Social media takes away the control that was the norm for traditional advertising. Now you need to tell a story, and not sell one. And it is those with PR experience, who you should look to as your first port of call. They are the ones that are well versed in persuasion and conversation. When you initiate a social media campaign, you are embarking upon a relationship with a consumer.

Social media eliminates the boundaries between brands, consumers and media. It empowers the consumer to choose whether they engage with, ignore or even campaign against the brands vying for their attention. It’s not about your campaign budget.

Gauge the mood of the people:

To make it work, you need to capture the mood of the people at any one time. Ascertain this, and then give people interesting content, which they will want to share and discuss. This will propel your brand in the social media space.

Be creative and you will go far:

The best looking Facebook page means nothing without great content to inspire conversations. You need the technology to deliver the message, but it is the ideas in content that can have the most measurable impact, and deliver the best ROI.

Create content with “talkability” – something that will kick-start a conversation and make your message stand-out. Always have this in mind: anything your create should always be worth sharing.

As a brand you are being forced into new domains where you have to earn your footing.  Mercedes Benz Facebook page went from 1000-500,000 fans in 12 months. And then from 500,000 to 1m fans in just 8 weeks. They now have well in excess of 2 million fans. And furthermore, they achieved this without spending a single $ in buying any of these fans through Facebook Ads.

So what does this tell us? We don’t need a huge budget. Fans and followers are not bought. We as brands need to earn their loyalty. And this is as applicable to a global brand as a local florist for example.

Mercedes-Benz achieved this by finding out where their customers and prospects are, by LISTENING, and then creating platforms for people to share their stories. People are giving the freedom express the difference the brand has made in their lives. They have not pushed generic marketing messages to a disinterested audience. In fact, they have done the exact opposite.

This is investing in the growth of communities. Enabling conversations that take place in real life to move into the social media space. Your social media space. Provide the platforms for people to share their experiences and you will engage with your customers in a much more meaningful way.

The human touch

There is no getting away from that, and therefore companies need to get involved. Or risk not being able to defend themselves, should they be unjustly (or justly!) maligned online. But traditional marketing methods are arguably the worse approach for entering the conversation.

Take your corporate hat off for the moment. The vast majority of companies, despite all that has been said surrounding social media, still use the various platforms, to throw out marketing messages. Special offers via Twitter;  blog posts that invariably culminate in how we can sell you more product.

The social web is exactly that. A multitude of conversations/ social interactions. People are guarding themselves against the generic company PR, marketing communications. It’s a real turn off.

MORE CONVERSATION = MORE ACTION

Conversations are where ideas happen, and new partnerships are formed. People want to talk with the humans behind the closed doors of companies. Your employees are itching to help your customers in a way that is accessible to them. Through human-like, natural and honest conversation. It is not so bad not to know the answer. Humans can solve issues working together.

Unmarketing the key to success

Companies need to shed their old ideas. Customers are people. Real people. And then can see through the marketing speak. And moreover, they can just turn off instantly. These real people want to deal with the real people inside your company. So hard as it may be, companies need to cede some control, and just let the conversation flow!

If you want to chat, about anything..you know where we are! Great ideas will spring therefrom!

Employees will waste time with social media:
Many large corporations block their employees from accessing the Internet altogether. Others try to block employees from accessing personal email or social networks like Facebook during work hours.

With the advent of smart phones, internet access is available to workers everywhere – and employers can’t stop them from accessing the Internet.

The value of workers of having internet access – in terms of research, communication, and speed – is far greater than the threat of lost productivity. Companies like Best Buy, Dell and many others have increased not only customer satisfaction, but also sales, by having hundreds, and even thousands, of employees monitoring and resolving complaints and issues in social media.

Companies have a right to make policies and rules about personal use of the internet, but blocking it during work just doesn’t make sense.

What if people say nasty things about our brand?:

Most people exercise common sense, when reading reviews. That is to say, any obviously vindictive and negative comments will simply be ignored.

And besides, complaints may very well mean that there may be things you need to change about your brand. In that case, you should thank them for letting you know what they are. Then you should make changes.

If you have built an online community that includes people who don’t hate you, that community will rise to your defense and they will handle the problem for you.

We’ll lose control of the brand.

Every person with a computer and even a tiny skill level has the tools to make their opinion about your brand heard by other people. They’re already talking about you.

You cannot control the message in the internet Age. You can affect it, but you cannot control it. Your workers are talking about you in closed Facebook groups designed to keep you out so they can talk about you in peace. Your customers are emailing, Tweeting, Facebooking, and that old standby – calling – their friends about their experience with your brand. You don’t have control. You might as well join the conversation. At least that way you can influence what is being said.

