social media strategy Archives - Page 5 of 9 by Mark Murnahan

Don’t Mix Business and Personal Relationships?

There is a mentality which some people and companies have about mixing personal and business relationships that paints an unfavorable picture of this combination. Mixing business and personal life has frequently been viewed as a mistake for businesspeople. The problem is that “businesspeople”, and even the term itself, implies something other than “people”.

Who do you do business with? If you encounter somebody in a given business setting who is less than personal toward you, do you look for somebody else who will appreciate your business more? I do, because I like to do business with people I like, and trust … and who like and/or respect me, too. An impersonal approach is personally appalling to me, and I think it fails at all levels.

Prices don’t get in the way, because if I don’t like somebody, I will walk away even if they are offering a huge discount. Even product quality takes a back seat to trust and comfort in my purchase decisions. The numbers show me that I am not alone with this, and that millions of people feel the same way.

A Fading Business Mentality of the 1900’s

A former mentality of the business world was that of huge separation between business and relationships. The prevailing thinking was that business is done in boardrooms or storefronts, and personal relationships happen someplace else, away from company turf. It failed, and it did so with such a force that it spread throughout the world.

This mentality is more apparent in business-to-consumer industries, but it has also strangled a lot of business-to-business industries. In either case, it simply doesn’t work well.

Why has it changed? It was not because of some miracle invention we call “social media“. It has changed because companies finally started realizing that they were doing it all wrong! Customers didn’t change. They have understood mixing business and friendship for thousands of years … since trading grains for meat, or gold for salt. It was the business world that strayed from good business practices.

Who Separated Business from Friendship?

A sizable part of the blame for separation of business and personal relationships can be attributed to changes in the advertising industry. As television and radio ads were new, companies found it extremely easy to buy people’s attention. It created a lot of brand recognition for some companies, and people soaked it all in while they waited for the show to return … “after these messages from our sponsors.”

Note: This is opinion mixed with observation and research, and you are welcome to rebut this.

It became commonplace to sit through commercials for everything from soup to nuts. Then, after some glory years, consumers fought back with tools like the Internet to find new things, DVRs to speed through commercials, email spam filters to squelch the noise, popup blockers to say “Shut Up”, and etcetera. We created and discovered choices, and then we realized huge empowerment.

Consumers gained more choices than ever, but with choices came hazards. Cons, crooks, deadbeats, and snake oil sales made a resurgence. The trusted brands were not our only options, and armed villains were not the only ones stealing our money.

Transitioning Away from a Bad Business Ideology

As business continues to transition back to people-focused and consumer-oriented thinking, the reliable and trustworthy choices have slowly narrowed. Now many consumers rely on those good old brands we remember (and trust just because we remember them), and the people who earn their reputation with us as friends, friends of friends, and etcetera. Yes, “word of mouth” marketing (including Facebook, Twitter, and etcetera) has grown in value at rates even faster than television, radio, print, and other one-way interruption marketing lost value.

This is not all fixed to perfection yet, but many companies have noticed the obvious shortcomings from separation of business and relationships. Those companies have adapted well to social media, and they already understand people’s motivations, and what makes them comfortable. Others still struggle with the fundamental basics of how and why people prefer to do business with people, rather than businesses.

So, I must ask, what do you see in your everyday life, as a consumer? What do you see within your own business dealings? Do you see it the same as a consumer as you do in your business? If you see a disparity, perhaps you are still using 1900’s style business ideology, and trying too hard to make a separation between business and relationships.

My Summary of Business and Personal Mixing

Some say “Don’t mix business and personal”, but I say “Don’t mix 1900’s ideology with 2000’s customer expectations!” Here is some of my personal/business experience. You can skip it if you like. Maybe I am wrong, but I also invite your input.

I met a woman (via social media) and we merged companies in 2000. She later became my wife and the mother of our three children. Now we own more companies. Prior to that, my business partnerships included many dear friends with whom I communicate frequently, and will attend my funeral (and even cry). In my earlier days, my business partners were my parents.

Sure, some things can go wrong with mixing business and personal relationships. That is usually because of two things … misdirected passion (but it is still passion) and lack of good communication. This does not mean it is acceptable to make a business into a faceless monster without personality, or to even diminish the mix of business and personal relationships in the least.

The good news is that when you have stronger relationships, you are far more likely to hear feedback from others … both positive and negative. Think of the potential benefits of that!

