relationships

“Social Broadcasting” misses the point.

Although blogger Zennie Abraham shares some interesting ideas in his post “Social Networking is Really Social Broadcasting”, I just don’t buy it.

I do get his point that social networking has a big “broadcasting” component to it, and I understand his reasoning of trying to place it in that basket so advertisers can see it as the same as other media buys, but in my opinion, that’s just trying to fit a square peg in a round hole simply to make it sell better. It will sell when, and the key word is when, the marketing community wraps it arms around its true value… and not before.

I don’t think “broadcasting” is the right word because it only addresses the most basic aspects of connections and is primarily a numbers game of how many people you can push your message out to.

Social networking, on the other hand, fully uses the powerful sharing aspect of social media (and the social graph) to rely on and build relationships between people. These relationships then provide you the ability to spread a message through your network and into the network of others due to the true value of the message — value that continues to increase simply by the fact that you have approved and recommended it by passing it along.

Take, for example, Twitter. Most in the marketing community misunderstand Twitter …when used wisely, it is not a broadcast tool or a standalone tool for marketing, it’s an enhancement to your marketing strategy and an extremely valuable networking, experimenting and seeding tool. While it allows you to provide a broadcast-like tweet to all your followers, most will never see a single tweet and the real value is that it also allows you to interact directly with one person in plain sight of thousands of people and allows them to pass along to others in their network. Think about how much we learn about someone by watching their interactions with others, and you can understand how this feature of Twitter quickly creates (or destroys!) trust throughout your social network.

Social networking is also different from broadcasting in that it isn’t just a one-time send-out of information. Powerful social networking includes a back and forth exchange between you and your audience (network members), and their audience, giving you more than one chance to make an impression, clarify your message, and most importantly, build trust. Let’s not forget that it’s trust that builds customer loyalty!

Ted Rubin

Women hold the purse strings – talk with them!

Women hold the family online shopping purse strings, so no matter what your product, you should be talking to women. Women are the ones using social media to build their relationships, and in this era of Relationship Commerce, those relationships are pure gold.

It’s the women who will take the time to ask for and give product recommendations. It’s the women who will tap into their networks to find the good deals. It’s the women who will gladly make sure all their friends hear about a wonderful new product they discovered… or a terrible product they would never buy again.

However, these relationships are meaningless for you and your brand if you don’t have ways for these women to easily talk with you. They want to know they can trust you, and how do they figure that out? They build a relationship with you, the “influencer” (seller) just like they do with their friends and other trusted information sources. You absolutely must make sure that women find it easy to talk to you and about you!

  1. Make sure social media tools and your own online communities are as easily accessible as your online product information. This shows that you are not afraid to have your customers / clients talk with each other, so you must not have anything to hide.
  2. Interact publicly with individuals of your audience. You know that the most successful relationships are two-way streets, so keep that in mind as you interact with your “audience.” Social media allows you to build very visible relationships (2000 Twitter followers? 2000 possible observers of any of your interactions) so every single interaction counts. An information push won’t get you anywhere – you have to ask questions and answer them! Then ask follow-up questions and answer those also. Follow me on twitter (@TedRubin) to see what I mean.
  3. Communicate consistently. Don’t expect to build trust if you are only responsive to your audience every now and then. Build social media response time into every day and your consistency will pay off. Only pay attention once in a while, and you have no chance to build a relationship. In other words, just like you can’t disappear in non-digital life and expect to keep your relationships in tact, you can’t just disappear online.

So take another look at your product and your brand offering. Are you talking with the women? You should be. You need to be. If you’re not, start making changes TODAY – your brand success depends on it.

Ted Rubin

Marketing Tool That Transcends Message & Media

Today’s marketing professional has an impressive tool kit at the ready. In addition to the staples of the past half-century or so, technology has created a whole new set that seductively promises to change the arithmetic and shrink things to manageable size. Where the world used to be an accessible oyster only for those with the budget, today’s venture can play in the global arena with even the scarcest of resources.

Okay — truth be told, many of us are still wrestling with pieces of the new tool-set. (Please submit all workable Social Media marketing strategies.)

But while in pursuit of promising new connections in an undeniably dynamic marketplace, it may be timely to revisit the tool that has always shaped, and will again change the discussion.

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Social Media Power – Don’t Give It Away! Unless…

Social media’s incredible power is in allowing us to instantaneously connect to, interact with, and build relationships with our audience of thousands… and it’s exactly that power that makes it risky to turn your social media campaigns over to an outside agency.

The “social” part of social media campaigns makes them quite different than traditional ad campaigns. Instead of a brand presence relying on catching attention through the initial “look and feel” (of a website, brochure, television ad, etc.), it now includes a broader and deeper ongoing connection based on personality and relationship, both of which are tough to have someone “outside” successfully convey for your brand.

Also unlike traditional ad campaigns and their weeks/months-to-market brochures and television ads, social media has the power of immediacy with seconds/minutes-to-market Tweets, Facebook postings, YouTube video clips, etc. In other words, with social media we do not have the luxury of time for multiple review cycles and sharp perfection of every public brand message.

However…

I’m not suggesting that you should never consider using outside resources for your social media campaign. If you are still trying to figure out how your brand can use social media for relationship commerce, or you simply have run out of hours in your day to use social media effectively, you may need an outside agency’s help. Just be very careful with your hiring, and deliberate with your integration of outside resources.