Employees will give away corporate secrets on social networks and that will help our competitors and affect the stock price.
If you don’t already have a social media policy, you need to create one.

If you don’t trust your employees to talk to customers, or to represent the brand, you need to look at 1) your hiring practices, 2) your training practices.

The truth is that there are more emerging media success stories than there are failures.

Without an understanding of, and participation in, social networks, you can miss shaping and contributing to the decision-making process of those who define the success of your business.

While social media cheat-sheets and short cuts are available almost everywhere you look, the truth is that we have some work ahead of us. To help, I’ve assembled a list of five best practices to help you build, cultivate, and measure success in the new web right now.

1. Dedicate the time

Because time is a big concern, think about social media as an opportunity cost. Will your investment in identifying and connecting with prospects, customers, and influencers outperform your other activities? The answer is yes for most businesses, so carve out time for strategic experimentation. In short, you get out of it, what you invest.

2. Conquer your fears

Many business owners believe that social media gives people a chance to criticize their business. That’s true, but avoiding social media doesn’t mean that their opinions will never see the light of day.

Your brand is at the mercy of those who take to social media to share their experiences, so you might as well take an active role to contributes to the stature and perception of your brand. You might even learn how to improve your product and service in the process.

3. Listen and research to learn and contribute

Social networking is far more effective when you realize that creating profiles and updating social networks aren’t arbitrary. There’s an art and science to all of this, and the process begins with listening and research.

Step one: create a list of keywords that represent your market and then use the search box in each social network to see what people are saying about you. As you examine the results, you’ll identify the people who are leading conversations and the dialogue that invites and inspires participation. If local business is paramount to success, use services such as Twitter, Facebook, Yelp, LinkedIn. Also monitor location-based networks such as Foursquare, Gowalla, and Loopt.

4. Establish an attractive and expansive presence

Your presence online is far more valuable than you may realize. While you may think that you should focus on your website, your social-media presence also represents you and what you offer. The ability to showcase your products and services to attract customers and spark conversation is arguably greater on social networking sites than your own website. In any case, connecting the dots between social networks, websites, and the real world is now as important as the service and products that you offer.

5. Use engagement as the new customer service and marketing

It’s not what you say about you, it’s what they say about you that counts. Customer service and engagement overall is a new and genuine form of unmarketing. Customers, prospects, and influencers are already engaging with others to contribute, learn, and discover.

They are forming and sharing opinions and making decisions based on the information they find online—with or without you. You should use engagement as a fast, free, and powerful way to reach and serve customers.

This is your time to engage! Doing so will earn you permanent residence in the hearts and minds of the people who make up your markets. This will expand market opportunities, build brand awareness, stimulate demand, and engender loyalty and advocacy.

The Great Enabler:

Social Media has enabled society in many astonishing ways.  However, the ability to “design, produce, direct, and sustain” conversations that have specific, predictable and tangible economic outcomes, remains the Holy Grail of Social Media, and indeed a true Innovation Economy.

The people who have the ability to generate value in this new economic paradigm are those who have the ability to start and sustain conversations in social media space.  The objective for those seeking success in social media is to empower and compensate conversation designers, producers, directors, and sustainers.

Perfect information in markets will always benefit the highest integrity companies, the most trustworthy brands, and the most socially relevant industries.  Imperfect information favours low quality, corruption, and misrepresentation. Imperfect information facilitates the “transfer” rather than “creation” of wealth.  An innovation economy will always seek to create new knowledge rather than suppress it and conversation is the currency of exchange.

Billions of dollars of Advertising revenue is being reallocated to listening to the market rather than shouting at it.  The brands are listening to you.  Like never before, customers have the control.

You can have the largest network around, but if you are not engaging in conversation, little fruit will be borne out of your efforts.

Social media can expand your freelance network exponentially and yield opportunities that you’d never find elsewhere. But just like knocking on doors in the traditional way, it takes investment, hard work, and time.

Perhaps the most obvious advantage of social media is connection building. As a freelancer or a small business, you are your brand, and like any social marketing campaign, it’s not about racking up followers or flooding the space with links. It’s all about the conversation, that will generate ultimately pitches and then business.

In each type of social media where you participate, you should have a core group of friends who you talk to regularly. The primary way to get to know others through social media is to respond to their comments with questions.
It does require consistent effort and ability to monitor and focus on which methods are giving you the biggest feedback.

Social media offers small businesses the chance to compete with large ones online; but your must be prepared to invest that most precious of resources..time.

Some of our clients have acquired business via Twitter, and others through LinkedIn.

How have you managed to use social media to generate business? We would love to get your experiences to share with our customers.