Many of my best clients are close friends, and I have always relied on the “old fashioned” approach of doing business as a person and not as a business. They may come to me as clients, but if we can’t have a good relationship, I would rather find different clients.

We work together, and we have fun together. I have been there to counsel them through death of spouses, treacherous divorces, emotional weddings, joyous graduations, and more. I have held countless parties to honor and celebrate my clients/friends. I have rented whole floors of large hotels, sent limousines, and done everything I can for and with these friends.

They are not my friends because I earned them millions of dollars, nor because they have paid me millions of dollars. Here is what I have discovered: Even when business is what introduces us, the business results from a relationship, and seldom if ever the other way around.

Photo Credit: Structo Cement Mixer by puuikibeach via Flickr

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Ray Skillman, Indianapolis Car Dealer Review: Bad Social Media and SEO

If you are marketing something online, give me a moment to show you how to screw it all up. Since I know a lot of people shudder at all the sacrifices associated with marketing done well, I want to show you an example of how badly it can go wrong if you succumb to being shortsighted and misinformed.

This exemplifies so much of what is wrong with today’s Internet, and why Google keeps splitting skulls on worthless website owners. It shows a downward spiral of desperation of a car dealer, and a trend that is so widely followed in other businesses that it relieves me of wondering why companies suffer from dwindling market share.

This really should open your eyes if you are trying to take the quick and easy road to your SEO (search engine optimization) and social media marketing. If this example does not show the pitfalls of shortcuts and the benefits of playing by the rules, nothing will. I know that you will probably not finish reading this, but then, that is exactly the problem … shortcuts are popular. I made an audio version, in case that will help.

In this case, it involves a car dealership in Indianapolis, Indiana that operates by the name Ray Skillman. For all I know, this fella may be a delightful car dealer. He may even be the kind of guy I would personally like, enough to buy a whole fleet of cars. In fact, his story sounds really great, but it seems that this guy has a reckless streak of delegating his business future.

On the surface, it appears that whomever is making their marketing decisions has chosen to believe an “easy money” approach to SEO and social media, or otherwise perhaps just wants to damage the company deliberately. My guess is that they simply believed a good pitch of SEO lies from a bad search engine optimizer, instead of using diligence. I could make guesses all day long, but I want you to give you what I know about the Ray Skillman auto dealerships, and help you to figure this one out.

I previously wrote about the high level of absurdity of car dealers using social media, and it really is a worthwhile read. This Ray Skillman Auto Group seems to be trying to set the bar at an all new low. Low enough that it seems they are quickly dropping off the net, despite all of their frantic actions.

Ray Skillman Dropping Off the ‘Net?

Based on statistical data, it appears that Ray Skillman Auto Group has messed up bad enough to get virtually slaughtered online. It was bad enough for it to hit my RADAR, and it gave me adequate material to send a warning slap. I will tell you why, but better yet, I will tell you just how badly they are ripping themselves a virtual new orifice when it comes to website traffic, and future search engine rankings. It will be even more obvious as they endure the effects of Google’s Farmer Update of late February 2011, just in time for the car industry’s busy spring and summer sales seasons. Google’s “Farmer Update” was designed to wipe out website farms, and this one will probably yield some pretty bad crops from Google.

Before I show you the company’s new orifice, let me explain that they seem to actually want to reach the auto buying market of the Indianapolis area. Although they are very misguided, I think they comprehend the importance of the Internet for their business, just like you. In fact, it only took me a moment to find that they have a unique domain name for each of the entities as follows:

Ray Skillman Auto Group
Ray Skillman Ford
Ray Skillman Chevrolet
Ray Skillman Buick
Ray Skillman Northeast Buick GMC
Ray Skillman Buick GMC
Ray Skillman GMC
Ray Skillman Classic Cars
Ray Skillman Collision Center
Ray Skillman Hyundai
Ray Skillman Southside Hyundai
Ray Skillman Hyundai West
Ray Skillman Kia
Ray Skillman Auto Center
Ray Skillman Shadeland
Ray Skillman Kia West
Ray Skillman Mazda
Ray Skillman Northeast Mazda
Ray Skillman Mazda West
Ray Skillman Mitsubishi
Ray Skillman Suzuki
Ray Skillman Buy Here Pay Here

Is Ray Skillman Playing Too Much Defensive SEO?

