If you’ve been in business for more than a week, you’ve undoubtedly heard someone mention the Pareto Principle, also known as the 80/20 rule. Just in case, here is a simple definition from which we are gonna draw some super kewl Social Media for business parallels.
“The Pareto principle (also known as the 80-20 rule, the law of the vital few, and the principle of factor sparsity) states that, for many events, roughly 80% of the effects come from 20% of the causes.”
You’ve probably thought about this in relation to employee behaviors, realizing that 20% of your workers bring in 80% of the results or revenue. You also may look at it in light of customers, whereas 20% of your customers drop in 80% of your bottom line. We could 
go on forever with this, so let’s get to the social media part of it before you are tempted to bust out your P&L statements and verify my assumptions! 
The 80/20 Rule For Business Blogs
Our clients all know that I am a blogger first, and a marketer second. That’s important because we have to get in the proper frame of mind in order to be accepted leaders within communities online. When we play this right, we gain outspokenly loyal customers!
You see, bloggers as a group are very giving people. We work together to accomplish goals together. Josh brings this principle into the business sector when he talks about Trade Rings, and all boats rising together. I am going to take it even one step up from there (towards the Echelon! )
On your business blog, you want to give more than you grab. In fact, 80% of what you do on the blog, meaning articles you post, should be in some way about someone or something else. Now I’m not telling you to go and endorse your competitors here, don’t go there! I am, however, telling you that there are lots of great things going on within and around your community outside of your 4 brick walls and those things matter, a lot!
Let’s pretend you are a restaurant with 10 locations in the Indiana and Illinois and you have 300 employees. Your blog is rockin’ cool and very interactive (because you hired Echelon Media to run it for you, of course! 
) and here are a few ideas of articles to post that will satisfy the need to GIVE 80% of the time:
Example #1 — one of your employees at the Indianapolis location just ran in a 10-k event for charity and you do a write up about her, but more importantly about the charity and how much money was raised for a good cause. You include lots of pictures of people at the event because you know people love to see themselves in print! (like on a popular blog)
Example #2 — A local church in Tinley Park, Illinois has a thriving youth group and private school and once a month you cater in food there at a super discount. You don’t necessarily post about your goodness, but rather how impressed you are with the young people who attend the school. Maybe one of them is an Eagle Scout or just got accepted to West Point or the Air Force Academy… you get the idea.
Example #3 — Some new luxury condos are going up across the street from your South Bend location and you do a huge write up talking about how nice these condos will be and how great the builder and his crew are. (I hope you see how filling up the condo units will benefit your restaurant)
See how simple that is? You are giving while increasing your own brand in an indirect way. Remember, 80% of your posts should be of this nature. Here’s a quote to bring this concept home to you:
“I will use my blog to build up people in my community, instead of using people in my community to build up my blog”
Get it? I learned this concept in Bible college believe it or not, but it plays out very well in the business world as well.
The other 20% of your posts can and should be directly about your business. Talk about your specials, sales and expansion. Your 80% of giving will mean that people will want to be engaged with your 20% about you!
Just so you know, Twitter works the same way but in 140 characters or less — make 80% of your tweets about others, for others and with others, and 20% of the tweets about you.
Simple!
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7 Responses to Social Media And The 80/20 Rule
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Hi Allyn,
I knew this on an instinctive level having been around the very giving people in the Northwest Indiana blogging community, but it’s great that you’ve put this into written form where I’ll remember to implement it.
I have found this easy to do when I’ve blogged about non-business topics, but I always have developed a mental block when it came to blogging about my core business. That might be why I haven’t done very much blogging about what I do for a living. Plus, that type of writing seemed too much like work, rather than fun.
However, I see how writing about others can make business blogging something that one can be passionate about and writing in a human way (unlike a typical corporate blog). Help your customers, employees, and community, and it creates a better economy which means increased revenues for all.
I like it!
Chris, I’d say that is the perfect summary! You got the point 100% man, thanks!
I actually enjoy writing good things about others myself. it comes from my days as an Air Force photojournalist… it was always so much fun to get people in the paper and see their reactions!
Blogs are the same way today. I wish more businesses would see this.
Al
Amazing things start to happen when you shift your focus to others. Be it clients, friends, customers, family or whoever, when you make things about them it changes the dynamic of the relationship. Like remembering people’s name and how nothing sounds better when you hear your name said. The best thing you can do is bring the attention to them. In the end, they will remember and like you because they matter to you. This has powerful implications. If you’re a business this can mean bigger profits. If you live a mobile lifestyle this means friends everywhere you go and so on. Good tie in.
You really nailed the concept of building a community around your blog or your hyperlocal news website. I have tried to practice this concept from day one. It’s all about the other folks out there, not me.
I post a lot of videos on my sites and I’m often asked why I’m never in the videos. I just say, it’s not about me, it’s about getting all those other folks publicity and recognition.
Everyone who follows your advice in this article, will be successful at whatever they do. You can’t NOT be.
Great post. I’m a huge fan of the Pareto Principle, and think you hit it on the head with blog use. I’ve found that even though I have nothing but an ugly old writing blog, the far majority of my posts are tips, information, advice, and the like. The result of setting that up as my base is that when I did write about myself, the response became really strong and positive and just took off from there. Besides, a stronger local community is beneficial to everyone and has never hurt anybody! Great post, Allyn.
Hey Shane,
yeah man, it is just plain ole rewarding to give too, but you are right, when you mix in your personality and people already know you as a “giver” it really takes off ten fold! Good stuff!
thanks for coming over here and supporting us, we appreciate it,
AL
Hey cheers for this entry.