Are You Getting Engaged?

When was it not a good idea to talk with your customers as if your business depended on it? How is it ever possible to go a whole day without being of service to someone? Why would you not share tips, advice, and learning with your team? Where exactly was it deemed acceptable to base your conduct on anything but honesty and ethics?

We end up having incredible discussions around tools, with little time left over to talk about the reason why we use them - to connect.

Social media is about building relationships - starting with your customers, business partners, influencers and their networks, communities of practice, fans and critics, etc. It's not like the shotgun approach to marketing, it's like the focused, appropriate conversation with those who wish to talk with you. In some cases they already are telling you what you want to know, if you are listening.

Are you getting engaged? In this sense, we give what we get, and we get what we give.

[image of the blogosphere circa 2007, courtesy of Matthew Hurst]

Comments

[Connie Bensen]

Thanks Valeria for the reminder about relationships. We do tend to get caught up in the tools & the motion of doing.

I'm in the process of stepping back & working on my business plan for 2009. It includes refocusing on blog reading & relationship building.

[Valeria Maltoni]

A reminder for all of us. I see everyone busy producing and publishing content when the real difference sometimes comes from being available to the other person(s) in a moment of candid reflection or need.

Good thinking there on stepping back for the business plan. We can get so caught up in the doing or in the weeds, that we stop seeing.

[martha]

Thanks for the beautiful article...

[Ricardo Bueno]

Re: " I see everyone busy producing and publishing content when the real difference sometimes comes from being available to the other person(s) in a moment of candid reflection or need."

That about says it! Being "available" makes all the difference in the world! It really does... It's part of how a great reputation is built.