I understand the importance of “defensive SEO”. Heck, my examples in this area are the subject of case studies. Ranking for your own brand name, in multiplicity, is important. Nobody wants to become a “Suture Express” case (yeah, Google it if you are not sure what I mean). The problem here is that it seems they are using frantic tactics for defense, and abysmal strategy.

There is little or no tangible value for the consumer being expressed in their visible efforts. Even their “Happy St. Patrick’s Day” update to the 55 fans of their Facebook page was just another sales pitch to chime in with “It’s going to be a beautiful day… a perfect day to come out and look around!” They should really take the time to read this article about Facebook marketing titled “Facebook Marketing: Pages, Customer Modeling, Promoting, and Awesomeness“. Their Twitter usage is just as bad, too. They are still trying to use interruption marketing rather than building equity in social media.

So, Skillman, do you want me to have a happy holiday, or do you want me to come out and have a crappy time with a pushy car salesman? Don’t tell me your salesmen are not pushy, either. When I get spammed by you from The Philippines, a logical assumption is that it is in your company culture.

Skillman Auto Group and The Philippines?

My introduction to Skillman was in a spammy comment on my blog. The comment originated in Makati, The Philippines.

The commenter whipped out a blurb of horrible English to tout the value of social media for car dealers. They claimed to have shopped at a dealership in Indianapolis, Indiana, so I thought that was a kind of long trip from Makati, The Philippines just to buy a car.

Not only did they shop for a car thousands of miles away, they used a URL from Ray Skillman’s website as their own URL in the commenter profile. They must be a big fan, right? Otherwise, the comment seems a bit fishy? Well, I guess maybe they swam from The Philippines to go car shopping and they picked up a little fishiness along the way.

Sure enough, I was right … that is a really long trip! Check it out on Google Maps and see for yourself.

View Larger Map

Look, if this guy is pulling in customers from clear across the Pacific Ocean to buy a car, and use his website address when they comment on blog articles about auto dealer social media marketing, more power to him. According to what I see from his dwindling SEO and social media results, this is not likely the case. Instead, it looks like a cheap and easy way to get penalized by Google and other search engines, and to annoy people with more spam (as if we don’t already have enough). Let’s also not forget that a blog is social media, and social media is often very unkind to spammers.

Here is a quote from Google Webmaster Central about using comment spam as part of a strategy. Yes, this is actually in Google’s words:

“Comment spammers are often trying to improve their site’s organic search ranking by creating dubious inbound links to their site. Google has an understanding of the link graph of the web, and has algorithmic ways of discovering those alterations and tackling them.”

Here is a link to the full article: “Hard facts about comment spam”

As long as Skillman is actively offending people with their social media efforts with pitchy crap and spamming blog comments, there is no wonder why they are so busy playing defense with their SEO efforts.

Ray Skillman Auto Dealership Websites Sinking in The Pacific

Let me share what I discovered when I looked at just a couple of third-party resources for Ray Skillman’s dealership websites. I will show you results from Alexa.com and WebsiteGrader.com. I chose these, because they are well known measures of websites, and they are easy for people to understand the results.

What Does Alexa.com Say About Ray Skillman Dealerships?

Alexa ranks websites according to their known popularity, and the smaller the number, the better. Google is number one, Facebook is number two, YouTube is number three, aWebGuy.com is somewhere in the 130,000’s (still top 0.45% most trafficked), and etcetera. Alexa is not perfect, but it is pretty compelling when you see multiple of Skillman’s websites dropping in ranking by a million points or more over the past 30 days, and seven of them disappearing completely. This is a bad sign of doing something seriously wrong.

I took an average from 22 of Ray Skillman Auto Group websites and here is what I found:

90 Day Average of Ranked Domains:
9,498,928 average across 16 domains (the rest were not measurable). The best rank was 1,477,739 and the worst rank was 11,867,267

30 Day Average of Ranked Domains:
8,491,088 average across 11 domains (half were not measurable). The best rank was 2,766,597 and the worst rank was 21,187,719

So, are they moving up or down? If you look again, you can see that on a 30 day basis, even their best individual ranking was worse by 1,288,858. Worse than that is the disappearing act of seven more domains. Yes, there were seven of them which dropped completely off the RADAR!

