What’s your image?

Babies are cute, puppies are cute, and bacon is not cute, but I bet your mouth watered a little bit.

What if someone recently lost a baby? Maybe they are a cat person? What if they are an animal rights activist or vegan? Then, those first statements could not be any farther from the response you had hoped for.

Brands, like cute, are in the eye of the beholder, but as a business, our brand is our image.

Branding is complicated. It’s more than your logo, your corporate fonts and colors, and how you advertise to your perfect customers. It encompasses everything from the stock images you choose to how you answer the phone (or not) to what platforms you choose to distribute your content.

Speaking of content, your content comprises text, images, and media (audio/video).

If you use a tool like Grammarly, it can tell you the tone of your writing. I am generally Confident, Informational, and Assertive.

Images come in the form of original, stock, and now AI. Audio and video are a world unto themselves, yet they contain text and images, so it’s a compilation of all of the above.

Babies are cute.

Everyone loves a baby (until you have to change its diaper). Babies are just cute. When someone posts a picture of a baby in an email or on Facebook or other social media, it gets a lot of likes, responses, and comments.

The E-Trade Baby is one of the most successful and recurring Super Bowl ads. He’s a talking, technology-savvy, and investing baby who is cool, and smooth. And did I mention cute? He represents the antithesis of Geiko’s “So easy, a caveman could do it” ads. Sitting there looking cute, he conveys that this online trading process is “So easy, a baby could invest better than you do!” Even without the “cool dewd” voiceover.

If people are talking about their kids, you can connect by joining in the conversation or by offering support or advice when it’s solicited or appropriate.

Puppies are cute.

Many movies and commercials feature cute puppies, dogs, and cats, and for good reason. Puppies also embody cuteness: big-eyed, soft, warm, and cuddly (but training them is a whole other ball game). But more than that, people get emotionally attached to their pets. People often treat their pets like family. Families without kids may treat their pets better than family.

People can be very passionate about their pets, and not just dogs and cats, but rabbits, hamsters, ferrets, and more, including reptiles, birds, and even fish.  People love commenting on, ” liking, ” and interacting with pet pictures and posts.

We adopted and even named our (now past) rescue dog through social media. In the summer of 2011 in Chicago, as the temperatures hovered around 100 degrees, someone stole the copper piping from a rooftop air conditioner at a Chicago animal shelter. Our friend Kandra Witkowski, who worked with the animal rescue called A.R.F. (Animal Rescue Foundation), was asked to come to the shelter to help foster some dogs because overcrowding and soaring heat posed a major danger to them.

One of the workers took a video of a black lab retrieving a tennis ball repeatedly, paying no attention to other dogs barking and yelping around him. Kandra sent a Facebook message to my wife, Kim, saying, “What do you think of this big guy?”. Oh, did I mention that he was days away from being euthanized because he was 100 lbs of active dog and deemed unacceptable for most city folk?

A few days later, the big guy showed up in our driveway. We met him and immediately fell in love. A week later, after I returned from giving a presentation out of state, Boomer came back to his forever home. We loved the dog, but his shelter name? Not so much.

That night I posted a picture of him on Facebook, captioned “Name This Dog.” We got over 200 responses. We tallied votes to get the top five and then just stared at him. Did he look like a Mac, a Louie, a Bogie, or a Lynard? Because he was a black lab from Sweet Home Chicago, he is now Buddy Guy.

Buddy Guy was a Facebook sensation. On walks, I took pictures of him receiving pMail and posted them to Facebook. I would get tons of likes and comments.

People love to post pictures of their pets and comment on them. Some pets even have their own social media accounts. (I have no idea how they type.) Pets are a great way to connect with others.

Know what interests your audience(s).

Okay, now you are asking yourself, “Self? What does this have to do with me, my business, networking, or even my brand?” My goal is to communicate about myself and my business! Guess what? Social media networking or relationship marketing is not just about babies, puppies, Buddy Guy, and It’s Not About You. It’s about your audience and what interests them.

It’s about a human-to-human (H2h) connection. It’s about being you, being authentic, vulnerable, flawed, and just plain human.

Influencers are trying to act bigger and better than everyone. It seems that they know something that you don’t. That may work in the consumer world, but in B2b it's just noise.

Can you become more human by sharing your interests in sailing, running, cancer, Alzheimer’s, Boy Scouts, Girl Scouts, soccer, baseball, football, swimming, dancing, working out, health, wealth, and wellness?

If you want an audience to pay attention online or in person, you must create a connection on an EMOTIONAL level, not just an ordinary interest level. Because people love their babies and puppies, pictures about animals, kids, and family, and the emotions associated with them garner the biggest attention and the most responses on social media.

Sales and marketing come later, once the connections have been made. Many experts say you can skip this step, but I am here to tell you that relationships only work when there is mutual benefit.

Everyone relates to bacon
(except maybe vegetarians).

You probably read the title of this book and thought, “What’s with the Bacon???”

Georganne Bender (the Godmudda of bacon) and Rich Kizer (of KIZER & BENDER Institute of Marketing Strategy) are consumer anthropologists, speakers, authors, and consultants. I started working with them in the early 1990s when they were crucial players at Fox Retail Group. We've worked together on projects ranging from message–on-hold tapes to training videos. Recently, we linked up again to give joint presentations on social media.

