And we're back today with the second half of our conversation with Unicorn Booty's Nick Vivion about his business, the LGBT consumer and social media. And speaking of leveraging digital and social media for the gays, take a look at the video at the end of this post and a recent write-up on how Nick and his partner Kevin are using social media to help uncover the reason behind YouTube's selective removal of their video today.
5. Besides Unicorn Booty, what are your thoughts on how businesses should communicate with and engage with LGBT consumers? Is digital and social media the best channel?
Unicorn Booty is of course the only way to reach LGBT consumers.
Of course that's not true! I am platform agnostic – just use what works. What works for us is all digital and social media. Why pay $50,000 for a full-page ad in the Advocate when you can create an interactive experience that really engages your target audience for a fraction of the price? The majority of other media – print and television – are over-priced and not as effective. People keep doing them because that's the status quo, but you really can't measure the impact of a print ad beyond circulation. The exciting (and very scary!) thing about digital/social media is that you can measure everything! You know how long someone spent on the site, where they want, if they bought anything. You know what they think of your brand. It's all right there, and you can't hide from it. That makes advertising much harder, because rather than just doing a "media buy" and crossing your fingers, you actually have to deliver results.
The funny thing about this tension between traditional and new media is that many businesses are still stuck in a sales mentality. Will it drive sales? Will it boost my revenue? This is a dangerous mentality to have, because social media is about less tangible relationship marketing. There are 1.37 billion influence impressions online every day (Forrester). It's not just about sales, it's being a part of a whole new world where priorities have shifted from your desire to sell to your customer's desire to be engaged. You are not always going to be able to measure the sales impact of your social media efforts, but you CAN measure engagement, which lays out the path to increased brand awareness, affinity and authenticity as you meet consumers on their terms.
6. What challenges have you experienced or seen other businesses face when communicating with the LGBT market?
As I mentioned earlier, the LGBT market is diverse. You cannot create one campaign "for the gays" and expect it to resonate community-wide. That's dangerous territory, and if you haven't ever marketed to the LGBT community before get some help! If you offend the community, it has a very long-term memory. So go slow, think twice and ask someone who knows what their doing!
For us, our biggest challenge is distilling our message down to its core so that it resonates with the widest swath of the LGBT community as possible. We really do want to appeal to the community as a whole. For us to succeed in our mission to strengthen our community through supporting gay-friendly businesses, we need to have as many people as possible on-board. Once we reach the tipping point, it becomes increasingly impossible for businesses to have an anti-gay agenda. $825 billion is a lot of money: A bailout-sized chunk of cash ready to be put behind equality-minded businesses.
Communicating this vision is the most challenging thing facing us right now, because it applies to both our interactions with consumers and the companies that we are contacting about being featured on our site. We need the consumers to come back every day to check out the day's partner, and we need the companies to see the value in the market. Both sides have an interest in seeing those gay dollars at work: Consumers want to see them being used positively in the community, and businesses want to see them being spent on their products. UB is in charge of bringing this vision to both stakeholders.
7. Tell us more about your social responsibility component. Is this a crucial element for businesses engaging with LGBT consumers? How should a business communicate that or its advocacy efforts?
We give 10% of our net proceeds to a different community-chosen non-profit every quarter. This quarter it's Seattle's Lifelong AIDS Alliance. My experience with the Mormons during No on 8 drove this decision, because I saw first-hand what can be accomplished when an entire community gives 10% of their income. People with anti-gay agendas are already giving 10% to organizations that exist to reduce our status in the world, so if we don't also give 10% then they will win, every time. So we call our 10% commitment our "gay tithe," and are hoping to popularize the concept as we lead by example. 10% of $825 billion is $8.25 billion. To put that into perspective, that is enough money to put every single LGBT person in the USA through private college. If you consider what could be done with a simple 10% commitment, it's astounding.
With a community that has experienced long-term discrimination, and who is still not enjoying full equality, a socially responsible component can be a vital component to engaging LGBT consumers. It gives you another marketing tool, but it also demonstrates that you understand the challenges still facing the community. It sends a clear message that you empathize and are committed to doing something about it. It also differentiates you from any competition and places you more firmly in the community.
Communicating your commitment to advocacy or a particular non-profit should be secondary to your main value proposition. You do not want to be seen as giving to a non-profit only for the good-will and self-interest of your company. You must come at it from the heart, and mention it in a tasteful but obvious way. You don't want to hide it, but you don't want it to be your primary selling point either. It should be an added benefit, something that makes the consumer choose you over your competition when faced with a decision. This doesn't mean that you shouldn't leverage the hell out of it on the back-end: Contact stakeholders, befriend members of the organization you have partnered with, use your commitment to the organization to recruit evangelists, ask the organization if you can participate in any events they have going on. For example, we will be MCing at a Lifelong AIDS Alliance rooftop benefit next week – a great opportunity for visibility that works even better due to our 10% commitment to that organization.
We want to demonstrate that new entrepreneurs can build a successful and sustainable business while still giving 10%. It's not necessarily a gay thing, but a human being thing. We all have to be part of the solution, regardless of what we do for a living.
Washington Boys & California Gurls – a Music Video by Unicorn Booty from Booty the Unicorn on Vimeo.
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