I’d call it a game and throw in the towel before I threw another single dollar at the horrific tactics and utter lack of strategy that the SEO working for Ray Skillman Auto Group is using. My experience says that it will cost them many times whatever they are paying the search engine optimizer.

What Does Website Grader Say About Ray Skillman?

Website Grader uses information about the website to assign a numeric grade. It is explained on their website as follows: “The algorithm uses a proprietary blend of over 50 different variables, including search engine data , website structure, approximate traffic, site performance, and others.”

For the Ray Skillman Auto Group websites that I checked on Website Grader, the results did not look so good. Of course, I am a master of understatement. Fine, it looked like a murder scene, OK? Here is what I found from the websites:

Highest Grade: 86

Lowest Grade: 21

Average Grade: 64.6

The results are not just bad, but it shows a huge shortcut from trying to do things well. A website should be ready before it is ever even marketed … even in spam. For comparison purpose, and of course never to brag, this blog has a ranking of 99.8.

Ray Skillman Can Still Win!

With all of these business entities operating under the Ray Skillman Auto Group umbrella, just consider this: If they could increase their profit from SEO and social media marketing by just $1,000 per company, per month, it would add up to $252,000 per year. Even with a miserably low goal like that, they could expect a much greater increase in following years. That $252,000 per year could help them to afford a good SEO strategy, and improved social media marketing reach and response rate.

The trouble seems to be that they may not yet realize that a higher return on investment requires a responsible investment, first.

That, my friends, shows the difference between doing something, and doing something well. Rip me a new one if you like. My ears are wide open.

One more thing! Don’t take this wrong, because I love cars. I love them enough to drive them at over 200 miles per hour, race them at tracks all across the USA, and slap those who abuse them with terrible marketing shortsightedness.

Here are some other automotive-related articles from my petroleum-guzzling marketing head:

Photo Credits:
Bent screw by stevendepolo via Flickr
Screws by aussiegall via Flickr
Xray photo by Laurel Fan via Flickr

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SEO and Social Media Reward: $5,000 for Introduction

Updated 13 June 2011 — This offer is re-opened through 30 June 2011.

I am going to give you an opportunity to pick up $5,000 just for making a simple introduction. This is not a hoax, and I really will put $5,000 in your sweaty palms for introducing me to “the right one”.

Great weather is coming, and I am pretty sure that most people can find a way to spend a surplus of $5,000 this spring. Cruise ships, sandy beaches, mortgage payments, utility bills, and many other amazing delights are right around the corner.

I hope that $5,000 will be worth a few minutes of your time to rack your brain, peel through your list of contacts, and think hard about whether you know this person I am seeking. Mostly, I hope that you will do it because I am a good fit for that acquaintance of yours, and because we deserve to meet each other.

So that you can have a better idea of who you are introducing, I offer you a link for more information about me, but you can come back to that part.

First, I will briefly explain why I am making this offer, what I offer, and who I am looking for. If you just want to skip to the details, click here.

I just reviewed the response to an engagement letter I sent out a couple days ago, and I almost wet myself with laughter and dismay all at once. I send out what seems like a squillion responses to companies that contact me hoping to benefit from my work, but this one was different. It was for a company that was referred to my services by somebody who was referred to my services. Somewhere along the line, it seems that I have picked up a reputation for what I do. This still does not mean that everybody I meet has a brain in their head, a dollar in their bank, or a sincere desire to improve their business.

As I have seen many times before, the recipient of my engagement letter hit me back with something resembling “Duh, wut duh ya mean … ya want us tuh pay fur it?” This was not their exact words, but that was my interpretation. To say the least, I am not very tolerant of cheapskates, or people who talk about action more than actually taking action.

It was after this response that I seriously realized that I had hit the wall at the end of my patience for dealing with this equivalent of The Abominable Snowman on Looney Tunes (video reference). As a husband and father of three, I am all grown up and reasonably mature, but if I must tolerate another of these abominable snowmen who insist I am a rabbit, I will likely use much stronger language than good old Daffy Duck.

Yes, I am a snarky guy, and I prefer to send a good booger from your nose to your computer screen than to make this sound too serious. After all, I am trying to put 5,000 bucks in your pocket, and that should be fun!

In this case, I am going to spell something out in sobering terms. I love the work I do. I help companies to be successful with their online marketing. It is an awesome feeling to see companies succeed. However, I must say this in true Murnahan fashion: “Business is great if not for all the damn customers.” Is that crazy? Perhaps, but it is very true. I am inundated by requests each day to offer my services to build an uncommitted company’s success for a fraction of what my work is worth.

