Social Media. Is it for me?
Social Media and marketing 2.0 seem to be the big buzz words these days. But what do they mean, how do you get started and is this important for my business? These are all questions that our clients are grappling with as they look to stay on top of the changing face of marketing and still be relevant to their clients.
For those who attended the Women Business Owners presentation by Seth Godin, you will recall that part of his message was the how is less important than the who. Facebook, twitter, blogs, and many other vehicles are really just tactical tools to creating and maintaining relationships with customers.
The key is relationships.
Are your customers online? Do they go online for information? When they want to do research on a product, service, look for references, find contact information, assess credibility, do they look to the Internet?
If the answer is yes, then you need to be online.
If your customer is online, you can have a one way conversation with them with a simple webpage. Now step that up a bit. Think about what that might feel like as a customer. How many people would trust, seek out, and advocate for a friend that only spoke at them, rather than with them?
Relationship is King. Two way conversations, discussion forums and opportunities for feedback allow customers to feel connected. Connections create communities. Communities create advocates.
Would not it be great to have potential customer come to your website for information, ask a question, and have one of your customers provide the answer rather than you? Consumers are very savvy today and trust complete strangers before those with a vested interest in selling to them.
MM
Social Media and marketing 2.0 seem to be the big buzz words these days. But what do they mean, how do you get started and is this important for my business? These are all questions that our clients are grappling with as they look to stay on top of the changing face of marketing and still be relevant to their clients.
For those who attended the Women Business Owners presentation by Seth Godin, you will recall that part of his message was the how is less important than the who. Facebook, twitter, blogs, and many other vehicles are really just tactical tools to creating and maintaining relationships with customers.
The key is relationships.
Are your customers online? Do they go online for information? When they want to do research on a product, service, look for references, find contact information, assess credibility, do they look to the Internet?
If the answer is yes, then you need to be online.
If your customer is online, you can have a one way conversation with them with a simple webpage. Now step that up a bit. Think about what that might feel like as a customer. How many people would trust, seek out, and advocate for a friend that only spoke at them, rather than with them?
Relationship is King. Two way conversations, discussion forums and opportunities for feedback allow customers to feel connected. Connections create communities. Communities create advocates.
Would not it be great to have potential customer come to your website for information, ask a question, and have one of your customers provide the answer rather than you? Consumers are very savvy today and trust complete strangers before those with a vested interest in selling to them.
MM
posted by Women's Enterprise Centre at
10:55 AM
1 Comments:
If you're business is online, you should engage in social media. But it goes deeper than that.
In the long run, you want to think about your online brand, a term you'll hear more of in the near future.
This includes showing up in search results, which is crucial to growing your business online, and also online advertising (to a lesser degree).
Social media is only a piece of the pie to your online success.
In a recent report by Gartner it stated about 75% of the Fortune 1000 are engaged in social media, but half of them will fail. Should that discourage you? No. They probably have lots of money/resource, but also red tape.
From working with clients locally and abroad, the main social media challenges I've seen are;
-understand its a process (takes time to grow)
-requires commitment (daily is best)
-treating as marketing/advertising (won't work)
As mentioned, its about building trust. And in the trust economy the relationships built will take time like any relationship.
You can contribute by being true, providing value, sharing, engaging, and keeping your commitment to the process. Doesn't hurt to track and measure either, so you can refine your strategy and allocate your resources to suitable channels.
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