparent reason. Maybe they’re just jealous of your success. So what do you do with a business bully? How do you handle them? Ignoring a bully only works some of the time. Sometimes it makes things worse. What you need to do is proactively build your networks before the bullies show up.

Your business needs to be on Twitter, Facebook or wherever else you can build the strongest network. As you develop strong relationships with your customers, followers or fans, they will step up to the bully and tell them to take a hike. They will defend and build up your business because they are loyal to you.

Stepping into the social media world can be scary. You may have to face some bullies. Don’t let that fear stop you. You will make friends, and your friends are much more powerful than the weak bullies of the world.

What do you think? Have you ever faced a business bully? What happened? I’d love to hear.

Photo by: Elisabeth Feldman

Recently social media super stars Chris Brogan and Julien Smith released a new book called Trust Agents. In a relatively short time, the book skyrocketed in sales and became a New York Times Bestseller. But how did a book written by two first-time authors become such a success in such a short period of time?

I’m sure many of you read that question, rolled your eyes, and said to yourselves: “Well, it’s because they have 100,000 people following them on Twitter, tens of thousands of people who read their blogs, over 2500 fans of their Trust Agents Facebook page and they’re connected to people with huge online followings.”

Yes, that all contributed to the book’s success. But we’re leaving out the most important factor: psychology.

The Psychology

The two psychological principles I want to focus on are the Foot-in-the-Door technique and the Law of Consistency. The Foot-in-the-Door technique states that if you initially get someone to commit to something small, they will later commit to something bigger. The Law of Consistency states that people have a strong desire to be consistent in their thoughts and actions, and will go to great lengths to attain or maintain the feeling of consistency. A person’s desire to remain consistent may drive her to commit to something very large, even if she was previously only committed to something very small.

Visit the links below to better understand these laws:

The Foot-in-the-Door technique

The Law of Consistency

How Chris and Julien used the psychology

The first Foot-in-the-Door commitment Chris and Julien used was to get fans connected with them through social media. It’s a very simple commitment to ask someone to follow you on Twitter, to be friends with you on Facebook, to connect with you on LinkedIn or to read your blog.

Chris and Julian then leveraged their social platforms to prepare their connections to commit to buying and promoting their book at some point in the future. In October 2008, Chris wrote a blog post that outlined some strategies they were going to use to promote Trust Agents. One of his points was to “warm people up with blog posts”.

The second Foot-in-the-Door commitment they used was to get their fans to join the Facebook page for their book. These Facebook fans had now committed to at least two requests. As a result, their internal desire to remain consistent (and buy the book) increased.

The third commitment was to buy the book, followed closely by the fourth commitment–to promote the book. As people committed to buying the book, they felt the need to be consistent and respond to Chris and Julien’s requests to promote the book. Chris admits where the success of the book came from: “You pushed. You tweeted. You blogged. You showed people twitpics. You took part in the Trust Agents community. It was all you.”

How you can use the psychology

These simple psychological principles are key to the success of any social media campaign. You have to get people to commit to something smaller in order to get them to commit to something bigger. Here are a few simple steps to help you employ these principles:

1. Network – Connect with people! It will take time to build a large network, but don’t forget that you are preparing a place to commit people to bigger and better things. Start building your network now!
2. Provide great content – People have committed to connecting with you, now reward them for making that commitment. Provide content that your connections want to read. This will prepare your connections for greater commitments in the future.
3. A larger commitment – Commit your connections to something a little bigger. You could get them to join a product page like Chris and Julien did, or you could just get them to make regular comments on your blog, maybe retweet a message or bookmark your post.
4. Ask for the big commitment – Don’t forget to ask. One the main reasons Trust Agents is so successful is because Chris and Julien asked people to buy and promote it. If you don’t ask people for their business or their help, they are much less likely to give it to you.