The size of the company doesn’t matter. Building bigger and more profitable companies is my job. Even a small company with a focused desire for business growth can be extremely successful with a good strategy and a decisive marketing approach.

I broke my magic wand a long time ago. So, these days I build companies with other tools like market research, strategy, customer modeling, and well-crafted ideas to help companies look, smell, and feel like sex, bacon, and other things people crave. Yes, you read that correctly. In layman’s terms, my job is to make companies more like sex and bacon. You know what I mean, the things that people like.

That is how companies become popular. It improves their search engine rankings because all of the sudden the whole world wants to link to their website. Understanding their best value proposition and knowing the customers who want their “sex and bacon” improves their social media reach, and response rates. When it all comes together, it makes a lot of other great things happen for a company, including much higher profit.

Seeking a Frog Hair in a Fiberglass Factory

Although I am a very experienced and creative marketing guy, finding the best clients is like searching for a frog hair in a fiberglass factory. I sort through a lot of people rubbing their lamp and hoping for a genie, but a much smaller number of people are ready and able to put a signed check in my hand. They still want their fill of that sexy bacony stuff that comes when I rub a couple brain cells together, but that comes with money.

I have said it many times, and even blogged that “When I go to hell, they will have me selling SEO“. I say that, because I simply do not enjoy the selling process. Sure, you can search Google for How to Sell SEO and find me right up top, but the truth is that I love the work, and not the selling. This is why I am seeking an ongoing project, rather than the short-sighted marketing that many people ask for.

To make this fun for both of us, I am offering you a $5,000 reward to help me find that one special “frog hair in the fiberglass factory”. I want the one who wants the benefits that a great SEO and social media marketing guy can provide.

Claim Your $5,000 Social Media Reward!

The details are easy: If you introduce me to my special someone who is ready to take their marketing to a new level of success with a minimum six month engagement of my SEO and social media marketing services, you get the money.

This could be either contract work, or in-house, working directly for the company. You can introduce me by email, telephone, blog about it, tweet about it, direct them to my resume, or whatever you like. You only have to be the one who brings us together, and the money is yours. I just need to know that you are the actual person who introduced us, so I welcome you to contact me.

When do you get the money? I am sure you were thinking that, right? I will pay the $5,000 reward within ten days of my acceptance of a paid contract, or within 30 days of joining with a company full-time.

This is a limited offer! This is limited to just one … my special one. I don’t take on a lot of clients, and if somebody wants me enough to make me their Marketing Director, that is clearly a one-time offer. I am also limiting it in time, so stop dilly-dallying and claim your five grand!

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What Did Farmers in 1951 Know About Social Media?

The 1950’s may seem like an early time for social media, but what I will tell you is the way social media has worked since long before it existed as you know it today. It is also the way social media at its very best still works in 2011 and beyond. You don’t have to trust me on this, but I think you will.

When my “Baby Boomer” mother was a little girl of five years old, her father died unexpectedly from a very fast progression of cancer. He was a successful farmer who used all of the magical farming chemicals of the day. Although the new technology kept the pests off his crops, nobody told him it would cause him to leave his family early, at only age 38.

When my grandfather died, farmers came from miles around to help harvest his crops for the sad widow and her three little kids that he left behind. They didn’t do it for self-seeking reasons, but they did it because it was the right thing to do. They were all a part of a community which came together for the benefit of one and all. They were a part of a social network that you probably never heard of, and it was called Mount Ida, Kansas.

Mount Ida, Kansas was a farming community where they worked harder than most men can survive today. They did a very good deed for my family, and they brought in the crops that my grandmother and three kids of ages three, five, and eight could not.

Were Those Farmers Just Crazy?

In today’s society, there are some people who may look at these overexerted farmers at the height of a short-lived harvest season as crazy. They left their own crops in the ground in order to look out for somebody else. This is the kind of thing that some of us are privileged to witness, and a few of us are honored to replicate.

You can say that people don’t come together that way anymore, or that things have changed and nobody cares like that these days. Sure, we see things like a homeless person being beat up and nobody coming to their assistance. We witness atrocities of all kinds. What you may be surprised to discover is how often others band together and do what it takes, like that community of farmers in Mount Ida, Kansas, and do good things for others without an overzealous hope for immediate personal or business gain.