Specifically, you need to make absolutely certain that:

1. The key players of your outside agency team are attached at the hip to senior management. When your brand shifts in any way, your social media messages need to immediately reflect those shifts. If your brand’s social media presence isn’t nimble, trust and therefore relationships and influence will falter.

2. Someone with a direct line to the c-suite (top management) and a clear understanding of the brand voice and long-term objectives is keeping track of, managing, and observing the process daily. The brand voice, or “personality” is the heart of your social media campaign, so someone needs to make sure the personality stays true to the c-suite message and consistent throughout the campaign.

3. If you don’t have someone on staff to oversee the social media strategy, you hire a consultant for this role. This consultant must have the requisite experience with social media, and take personal charge of the strategy. Again, you can’t afford the time for information to trickle down from senior management, so the consultant must have access to communicate directly with senior management and be someone who really “gets” how social marketing works and how to execute.

Bottom line: Who can you trust with your brand’s relationships? Make that decision wisely.

Ted Rubin

Dog Days of Social Media… I Don’t Think So!

In his recent must-read post, “The Dog Days of Social Media,” Drew Neisser reminds us that just because Facebook has lost some fans, and Forrester “recommends a cautious approach to Foursquare,” we shouldn’t panic and jump off the social media ship.

I agree wholeheartedly with Drew and appreciate his addressing such a timely topic. “Dog Days,” my ass! We are only scratching the surface here of social media potential! And even if your audience does abandon a platform “en masse”… so what? Scalable social platforms are not going away, migrations will happen — they always do eventually — but if it is not Facebook or Twitter it will be somewhere else you can still reach out, engage your audience, and interact with them.

So we need to keep in mind that, going forward, long-term brand success will not be dependent on a specific social media tool; it will be relative to the depth and breadth of the relationships built using the tool. Building relationships and interacting with consumers is where the commerce of the future is heading. Yes, real relationships = brand interest & loyalty = success (money). In fact, at OpenSky, we believe so strongly in the power of relationships as commerce that we have built an entire platform and business model around it.

Remember, though, that social media is a facilitator of relationships, but it is not the relationship itself. Use whatever combination of ways to interact works best for you and your brand. In other words, experiment! Use Facebook, Twitter, blog posts, and YouTube (don’t forget YouTube!), and use them each in several different ways. Notice what tactics engage your audience so much that they interact not only with you/your brand but with other people loyal to your brand. That’s where the magic happens!

Once you find what works for your audience, drive a truck through that opening. It’s not enough to drive that truck through and keep on going. You need to park that truck, and get out to interact with your audience. “Listen” to your market and you will be able to relate to and engage your customers, evolving with them as they evolve and change. Remember… relationships are never static, so your brand must be able to move along with the relationship or be left behind.

Bottom line: the more responsive you are to your audience, the more responsive they will be to you. Don’t wait for them to make the first move.

Ted Rubin

The “Relationship” in “Relationship Commerce”

We’re hearing (and doing) more and more about “Relationship Commerce” these days — but what does that really mean? Does having 2,000 Facebook “friends” or “fans” mean you have 2000 relationships? Or 28,000 Twitter “followers” mean 28,000 relationships?

It depends. Any one of us obviously does not have time to keep up thousands of face-to-face relationships at a time, but with the help of social media, we can certainly build and keep substantially more relationships going. However, it takes more than simply sending a Facebook friend request or clicking the “follow” button on another Twitter user’s profile.

To build relationships online, you (brand or individual) have to offer something in return, such as valuable information, personal introductions to your already-established connections, or even part of yourself through engagement and interaction.

It’s no longer enough to just suggest that someone should be interested in your product or service. You need to engage your market — ask questions, propose ideas, or simply communicate through social media in a way that gives your followers a chance and a reason to respond.

Then when they respond, interact with them to solidify the relationship, or it will just fade out. Directly acknowledge their response, ask follow-up questions, and share their insights with others. Don’t simply be responsive, be incredibly responsive. Always acknowledge those who reach out or spread your ideas. Follow me on Twitter (@tedrubin) and you will see what I mean. Bottom line: the more responsive you are to your audience, the more responsive they will be to you.

Online relationships will not survive without trust. The key to building trust is simple, but not always easy: Always be good to your word (true to your brand), always be authentic, and always be genuine. Remember, most of your social media interactions are public and very much interconnected – let a positive, trustworthy reputation be the only thing out there to spread!

One final point in this post – although Facebook and Twitter are fantastic tools for meeting and engaging with your audience, don’t forget that you can use them in combination with other relationship-building tools. Email, phone, and in-person meetings are all essential tools for bringing the virtual world closer to your “real world.” Use whatever combination works best for you, and you will quickly turn your connections into raving fans and outspoken advocates!

As you can see, Relationship Commerce is not just about financial exchange; it’s about interpersonal exchange, aka the “relationship.”

Ted Rubin

Beyond Connections, to Building Relationships

It is news to no one that when it comes to marketing, relationships trump everything.

A challenge in the pursuit of this asset is to recognize the difference between connections and relationships. (Or, for that matter, the difference between followers or fans and relationships.)

At the risk of oversimplifying, establishing connections is relatively easy. Building and nurturing relationships is not.

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