Tag Archive for 'Twitter'

Build community with a website & social media

Published
by
Jim Blasingame
on August 8, 2011
in Online strategy and Social Media
. 0 Comments

Here is a question many small business owners ask: “Do we need a social media strategy if we have a website?”

The answer is the same as for why you have an email address, even though you have a phone. It’s not an either/or decision; it’s both/and.

Clearly, your beautiful website is also very handy: cyber address, digital brochure, e-catalog, virtual store, etc. But as versatile as it is, there is one increasingly important capability you need that a website isn’t good at: community building. That’s what social media does.

By my definition, social media is much older and more comprehensive than the popular Johnny-come-latelies, Facebook and Twitter. Your social media strategy includes everything you do to build, connect with and serve customer communities, including: the new stuff, email marketing, customer loyalty programs and, the original social media, face-to-face.

What are these communities? Do you have one?

In the old days – like 1999 – your customer list was just names on an accounts payable report or sales forecast. Today, those customers are part of your business’s community; the rest are prospects who are becoming interested in you. But unlike the passive customer list of old, this community is functioning and has expectations you have to meet, or they will join another community.

At the risk of hurting your feelings, once customers find you, returning to that beautiful website of which you’re so proud will be of decreasing interest to them. But the good news is that anything you have that’s new – product and how-to information, order status, special offerings, etc. – is of increasing interest to customers. They just don’t want to have to come back to get it. More and more, customers are saying to businesses, “I’ve seen what you offer and like it, but I won’t be returning to your website much, because I’m very busy. Why don’t you follow me home?”

This is what customers and prospects mean when they join your community by giving you permission to connect with them and send them stuff by email, text messaging, Twitter, Facebook, etc. They just want the new stuff, including updates to your website.

Connect with and serve your customer communities by following them home with all social media resources. That’s how a small business transcends merely being competitive by being relevant.

It’s both/and: Build and serve customer communities with a website and social media.

I’ve talked a lot about building online communities on my radio program, The Small Business Advocate Show. Click here to see all my interviews on social media, but first, let me know what you think about building customer communities.

Social Media Builds Customer Communities

Published
by
Jim Blasingame
on July 22, 2011
in Customer Care and Social Media
. 0 Comments

Two things are sure with regard to social media and businesses: 1) as a way to connect with customers, social media is here to stay; 2) social media will evolve into an essential, customer community-building tool every successful business - large or small - will use.

“Social media” is the technology that makes online community building possible, not the community itself. It allows for the creation of, and service to, online communities, where dialogue and interaction among community founders and members are possible. While the term “social media” is handy, it would serve businesses well to think of it as “building online customer communities.”

There are two primary examples of these communities:

1.      A company’s profile and “fan page” on sites like Facebook, Twitter, etc. Your company can build communities with these public platforms, which are free, but have limits.

2.      Communities founded and hosted by your company and oriented around relationships with customers and prospects. This type of community is established when customers subscribe to one or more of your channel offerings in order to receive information. There is now new technology emerging that helps you create a Facebook-like social media platform that you host, which I predict will become the next killer app.

A channel is a syndication tool or method of content delivery and service to a community. For example, real simple syndication (RSS), a blog, email marketing, including an email newsletter (ezine), a text (SMS), and Twitter are channel tools, through which businesses serve their customer communities.

A website is a very important part of your online presence, but it is not a very effective community-building tool. However, a website can become a platform from which you launch and serve customer communities. Think of your website as the living room where you entertain new friends and social media communities as the den you share with close friends.

There is one critically important thing for a founding company to understand about both of the online customer community types: The company cannot control community behavior.  Members - customers and prospects - control the conversation in the community. The founding company can only create and influence the community by establishing and demonstrating community values.

If value is the threshold of a community relationship, values are the foundation. Get started building online customer communities.