As I said before, you don’t have to trust me on this, but I think you will. That spirit of giving and being good to others is making a comeback. It has always been an important component of business growth, but now it is more visible than ever. It is happening in social networks today, just as it was in the 1950’s. If you take a close look at social media, you will find many instances of small communities of people sharing what they can, and offering their hand to others.

Some are giving what they know, and others are giving what they have. Some are aware that by giving to others, they receive more than ever. Some just do it because they saw it somewhere else and it made good sense to them.

How Were Those Farmers Repaid?

Those farmers would not take a thing from my grandmother. Not even a hot meal. They did what they felt was right, and you can bet that their hearts swelled by doing it.

They have been repaid, in some way, and probably even far beyond just the good feelings it gave them. Doing good deeds simply cannot go unrewarded forever. It is against everything I know, and everything I believe. This concept is steeped in history, and was even the focus of my 2009 book “Living in the Storm: Creating Joy and Inspiration When Everything is a Mess“.

When you consider why these farmers did what they did, and what it repays them over time, then you understand social media better than ever before. They planted a crop within a community, and not just in their fields. They did something which made them more endearing, and showed that they were more kind than greedy.

The Give and Take of Monetizing Social Media

For as long as people have been giving, they have always had needs of their own to address. It was impossible for television to be completely free, and it took money to build those networks … a lot of money. The same thing is true for the Internet, and all of the useful information you find here. Whenever something is given, something must be returned … somehow, someday, it must be returned. It is why we have the term “what goes around comes around” and why doing good things are reciprocated in some way.

People are still talking about those farmers’ good deeds more than sixty years later. It begs the question of what we can do today so profound that people will recount it kindly in the 2070’s. Those good farmers did not intend, forecast, or otherwise expect this. Their word is still spread because being helpful was in their nature. From a marketing perspective, many companies can take a good lesson from those Mount Ida farmers.

I hope I have been a good farmer today, and that you will use this small piece of my thoughts for the benefit of others around you.

You are welcome to subscribe and keep coming back, but what I really love are those people who will talk to me. Please give me your comments.

Just one more thing! I thought I would give you some perspective, in case you wonder “where in the heck is Mount Ida, Kansas?“

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Building Equity in Social Media vs. Interruption Marketing

Interruption Marketing vs. Social Media

I know this may seem impossible in 2011, but I discover many companies that do not yet fully appreciate the value of social media and the long-term equity it can build for their business.

A lot of companies understand the value of their brand being visible in many places online, and some will understand the value of those people who help to grow its visibility. Only a relatively few actually look forward beyond the horizon to understand the greater value that social media represents over an extended time.

When I hear people say things like “we just don’t have time for all of that” or worse, “we don’t have the staff for that”, it always leaves me shaking my head. It reminds me why only a small percentage of businesses account for the lion’s share of their market. It is explained well by Joseph Juran’s well documented “Pareto Principle” named for Vilfredo Pareto. Many people know the Pareto Principle as the 80/20 Rule.

Consider the Interruption of Marketing

Think as a consumer for a moment, and consider the way you shut down to marketing. Think about how your brain just goes in another direction when companies interrupt you with their marketing and try to sell you stuff. We are each inundated by a constant barrage of commercial information about everything from A to Z in our daily lives. This is why we fast-forward through commercials on television, we screen our telephone calls, and we are seasoned to ignore advertisements on websites.

Interruption Marketing Train Coming Through

Unless you are really tired and vulnerable, you probably don’t stay tuned to that late night infomercial about something you really never knew you needed. Although, I can almost bet that you can remember a time when you thought “why in the hell am I still watching this?” Perhaps you can even remember thinking “Holy crap … I was about three seconds from picking up the phone to buy one of those” or even “Damn, I bought this … why did I buy this?!” It happens, and we each have our weaknesses, but let’s face it, we are far better adapted to turning away from all the hype. Otherwise, if marketers had their way, you would own one of everything, and you would have worthless crap in every nook and cranny, and stacked to your ceiling.

For the most part, we consumers make efforts to avoid these awkward moments which compel us to buy things. Why? Maybe it is just because, deep down, we hate saying “no”. If we can avoid the pitch, we can avoid wanting something, and thus, avoid saying “no” to our own urges, and the urges of those squillion salespeople out there.

