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There has always been one key factor that either causes the great success or the inevitable demise of a business, and that is the relationship between a brand and a customer. In Oliver Blanchard’s book, “Social Media ROI”, he begins by showing how the successful businesses in any market have tapped and utilized this knowledge to progress and grow their brand in their specific market. It all relies in what kind of relationship you establish with your customers. Oliver states,
“As far back as the first days of commerce, the more businesses treated their customers like friends, the more the customers preferred to do business there. The more businesses made their customers feel welcome, the more these customers recommend the experience to family and friends. The more businesses built an engaged community of customers around them, the less likely they were to have to discount products and services to attract business.”
In other words, they truly saw the value of the customer and rejected the mindset towards their customers that they were a “mere ‘number’ in an elaborate fame of marketing and sales.” This is a great revelation, not only are you producing loyal, repeat customers, you are creating an arsenal of outspoken positive testimony about your brand. This word of mouth marketing is invaluable especially in a highly competitive market.
Enter Social Media: “The New Campfire”
Early in human history relationships were built and established night after night around a community campfire. People grew closer, learned more about each other, and began to trust and rely upon each other. Social Media is the new campfire setting. It is the place where you will reach, connect, engage and influence your current and potential customers. There has never before been a better opportunity for businesses to interact with their customers.
Back to Basics
Not only in social media, but in business in general, it is important to not forget these important factors:
- Connecting people with each other, such as buyers and sellers, or, managers and employees.
- Once connected a valuable relationship based upon trust, convenience, and preference must be established.
It is important to remember that relationships between customer and brand does not happen over night, just as how relationships among people around the campfire had to develop their relationships. These relationships have to be forged much like friendships are formed.
Why Social Media?
You may be asking why your business needs a well formulated social media campaign. While there is no quick answers to this question, there are a multitudes of benefits you can receive from a well planned and executed social media program. Social media is not only changing the way people are sharing information with the people closest with them, but also changing the very nature of competitive business. This can provide a brand with detailed, almost instant, feedback from customers and other valuable resources from their market.
“The company that chooses to adapt and implements a business-focused social media program will have the opportunity to gain an advantage over it’s competition with very little cost and improve it’s position in the market.”
Social media is a medium in which it takes what people are saying about your business or brand and expands it across an ever growing environment at an extremely fast rate. The people public can spread your message and content for free because they want to and they can.
People are on the web to communicate and interact with each other, when it comes down to it we are social creatures. People will engage and share information that they trust and is relevant to them. If you want to receive more feedback on how to better your business, increase influence in your market, develop strong relationships with your customers, and create brand loyalty, then social media is worth your time and effort.
If you are on the fence about a social media campaign and whether it’s right for you, I highly recommend you pick up Oliver Blanchard‘s Book “Social Media ROI” as soon as possible. I believe it will give you a new perspective on the value of social media and how it is changing the world of business at it’s core.
April 8, 2011 at 1:31 pm
Great post thanks. I’ll have to pick up a copy of the book.
April 8, 2011 at 3:39 pm
Thanks James! It is definitely worth it. Great knowledge about how to implement a social media program and how to maximize ROI. The author challenges you to not just read the book but actually implement the strategies it contains.