On The Small Business Advocate Show I’ve talked quite a bit about building customer communities and social media on my radio program. Click here to see and listen…

Your customers have connection preferences

Published
by
Jim Blasingame
on July 12, 2011
in Networking and Social Media
. 0 Comments

One of the markers of the digital age is the proliferation of handy electronic connecting tools, like email, text messaging and social media platforms. And as with any element of our lives where there is an abundance of choices, over time we establish preferences.

These days there are actually two preference scenarios in play with regard to the digital connecting platforms:

  • How we prefer to connect with family, friends and business associates; and
  • How we prefer to be contacted by businesses for order follow-up, and with information and offers.

The preference rule of thumb for connecting with family, friends and associates typically depends upon the generation. If you prefer email, that probably means you’ve been in the marketplace for a few years - Baby Boomers and much of Gen X. If you prefer texting you’re probably under 30. And if you prefer social media, you’re definitely under 30.

In the second scenario, where customers give a business permission to connect with them electronically, preferences are still evolving. So recently, we asked this question of our radio and Internet audiences: “When you give a business permission to contact you, which digital method do you prefer?” The results were instructive.

The response we received from those preferring a business contact them by email was overwhelming at 95%. All the rest, 5%, preferred to be contacted by text messaging. That’s right, not one of our respondents preferred to be contacted by either of the two social media choices we offered, Facebook or Twitter.

It’s not surprising that email won the preference race; it’s been around the longest of the digital platforms. But even though texting came in a distant second, and social media didn’t even move the digital needle, believe this: These options will grow as preferences for how customers will want your business to contact them.

Your website is becoming less of a destination for customers and prospects, and more of a distribution center to them. The future success of your small business will depend heavily on asking for and getting permission from customers to “Follow me home” digitally.

And you shouldn’t care which digital method customers prefer you use to contact them. Your job is to make all the prominent digital connection options available wherever customers find you, and then do what your customers prefer.

I talked more about how your customers want you to connect with them on my radio program, The Small Business Advocate Show. Take a few minutes to listen and leave your thoughts on how you like for businesses to connect with you.

EVERYTHING your small business sells is a commodity!

Published
by
Jim Blasingame
on August 18, 2009
in Customer Care, Sales - Sales Management and Social Media
. 2 Comments

Webster says a commodity is an item in demand in the marketplace but which is supplied without differentiation across a market. For example, a soybean in Shanghai is pretty much the same as the one you could buy in Sheboygan.

Here is some 21st century tough love: EVERYTHING your small business sells is a commodity, not just soybeans. Any questions?

That includes every product your customers can hold, carry, break, drive, wear, eat – you get the picture. It also includes things you can’t see, like service. That’s correct: From this day forward, even service is a commodity. The ONLY thing about the relationship between your business and its customers is the way they feel and think about the experience they have with you. That’s it! EVERYTHING else is a commodity.

Instead of spending the next week detailing why the last sentence is true, I’ll show mercy and merely ask you to look around at your own experiences in the marketplace. How many sources do you have for whatever you may need or want to buy? The answer is anywhere from many, in terms of your physical marketplace on Main Street, to practically infinite, in terms of the virtual marketplace on the Internet. And I’m sure you’ll agree that if the search is refined down to a handful, at least two will be in a virtual tie on price vs value, product array and quality service.

So, when your small business makes it to a customer’s final two, what makes them choose the winner? Here are some classic reasons. The winner’s employees remember the customer’s name, or remember what the customer likes, or smile more, or act like they appreciate the customer’s business and actually say so.

Now let’s look at some 21st century reasons: The small business winner has a website where prospects and customers can shop, or has a blog and/or email newsletter from which useful information is delivered, or allows customers to follow them on Twitter, or notifies customers electronically when new products and supplies are available, or allows customers to comment on a website or online community about their experiences, or anything that recognizes that customers are busy and helps them stay connected, even when – perhaps especially when – the customer isn’t buying.

It’s not easy for small business owners to think of their wonderful offerings as just another soybean. But get over yourself and start thinking about the only thing that will differentiate you from all the other competitors: the classic things customers have always wanted and those 21st century elements that are brand new, but no less compelling.