Maybe you are different, and you enjoy that marketing interruption, but in that case, you are not like most people. I am addressing most people.

Marketing Got Sneakier With Social Media

Since there was so much information out there interrupting our days and nights, as a collective group, consumers became more cautious. We decided to make companies earn our business. Of course, the economy of the past few years has helped this along faster than ever. The timing was perfect for social media marketing to explode like a shot from a gun.

Maybe you like it, or maybe you don’t, but let’s face it, marketing got a whole lot sneakier. It became more targeted, and marketers became better spies. Effective marketing today utilizes more information, better strategies, and just a bit of James Bond 007-style of thinking.

Marketing Became Targeted and Marketers Became Better Spies

As consumers, we became more cautious and protective of ourselves. We got really smart and created clever ways to filter our television ad consumption, filter our email, and filter our social media.

In order to effectively reach us consumers, marketers have been forced to provide a greater value proposition. This is a hard concept for many companies to grasp. Today’s successful companies are giving before they take, and the ones giving the most are receiving the most.

Today, people are more likely than ever to make purchasing decisions based on trust, reputation, and a good old fashioned sense that the company gives a damn about us. We have come to expect it, and whether you feel this way yet or not, it is a sweeping trend. People want to do business with people, and with brands represented by people. The world is building relationships with brands, and those relationships are worth money … a lot of money. Missing this fact is a very costly mistake.

You can consider it sneaky, or you can consider it a welcomed gift, but brands are in our lives to stay. We will always need to buy things, and we buy from the companies and the people we feel good about. When the brand is there to help us with information, and with a legitimate desire to help us make good decisions, they win, and we buy.

Shortsighted Brands Damage Their Social Media Future

A huge obstacle which gets in the way of social media marketing is time. Companies want everything, and they want it right now. It is understandable, but when companies forget the importance and value of longevity, and when they feel the breath of their competitors on the back of their neck, they can be quite irrational.

Smart Companies Have a Social Media Vision

Smart companies look far ahead into the future. Rather than take a reactive and panicked approach to a weak quarterly report, they work with an eye toward longer goals. Strong companies can look farther ahead, and that is why they succeed farther into the future. Applying this to social media marketing means doing business the right way, and not simply with the urgency of trying to force a brand down the consumer’s throat. This means doing business on the customer’s terms and timelines, and not only in a one-way company-centric method of the past. Consumers respect companies for this, and they return with even more consumers following closely behind them.

What About Social Media Marketing Equity?

I know that for some people, it is easy to look at social media as a bunch of time-wasting crazy people who believe that somehow the world’s consumers will come flocking to their front door just by using a nice, soft approach and patting everybody on the butt with nice words. Well, maybe yes, and maybe no, but there is a very significant value in a good reputation. Reputations do not just happen … they are built. It takes a lot of effort to build a good reputation, and it takes both words, and deeds.

Anybody in business today should understand the value of word of mouth. What people say about a company, whether good or bad, forms consumer’s perceptions of a brand. More than ever before, they are not just picking up the telephone and talking to a friend, or talking about companies at a lunch meeting. They are talking about them in large groups such as Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, YouTube, and etcetera.

Whether the perception is good or bad, they will be talking. Either outcome cannot be controlled by a company, but when a company is not involved in their own brand message, they are missing huge opportunities. Even a negative statement made in social media is an opportunity to make things better with customers, and other potential customers who are silently watching.

People really do notice what companies are doing online. I realize that for a lot of companies, this just seems impossible, and they do not have a good grasp on how to track their reputation. Just because a company does not really “get it” does not keep them out of trouble. This would be about as silly as trying to talk your way out of a speeding ticket just because you didn’t read the speed limit sign. It just doesn’t work that way.

If you feel a bit lost about the value of social media, it is time to read the signs.

I will leave you with a video which I believe makes some very good points. I believe that this video titled “The Thank You Economy: How Business Must Adapt to Social Media” is well worth your time and consideration.

If you feel like you still have more to learn, please subscribe to my blog, and as always, feel free to email me or ring me on the phone. I am always happy to hear from readers and to brainstorm.

I hope that you have found this useful, and I would really appreciate your comments.

Photo Credits:
Skyline photo by Hackfish via Wikipedia
Train Crossing photo by Paul Heaberlin via Flickr

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