Alone we can do so little; together we can do so much!
Big Data. Big Brother. The NSA debacle. People in the United States are feeling vulnerable. And with all the publicity surrounding online security hacks and stolen account numbers (not to mention all-out identity theft), is it any wonder that consumers are leery of giving brands their personal information?
For me it is not about tools, but about strategy, and execution. Here are a few things to consider in addition to just posting articles and working the SEO angle…
When people ask me what’s the ROI of Social, I ask them… what’s the ROI of Trust, and what’s the ROI of Loyalty. The answer, when used to build relationships the results will be… longer lifetime value of a customer, larger average order value, and increased frequency of purchase. All measurable and all lead to increased sales and profits.
Humans have become adept at automating everything, and we’re rapidly replacing human effort with mechanization and/or computerization. We have found a way to automate more and more tasks in our factories, schools, medicine, even communication! While this is often a good thing, we’re also coming to terms with the fact that we can’t (and shouldn’t) automate every aspect of our lives. Some of us have found out the hard way that just because you can automate a process, that doesn’t necessarily mean you should. And that’s especially true of human interaction. I’m feeling particularly thankful that business seems to be finally taking a closer look at the value of building relationships and their critical importance.
The beauty of events and traveling is the ability to take relationships developed digitally to a face-to-face encounter that cements the connection. Most think this does not scale, but it does because when you make this a regular part of your travels, always reaching out and creating “moments,” others participate vicariously and feel a part of those meetings when you share them socially.
An interviewer posed this question to me recently: Is networking in social media a worthy investment?
How can your company encourage customer to market for you through word of mouth and sharing? Too many companies are looking for tricks or short-cuts…
Take your most popular tweets and FB posts, or the ones you feel most passionately about, and use them to develop blog posts. You don’t have to write three pages; you don’t even have to write four paragraphs. Seth Godin is one of the most successful bloggers in the marketing world, and he writes in two- to three-sentence paragraphs. He’s a master at expressing ideas that are thought-provoking and easy to read. People are time pressed these days and content can be overwhelming, so make it valuable and easy to read.
