Two Important Questions

You probably suspect by now that I am both strategist and doer, teacher and learner. Nature and nurture engineered me that way. I am naturally curious, interested and willing to try new things. I have a very pragmatic approach to life.

In the past several weeks I have been formulating the internal requirements for a project I will work on as a pilot. In doing that, you have been getting glimpses of what I am thinking, learning, and testing. One of the most endearing or maddening qualities I have is that of asking "why" often and repeatedly. That was one of the reasons my primary school teacher did not like me much - I was too much work!

Today I asked two important questions on Twitter. You will probably appreciate their importance and consequences here as well. The questions were:

1. At this stage, in this forum, we actually *want* businesses to figure things out. Agree/disagree?
2. If you don't participate, you're invisible. True/not true?

There have been many great responses to each question. Stephen Denny nailed the second from a pure marketing standpoint - if you don't participate, you're invisible.

Are you familiar with research? If so, you probably know that a good gage of consideration and then purchase intent is a measurement of unaided and aided awareness. The lower the awareness among prospects and customers, the lower the likelihood that you'd be top of mind when they need a service or product you also provide. Simply, they either did not know you, or they did not know you did that.

If your company's overall awareness is low, do not start sending out thousands of different messages in lots of different places. For example, if I do not know you, don't throw a whole list of stuff you do at me. I am not going to take any of it in until I notice you, and realize that you may be helpful to me and how.

Look around you and notice all the people who do it right: Chris Brogan, the community and social media builder; Rich Becker, the communicator and teacher; Rebecca Thorman, the Gen-Y inquisitive leader; Liz Strauss, the writer and thinker with the business community; Louis Gray, the early stage tech discoverer and explorer; Maki, the queen of internet marketing advice, I could go on. I just wanted to provide you with a sample diverse enough for you to see good voice along with experienced participation in action.

When you approach one of these professionals, you know what your expectation is. The rest is the experience of them. From that initial point of awareness, you may decide to expand the relationship to other things you did not know they do. You got to them in the first place because there was clarity and direction in what you could expect. This was not invented with social media.

Participation may also mean getting up to speed, learning, monitoring. With a big caveat - at some point, you need to plan to jump in and actually do it. If you're not participating actively, you are invisible and you will be more and more as your competitors are getting known and taking that spot in your prospects' mind.

As my first question stated, we do want businesses to figure things out, step up to the plate, go back to the old ways - a human contact, a hand shake, an acknowledgment that customers are valuable. There are plenty of people and resources out there to help you get started. What you need to decide you will do it and hold yourself to executing. Do you fear failure? We all fail in small ways every day - that's how we grow and learn.

Most people agreed that we do want businesses to participate. If you are waiting for the right moment to jump in - when do you know it's the right moment?

Comments

[Gavin Heaton]

Do you think it is a situation of "participate or perish"?

I am a fan of starting small and growing with demand. This is a good model for social media ... and as you point out, there are plenty of experienced folks willing to help. In a tight economic market, social media could well give you the competitive advantage you need.

[gianandrea facchini]

Maybe the right moment is when reading a post like this one, you suddenly see some holes in your strategy.

[Brian DR1665]

I would agree that you have to participate or you're invisible, but before you can contribute anything valuable (and thus build reputation), you need to immerse yourself in the medium and listen.

You wouldn't just walk into a random conference room, raise a bullhorn, announce that you are with 123 Company, and you have a sure-fire program to use bullhorns to drive business. Why would you do that online?

It all comes back to being a real person. Behind every avatar is a real person who expects to be treated as such. The statistics have become self-aware.

[Csalomonlee]

We're at a crossroads of traditional marketing (one to many broadcast) to one of conversational or participatory marketing (listen, participate and engage in a conversation). The latter can be more time confusing and threatening for individuals/businesses stuck in broadcast marketing. It requires transparency and being open to constructive feedback.

Like having an online presence, which was foreign to many businesses at one point, participatory marketing will become a norm as more individuals continue driving those efforts forward.

It will grow organically as more success stories are experienced– streamlined customer service, increased brand and industry awareness, and even incoming leads that convert to sales. In the end, it will just become an extension of the other efforts that we've done to date.

[Valeria Maltoni]

@Gavin - I hope it is a situation of "participate or perish". I'm not going to miss the arrogance, the pushiness, the intrusion and the power plays of those companies - they are a drain to our common resources. I think if as a company you are not listening to your own customers and employees, for example, you have no prayer of getting the collaboration piece right. This is not just another way to tell employees what to do and where to do it, as you know. Start small is the best advice anyone could get. Thank you.

@Gianandrea - hope is last to die - la speranza e' l'ultima a morire :)

@Brian - I know people who do that. I think the statistics were always self aware. Now we have a visible way of pushing back.

@Cece - businesses are stuck at dull product and sub par delivery, I think. That's why it requires so much effort to get the word out. I cannot remember (aside from Apple) the last time I was impressed by a company's product or service. Good enough, check the box. That's the attitude. So unless the business decides to change its ways, integrating a token community program is not going to move the needle.

[Chris]

***the old ways - a human contact, a hand shake, an acknowledgment that customers are valuable.***

I personally don't think that these have disappeared. In my opinion, it really depends on the size of the business we are referring to.

For example, startups and new businesses often display the above characteristics.

Many times, I've experienced young and hungry companies who would bend over backwards for my business....Polite, courteous, timely, etc...

However, once a company grows to employ thousands and even hundreds of thousands, these qualities start to fade...Especially if the company has received a government contract or monopoly license...then care for the customer disappears almost entirely...Unfortunately, this approach is becoming more and more popular.

In any case, it is my contention that employee number 1,000 or 100,000 will hardly have the same passion as the original owner(s) did.

This is not meant to knock large businesses...they do in fact satisfy the desires of the masses, which is a remarkable feat.

But to expect large companies, who employ every type of person under the Sun, to somehow have the customer-centered characteristics of a startup, is expect the near-impossible.