Breaking down barriers using social media
What are some major barriers for businesses today (and yesterday, and tomorrow)? How about trust, influence, industry and competitive noise, money, the state of the economy? …just to name a few.
Trust particularly stands out these days for reasons we are all very aware. Trust flows into influence. If these two are ‘captured’, a business can rise above the noise in the industry which flows nicely into increased revenue, a.k.a, money. If all of these pieces come together, then the economy can become less of a burden to the business (especially if the business is about sound sustainability vs. constant growth…my extra two cents).
The barriers are the barriers.
What if you are a small business with no marketing budget and little to no influence? What if you are an innovative company in your market with a ton of domain knowledge, but have a small marketing budget? What if the economy hurt your industry, but you have a ton of trust and knowledge? What if you have some of the best customers in your market, but have a small marketing budget?
There is no magic bullet.
BUT, what if you could take your ‘ton of domain knowledge’, influential and happy customers, innovative and problem solving ideas, excellent customer service and weave it into highly desired content and dialog? What if that led to, over time, a very dedicated audience that you could connect with in a moment’s notice, to say….confirm product development plans that would keep and increase revenue, or, to deliver a major announcement that gets forwarded and reproduced many times, or, to solve problems on the fly and in real time to many vs. one at a time, or….. (fill in the blank). What if you could do this for a lot less money than traditional means?
Enter social media, ta da. No, no magic, hocus pocus here, but it is a very real opportunity, especially if you are in a market that is slow to adopt social media.
If you hear the words ‘social media’ and begin to feel a meltdown coming on, just erase the words from your mind. Instead, think, just like I use computer applications to create efficiencies in my business there is now a way to produce, distribute and share my knowledge, and to uniquely and closely connect with my market and customers. That’s definitely a good thing for my customer and my business.
Whew! Better way of looking at it? I hope so.
As Katie Morse wrote in her article, Do we remember how to talk to our customers?, “A good majority of the world I work in is new. Twitter and Facebook haven’t been around for that long, and blogging certainly isn’t ancient either.” ….”What’s not new is what the tools enable us to accomplish.” I think Katie points out that you don’t want to lose yourself in the tools. They are just tools! Don’t be a tool using your tools. Maybe that’s the point that Prince really wanted to make when he said that the Internet is over. (Though, maybe the joke is on us and Prince actually did use the Internet to promote his upcoming new release via his anti-Internet comments…which are all over the Internet. Hmm.)
Prince, I think is different. Okay, well we know he’s different (Not a bad thing I might add! We love Prince.). What I mean is that the allure for him is the mysteriousness vs. the total transparency. The Internet / social media is not for everyone. But, it could just be the platform that enables an easier, wider exchange between you and your customer and audience opening doors to accomplish your business goals.
How have you broken barriers using social media?
My name is Angela Daniello and I am a marketer, blogger and social media coach. (Oh, and an outdoor enthusiast! Have you seen Ken Burns' The National Parks?) I help businesses uncover, create, and share content that builds their community.
Hey there and thanks for mentioning my Social Fresh post! Your last point really stuck out as the key to me – “it could just be the platform that enables an easier, wider exchange between you and your customer and audience opening doors to accomplish your business goals.”
Very well said, and something that is so simple!! I think people get caught up in the small bits quite often, and forget the bigger picture.
Katie
Community Manager | Radian6
@misskatiemo
Hi Katie, thanks so much for your comment! I agree, it is so easy to quickly get caught up in the details and make things complex. Social media tools can end up being those ‘shiny objects’ that get people off track.