Know-How Exchange : Social Media

Dear Mack,

I’d like to offer my humble two cents’ worth to anyone reading who’s still on the fence about getting involved with social media.

To many business owners, the world of social media resembles the world of bunjee jumping: possibly fun to look at, but not something they particularly want to take part in. Although many people won’t admit it, the thing that stops them from finding out more about any given subject isn’t ignorance or a lack of time.

It’s fear.

Whatever the situation, if you’re afraid you can do one of two things: you can let the fear control your life. Or you can face the fear, get involved, and see what happens. In more situations than we realize, the fear only exists in our head. So why permit fear to manage your life, your business, and impact your potential for success?

Social media isn’t just things like MySpace, YouTube, Facebook, and Twitter. It’s also places like the one you’re in now: a professional forum (or any kind of forum).

The thing about these great tools is that you’ll only ever get out of them what you’re prepared to put in.

And although there’s no financial cost to taking part in any of these arenas, there is a cost in terms of time. But again, the scarcity thinking here of “I don’t have time for all this!” is skewed: it’s time to STOP thinking about costs and expense and it’s time to begin thinking in terms of investment and potential return.

No investment, no return. No input, no output. No message put out, no message received.

And these places, these meeting points are NOT about selling. They’re about creating meeting places, they’re about creating relationships based on mutual respect, admiration, and gain. And that gain does not have to be a sale. It can be a lead, a piece of handy information passed one, some useful snippet.

All of which help reinforce the relationship.

The other great thing about YouTube, Facebook, and Twitter is
that their participants are generally not hidden. If you know of someone well known that you’d like to reach out to and they’re on Twitter, there’s nothing to stop you from following them and telling them how much you admire their work, their book, their style, or whatever.

This isn’t about hero worship or butt kissing. It’s about being open and honest and making new connections. And if you’d like to market your goods, services, and products to the people following that well known person, those people are right there.

All you have to do is establish value-driven, benefit-focused relationships with them, and depending on your message and tone, a good percentage of them will not only follow you back, but they’ll also be way more open to your potential sales message as it benefits them. Your Twitter posts can drive people to your blog, your blog can direct people to a YouTube post, and the YouTube post can help drive people to your sales page. Or to your bricks and mortar store. Or to your book’s sales page on Amazon.

This way, the progression of the relationship becomes far less about selling and way more about making people like you, trust you, and want to buy from you when they’re ready to buy, not just because you have this particular kind of snake oil to push.

The key to success with these platforms is to get involved. Nothing ventured and all that.

I started on Twitter about two months ago and so far, I'm being followed by over 900 people. Some of my followers are well-known in their particular niche and I'm able to not only reach out to them as @GaryBloomer, but I'm also making connections with many of them. Solid, benefit-driven, relationship-building connections.

Two months ago I wouldn't have thought this possible.

But it is possible.

All you have to do is get involved.

Gary Bloomer
Wilmington, DE, USA

Gary, Mack will be too shy to say this...but I'm not! Mack is a social media pro!! :)

Mack, Thanks for kicking off a great starter question here on the KHE! I hope that here on the KHE we can have great conversations around social media and not just expert/novice back and forth. ;)

Juliet, you bring up a great point about WOM. I really think it's about integration. Traditional marketing, integrated with social media that leads to word of mouth. In time, I have found that Twitter has led to great word of mouth.

My favorite story is about Chik-Fil-A (a fast food chain). Toby Bloomberg (a MarketingProfs Daily Fix blogger) tweeted that she was drinking a new peach shake from CFA. Then someone else chimed in about how great they were. Well, I had a free coupon sitting on my refrigerator for 2-3 months. It took only those two tweets to motivate me! Sure enough, the shake was great and I told my Twitter followers how delicious it was. That said, the coupon I had was from a local CFA. When I went in I told them what happened on Twitter (the local CFA isn't on Twitter, but corporate is @Chik_Fil_A). So, to your point, there can be a disconnect. If the local CFA was on Twitter and I followed them, they could have tweeted "Don't forget about the coupon!"

As for social media ROI (and measurement), it's totally viable...but it takes a plan. Now that is what I see organizations struggling with more than getting involved in social media. They fear having a social media plan or even a marketing plan that integrates social media.

Beth Harte
Community Manager, MarketingProfs
@bethharte

The keyword in your question is strategy. Without a solid strategy companies just experiment, and often see no positive benefit because there are no goals, no timelines, no plan and no accountability. Social media should be tackled like any other project that consumes resources and should lead to results, either positive ROI or better efficiencies or better brand awareness, ideally all three. Companies that succeed in various ways using social media know this, or at least they hire consultants who do and listen to them. It does take commitment and vision, which must come from the top. The chief social media cheerleader should be the CEO, or it will never work. Without that top-down buy-in it will always be a finger-pointing game when the fail whale comes to town.