When I was a teenager, my family moved from New Jersey to Massachusetts.
If you've never been to Massachusetts, it's a state where everyone talks funny. They say "wicked" a lot - and they aren't talking about witches. I mean, come on - they can't even pronounce the name of their star city. "Baaaa-stin"? Where the hell is that?
So imagine my surprise when everyone started making fun of ME and asking me to repeat words like "water", "chocolate" and "coffee".
It's something that stuck with me for years.
I recently was chatting through LinkedIn with a colleague in Canada. She told me I spell words in a funny way. And here I was thinking that SHE was the one who can't spell.
Sort of makes you stop and think about the whole concept of customization, doesn't it?
Did you know that there are actually some cultures where shaking hands is an insult?
There's a message of marketing in here for you. Know your platform and speak natively to people on it. Think of social media as being a giant cocktail party where everyone has different accents. You can't have the same conversations in the same ways on Facebook vs. Instagram. Pinterest vs. Snapchat. Twitter vs. Google+. You may be speaking the same language, but everyone has different accents.
But doesn't the same go for marketing? Just as we can't sit down with an automotive group and roll out the same marketing strategy as we're using on a restaurant group, the same goes for your individual businesses.
If you're a real estate agent and you're marketing a million dollar listing in one neighborhood and a $200K listing in another, do you market them the same way? Not if you're successful.
Today's message is simple. Know your platform. Know your demographic. Start marketing with an accent.
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