Visual communication brings another dimension for engagement.

Today it seems we could all use a brain chip implant to process the on-going, never-ending multiple data stream.

Instead of pitching products or services, try delivering information that makes your buyer more intelligent. Content is what drives the Internet, and consumers are looking for information that solves a problem, not an immediate sales pitch. Interruptive, “tell and-sell” marketing is a thing of the past. You can’t expect busy consumers to listen or care when you interrupt them with marketing and branding messages. Brand evaluation is now on their terms. But you can influence a new relationship of engagement.

When promoting a product or service, provide content that filters, edits, informs, organizes, inspires… this will give your customer a refreshing break and leaves room for individual evaluation, feelings and thoughts.

The trust, credibility, and authority that content marketing creates knocks down sales resistance, all while providing a baseline introduction to the benefits of a particular product. The communication in the pre-purchase evaluation moment is a critical point for engagement. This is the moment that can increase brand comprehension and help consumers make a “feel good” choice.

The individuals and businesses that are having the most success online tend to take an approach that involves a high ratio of valuable content that seems to have no sales agenda, mixed in with periodic promotional messages. And this way of communication is expected off-line as well.

It’s not the size of your megaphone that matters; it’s the size of your customers’ megaphones.

You can say the right thing about a product and nobody will listen. You’ve got to say it in such a way that people will feel it in their gut, while preserving the freedom of each person to experience something that may differ from the experiences of others. Creating captivating, compelling and useful content forms an essential springboard for your customers and audience to do the marketing for you.

It’s not just the words. Open their minds.

With so much confusion, and the abundance of incoming messages, a good approach for engagement is providing visual elements in your content. Sometimes it’s the clarity of an infographic that can capture the greatest levels of interest in what you offer and the problem you can solve.

And sometimes It’s about finding a position that challenges the customer to look at something in a new way or providing a newer, better solution to meet their needs…engaging them in the learning process. Some of the best marketing messages ever created open minds. Our brains are actually on the lookout for new information, new thoughts and ideas.

Learning something new or discovering an eye-opening fact can really make a message stick.

Exploring the New Consumer Moments

Tapping into their Power-Reach

Shifting Mindset and Strategy for Social Promotion and PR

The networked consumer knows more than companies do about their own products. And whether the news is good or bad, they tell everyone. There is a new class of consumer, a population that is in constant contact with friends and peers and trusts them more than branded messages. And you can’t ask them to follow YOU…yet. This about ways to tap into THEIR power and reach.

Real-Time P.O.V. and Reviews

The live-dispatch from the influencer. The instant seal of approval. Interest in things sanctioned by someone they follow.

Mass-Mingling

Social media and mobile communications are fueling a Mass-Mingling that defies virtually every cliche about diminished human interaction in our ‘online era’.

More people than ever will be living large parts of their lives online in 2010-11. Yet, those same people will also mingle, meet up, and congregate more often with other ‘warm bodies’ in the offline world.

Ironically the same technology that was once seen to be—and condemned for—turning entire generations into homebound gaming zombies is now deployed to get people out of their homes. Basically, the more people can get their hands on the right info, at home and on the go; the more they date and network and twitter and socialize online, the more likely they are to eventually meet up with friends and followers in the real world.

Why? Because people actually enjoy interacting with other warm bodies, and will do so forever. Social media is all about other people to begin with. via Twittersearch: “the coolest places to hang are the ones your friends tell you about..”

Turquoise, hosts monthly meet-ups at choice design shops around town. Playstation GameMeetups.

We will be seeing even more impromptu, temporary meet-ups of strangers, mobs and crowds with similar interests, tastes, hobbies, causes and grievances. Many of these (temporary) meet-ups will revolve around generating public attention, or getting something done. And here too, Twitter will lead the way.

The opportunity is obvious: Anyone/Brand/Venue involved with anything that helps people get and stay in touch; that aligns with similar cause/interest; or that accommodates those people before, during or after meeting-up with others, should not only rejoice in Mass Mingling, but make it even easier for customers to meet up in any possible way too. via Twittersearch: “Nothing alienates communities more than businesses that alienate them and try to exploit them. If local community groups want to hold their meetings in your bar, don’t charge them for a private room; if the football team wants you to be a sponsor, do everything you can to oblige, you will most probably be the center of any celebrations for the fans and team afterwards. Donate to local causes within reason and your business will be held in high esteem locally.”

Tracking/Alerting

Tracking is the new searching, saving consumers time, making it impossible to forget, or miss out, and thus ultimately giving them another level of control. Count on everything being tracked and alerted on.

Sharing, Collective Intelligence.

2010 will mark the end of the Age of the Individual and the emergence of a new form of collective thought – a Global Brain.

With people sharing, in real time, everything they do, buy, listen to, watch, eat, drink, attend, wear and so on, and with even more search engines and tracking services making it easy to find and group these ‘live dispatches’ by theme, topic or brand, this year will see ready-to-buy consumers tapping into a live stream of (first-hand) experiences from fellow consumers. Instantly.