Just because your company may have incorporated Social Media into it’s marketing strategy – it may have even gone as far as creating a Social Media team – doesn’t mean your management has adapted to Social Media trends or adopted its philosophies in the marketplace.
A Walk Down Memory Lane
If you’re like me, you’ve seen the entire evolution of online communication in your lifetime. The graph below represents this evolutionary process (dates are approximate).
The conduction of dialog and content contribution through these mediums has varied. BBSs allowed users to send messages between each other as well as posting public comments. E-mail, of course, in nature, is a one-to-one communication tool, but can be expanded depending on the number of recipients. User Groups/Listservs (also known as Usenet) enabled multiple authors to create discussions and allow multiple contributors to reply. Usenet was the first platform for many-to-many communication between its users. Usenet still has a a large following today.
Next, as the web became popular and more accessible, BBSs diminished and forums became the primary outlet for companies to provide support to their clients. Again, a many-to-many collaboration allowing clients to post comments and questions for support teams and, even peers, to contribute.
Finally, came the blogs, Social Networks (MySpace, Facebook, LinkedIn), Social Bookmarks (Digg, Mixx, Reddit) and Social Media (YouTube, Flickr) sites. While Social Media services are primarily many-to-many, blogs are predominantly a one-to-many collaboration platform – one person (the blogger) must first create the topic, then visitors are encouraged to respond.
While “Social Media” was only coined in the past few years, social media, in the truest sense, reaches back to the days of the Bulletin Board System. After all, this is why BBSs were created and the Internet was made public – to connect people and the sharing of information.
Change Your Mindset
From my previous post, one can see that there has been a significant shift in the way information is exchanged and people communicate. If a company hopes to survive, it must incorporate Social Media into its marketing strategy. That’s a given. But, how?
Information and data are exchanged almost instantaneously; the days of waiting for prolonged e-mail responses to customer questions and comments are fading. Communities are no longer built around the front porch or cultivated in the back yard, but, rather the computer screen. Larger communities, greater animosity, but still the feeling of belonging is the heart of Social Media. And, one product is just as good as another as long as it satisfies my need. Some would even go as far as saying that brands no longer matter. So how does your company capitalize in this new era?
The answer is quite simple, but I believe it is also profound. The foundation of developing a strong Social Media presence is, to remember one thing: Create a dialogue; start a conversation.
I felt the information at the beginning of this post was important for reminding us of our humble beginnings and how we’ve evolved through the years. Unfortunately, much of today’s management seems to treat Social Media as advertising. Social Media is NOT advertising. Advertising, creates a one-to-many relationship – you post a sign, an ad, etc. in hopes of a response from potential leads. Participants of Social Media want a chance to be heard – a chance to contribute to the community. Members demand respect from companies. Again, they don’t want to be sold; they want to be heard and appreciated.
Pros and Cons
There are only a couple of negatives with this adaptation.
- A longer timeline from lead/sale initiation to close. Because Social Media is based on relationships, there is an obvious time factor that your company must consider. Your Social Media following will begin to trickle in as, in any other relationship, trust is developed.
- Beware, one negative comment in the Social pipeline may take some time to be flushed out. This can be viewed as a negative or positive. The negative being that it may take some time to repair your corporate image. The positive (at least from your clients’ point of view) is this encourages accountability within your organization.
The benefits of creating a Social community, unequivocally, out weight the cons.
- Peer contribution creates exponential growth. This can be great for search engine optimization or creating deep, multiple sales channels. With everyone contributing information about your product or service, your web presence increases dramatically.
- Greater customer loyalty. If you take the time to listen, so will you customers. Your customers will feel appreciated and are more likely to create an emotional attachment to your brand. Remember, Social Media members desire community, so give them a place to belong and they will love you for it.
- Greater customer loyalty increases sales volumes and customer retention. The question I ask many times to companies starting to engage in Social Media is, “Are you more interested in making a sale or growing a business?” Making a sale is short-term, growing a business is long-term.
Remember, I’ll say it again, to be successful in Social Media, Create a dialogue; start a conversation.
