Social Media…..what the hell is social media? When you started your business did anyone tell you “you’re need to be social with your consumer base in order to be successful” or “connecting with vendors socially will help your bottom line in the long run”? Of course they didn’t but I’m you done or at least thought of both. I love telling people to take the social out of the phrase social media and it becomes a little more approachable and tangible. Go a step further and change the term media to medium and now I think you’ve connected with a term that can be leverage the way it was meant to be, genuinely.
Here’s what I mean. Can you imagine someone using a telegraph to sale products? A receiver on the other end transcribing a note that the local pub had pints for half off? Of course note this would take too much time and effort on both parts (the sender and receiver). But as mediums have become more accessible to more people and less labor intensive to operate more people are able to engage. Telemarketing is still the backbone of corporations the world over but the phone was also not invented for business purposes.
You see the medium is still the message and where the phone is still one and one two way communication and the radio and television or one to many one way communication the new mediums are one to many, many to many and always two way.
This is what makes it the gift and the curse that it is to most small businesses. There are some businesses that are made for more interaction with clients. Consulting firms of all kinds should be encouraging questions via twitter and Facebook so that they can forward answers and therefor their expertise on to others. However if you own a high volume retail establishment like a coffee shop replying to all of your customers or even having a free intern to do so might only cause frustration as there is not genuine need (although there maybe be a want) for the coffee experience to linger beyond the last sip. It’s great to get kudos or complaints of how to make your coffee and the experience of being in an establishment but this service is already being performed by the droves of review sites that are in existence.
So what does this mean to you? Be genuine. start conversations and be social when you feel there is a genuine need to be. Talking and engaging because you can can be just as deadly as ignoring your consumer base all together. To help you get some idea of the the good what mediums are working well Mashable has made this info graphic that will should encourage you to figure out if you want to engage, how and then choose a medium that fits your needs. That same way you would with deciding between TV, radio, telemarketing and bill boards.
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- By the numbers: Independent retail is still America’s backbone
- IndieBound calls attention to the value of independent business (from LEGENDmag 25)
- Confessions of an indie: Learning to live with my obession
- Next Legends: Gary Vaynerchuk the "Viticultural Guru" on executing against your DNA