Recently, on my small business radio program, The Small Business Advocate Show, I talked about the commodity thing. Take a few minutes to listen, and be sure to leave your comments.

Find social media value through your community values

Published
by
Jim Blasingame
on August 7, 2009
in Social Media
. 0 Comments

This is the second of two posts about how small businesses find and stay connected to customers as the marketplace continues to evolve in the 21st century. In the previous post, I talked about creating online communities as a way for small businesses to find relevance with social media.

Going forward, connecting with prospects and customers will be less about 20th century marketing strategies and more about having at least one type of online relationship with them, including information delivered in one of the online channels like email, texting, even Twitter. And you haven’t created a true online community until members can comment on every aspect of their experience with your business.

Increasingly, prospects will turn into customers more because they’re attracted to the values of your online community than because of what you sell. Your online community values should be comprised of these element:

1. Brand elements – brand promise and brand image.
2. Quality information delivered to the community.
3. The tone of connection the business wants to set with its community. Your “tone” is how brand messages are included in information you deliver to the community, and it can be anywhere from crassly commercial to so subtle it’s almost subliminal. The “volume” of your tone will depend on your ROI patience, which in the social media universe needs to be long.

Establishing community values is a critical element of community growth not only because that’s what attracts members to connect with you, but it also causes them to encourage members of other communities to which they belong to join them in your community. Indeed, the most viral element of any online community is the feeling members have for the community values, which could range from devotion to derision.

In order to foster community longevity and quality, a business should create its own social media platform and technologies, rather than counting on public sites, like Facebook or LinkedIn. Here are a few guidelines:

1. Establish compelling community values.
2. Create an environment where communities can flourish around these values.
3. Acquire the technology that makes online community building possible.
4. Protect community values and control how the community is served, while accepting that the community founder cannot control member activity.

Ultimately, as a result of their experiences with your online community, members will turn into customers and possibly your best salespeople.

Get connected - and stay connected - with customers through online communities.

Recently, I talked about the critical component of community values on my small business radio program, The Small Business Advocate Show. Take a few minutes to listen, and of course, be sure to leave your thoughts.

Creating online customer communities for your small business

Published
by
Jim Blasingame
on July 27, 2009
in Social Media
. 2 Comments

A “craze” is something that takes popular culture by storm. A “fad” is a craze that doesn’t last. Social media is currently a craze, but it’s not a fad. And the question is not whether this craze will last, but rather, what will it look like over time and why should a small business care? Consequently, let’s establish a few “social media” points.

Strictly speaking, “social media” is the technology that makes online community building possible, not the community itself. It allows for the creation of and service to online communities, where dialogue and interaction among community founders and members are possible. Ultimately, the term “social media” in a business application should become the more accurate term, “online customer communities.”

In defining community, Webster uses words like association, fellowship, like-mindedness and shared interests. When building online customer communities, we should remember these words. Every small business should create online customer communities, of which there are two primary examples:

1. A company’s profile pages on sites like Facebook, Twitter, etc. Your company leverages these companies’ platforms. These sites are free but have limited flexibility.

2. Communities founded and hosted by your company, oriented around relationships with customers and prospects. An online community is established when customers subscribe to one or more of your channel offerings in order to receive your information.

A channel is a syndication tool or method of content delivery and service to a community. For example, real simple syndication (RSS), a blog, an email newsletter (ezine), a text blast and Twitter are channel tool examples, through which businesses and their communities exchange information.

Merely having a website isn’t practicing community building any more than owning a piano makes you a musician. But a website can become a platform from which you launch and serve online communities.

There is one critically important thing for a founding company to understand about both of the online customer community types: the company cannot control community behavior. Members – customers and prospects – control the community. A founding company can only create the community and influence it by establishing community values, then serving it via the channels and information it offers, which are requested by members.

Always remember: Customers control online communities, not companies. Soon I’ll post my thoughts on defining, establishing and being true to your community values.

Recently, on my small business radio program, The Small Business Advocate Show, I talked about some of these social media points. Take a few minutes to listen, and be sure to leave your thoughts.