We are seeing more and more business entering the euphorically
messy space known as
Social Media. The first order of business seems to
be to put up a facebook page and start a company blog. The problem here is
this;
NO ONE IS PARTICIPATING IN A CONVERSATION. If there are no comments on you blog and nothing on your facebook wall except from posts from you,
You have an ELECTRONIC BILLBOARD, Which is NOT Social Media. A STROKE OF LUCK, THE AGENCY FIRED MEI am not always the easiest cat in town to deal with, and have gotten fired as a client more than once. Not really so proud of that, but it is what it is. When it happened with the marketing studio that was doing our marketing and PR work I was taken aback. The timing was really bad, or at least it seemed as such. We were getting ready to launch a marketing campaign for the biggest deal I had ever attempted to develop. I had a lot of risk and exposure with the development. I have though, irrespective of the climate pressures never, ever been afraid to question things, which is the point here, and neither should you, even at the risk of being fired.
If you have an have an Electronic Billboard as a facebook page or blog, and you are doing it yourself, it isn't a big deal and
can be corrected quickly, at least you have started. If you have an Electric Billboard as a facebook page or blog and you are using a marketing studio or agency,
Fire Them Quickly. They are spending your money irresponsibly. Another quick check, Google your business name. If nothing comes back, you have another reason to fire your agency. Plug your business name into
Searchme.com Again, if you have lackluster results, your advertising revenue is not working.
I
T IS ALL ABOUT THE CONVERSTAIONAs we continue our trek to Practice Social Media in our own Small Business, we have learned a lot, both from what works, but more from what didn't work. When we first launched
our blog, we had very few followers and hardly any comments. Today, the blog following is growing at an exponential rate and we average six to ten comments per blog post. We have had a couple of controversial posts that exceeded seventy five comments.
Similarly, when we launched our
facebook and
myspace pages, we had some 'friends" but mostly they were folks from the apartment industry that were interested in what we were doing. Today, we have an excellent resident penetration, and lots of wall to wall comments. It has become our most effective place to communicate with our residents, followed closely by our
Ning site.
The shift was pretty simple, we started and work at Participating in the Conversation. That's it, while it sounds pretty simple, and it is, it seems to be pretty hard for some businesses, otherwise they would be doing it.
We encourage you to Engage in a Conversation with Your Customers today,
Enhance the Customers Experience!
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