During prep for a presentation we were doing at the Craft & Hobby Conference and Trade Show in Los Angeles, Georganne said, “Watch this!” She then posted a simple hashtag message, #bacon, on Twitter and said, “By the end of this presentation, I will have another ten followers!” She was right.

For some reason, people love anything about bacon. Search #bacon on a platform, and you will find thousands of posts and people talking about bacon.

So, I started posting about bacon: pictures, quotes, goofy stuff, and more! What happened? I quickly gained new followers and had more people comment on my posts than ever before.

What’s even more eye-opening is that when bacon-related news happens, like “Burger King bacon sundae goes on the menu,” dozens of people reposted about it on my timeline. People even order me plates of bacon at networking meetings to pay homage to my ode de Bacon!

Some people comment that they are worried about my health. “Do you have a prepaid plan with your cardiologist?”

Here’s my little secret, I like bacon just fine, but I eat it less than once a month. If I have my druthers, I order sausage (I suppose neither one is that good for you!).

So why is bacon important? Because it’s neutral.

One unwritten law with social media is, “Never talk politics, religion, or sex (men vs. women), or you will piss off 50% of your audience!” Bacon is the Switzerland of posts, it’s neutral, universal, and viewed as friendly and comforting.

Bacon has created a brand for me and makes me stand out from the crowd. People see a post or picture about bacon, and they can’t wait to share it with me. It does not matter if it’s the first time I see it or the 50th time, I acknowledge their contribution and try to let them know that I really appreciate them and their efforts (which I sincerely do!).

The Acronym

I was speaking at a marketing conference a few years ago, and all the marketers were trying to help me grow my brand even bigger. One said. “You should make BACON stand for something? Instead of meat, how about MEET?”

He was right. So, I decided to evolve BACON into an acronym.

• Building
• Authentic
• Connections
• Online
• Networking

It was really about using online tools and techniques to start growing and enhance relationships that start and are maintained through business networking.

Feed your audience what interests them.

Babies, puppies, and bacon get people to feel like you, and they have something in common. The home run happens when they share your messages with their friends. This extends your reach beyond your 100-500 connections, another concept I will explain more fully later!

In our short-attention-span world, some want to circumvent this step and get to the task at hand. Just sell what you have to sell. This happens in both face-to-face and online social networking.

In the B2b LinkedIn world, I call it the “Connect & Pitch.” People try to offer a sincere desire to connect, and as soon as you accept, they immediately message you: “Hey! Let’s have a conversation about mutual benefit.” Loosely translated, let me pitch you on how using our product or service can benefit your business. They could care less about you. You are a raw meet, a warm lead, and a potential notch in their sales gun!

Please, don’t fall prey to the attitude of “Let’s cut to the chase. Are you a prospect or a waste of my time?” Have you ever been on the other side of that equation? It’s demeaning, alarming, and just plain rude!

Nobody wants to log into Facebook or LinkedIn and wants to be barraged with “Come to my event,” “We are having a sale,” or “We are better than brand X because…” posts. People log into Facebook to connect with friends and family or LinkedIn to learn about or research something about their business, not to be sold something.

It’s Not About You… Your networking presence on social media should not be about your product or service business. It’s just a way to start conversations and enhance interpersonal communications.

We would all like to be the center of the universe, but whose universe? Hundreds, if not thousands, of other people, may be selling what you have to sell in your own town or region. Your audience may not be interested in what you are interested in selling right away, but you can get them interested in your baby, your puppy, or bacon!

Know your BACON.

So, what does Building Authentic Connections Online Networking mean or look like to you and your business? I can assure you it is different for almost everyone, but all have some things in common.

Building means that it’s a process. Relationships have a start and a flow. Most end through atrophy, meaning they are not cared for. So, identify the ones you want to maintain and work on them.

Authentic means genuine, real, and of substance. Whether you like to admit it or not, we tend to have a slightly different perception of ourselves as friends and as business people. The more these align, the more authentic we become.

Connection is about feeding value. You have benefits for others, and they have benefits for you. People may treat this like a hose that either pumps or vacuums. Real relationships have mutual benefits that are a combination of both.

Online is just a technology that helps enhance relationships. It should not replace nor be different from what you would do with someone in person.

Networking is when you meet people and build a connection by authentically connecting with them and offering value. Often, this is done online after you meet through an email, direct social media message, or text message.

For consumer businesses, it’s about providing enough value that customers will want to continue hearing from you until they are ready to make a buying decision.

For B2b businesses, this means investing time in nurturing a long-term relationship. This may mean providing them with information in the form of articles or even providing them with connections that may turn into leads and sales for them first.

Remember, “It’s Not About You… It’s About BACON!”

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Comment below and share your thoughts, ideas, or questions about business-to-business sales and marketing today! Do you have a sales or marketing communications strategy that works for you? What tips or techniques can you share that work for you and your business?

To learn more about this and other topics on B2b Sales & Marketing, visit our podcast website at The Bacon Podcast.