Why is social media important and how can you leverage it to benefit your organization? This social media training program is designed to help you understand the fundamentals behind your social media strategy
14. P eople
Who? Where? What are they saying?
O bjectives
Learn, Inform, Promote, Support
S trategy
How will customer relationships
change?
T
echnology
What technologies to use?
15. L isten
Who? Where? What are they saying?
E
ngage
Listen, Talk, Energize, Support,
Embrace
S hare
How will customer relationships
change?
S upport
What technologies to use?
The reason I ask is because most people get their first introduction to social media by \nHearing about all these tools.\n\nInstead of approaching social media participation strategically, they just start joining a lot of groups.\n\nHow many people remember the old Brady Bunch episode where Marsha becomes a high school freshman, and she’s worried about being popular, so she looks at the bulletin board and signs up for every club and activity the school has to offer?\n\nYeah, well, the comic value of the Brady Bunch aside, the end result is pretty clear. \n\nMarsha wore herself out, and she ended up looking like some kind of nut.\n\nOh, Marsha, marsha, marsha.\n
You listen first.\n\nGenerally, I run into two flawed approaches to social media.\n\nFlaw 1: Don’t participate at all. Don’t listen. Don’t comment.\n\nFlaw 2: Jump in with a bunch of tools: FaceBook Page! Myspace Page! LinkIn! Upload to YouTube! Twitter! Blog! You name it, we’ll do it!\n\nNow, this approach is a bad idea. Let me give you an example that explains exactly why.\n\nLet’s say I’m new to a community, and I want to make some friends. So, I put on my very best suit, and I wear all kinds of buttons on my suit that state my beliefs. \n\nLet’s say I see a group of people talking – they aren’t dressed all fancy like me, they’re wearing khakis and polo shirts, but they seem nice, so I walk right up to them and start reading them a carefully crafted campaign script that outlines how I feel and what I think. I hand them buttons and stickers and SWAG that I’ve made up, and I walk away thinking,\n\n“Wow, I really impressed those people today. I showed them how smart I was and what I stand for. I looked better than them and gave them gifts, so that had to impress them, too.”\n\nWell, in reality, those people probably think I’m a huge jerk. And they’d be right.\n\nThat’s not the way you make friends in real life. \n\nAnd that’s definitely no how you do it online.\n\nThe days where you “market to” people by interrupting them and shouting your message at them doesn’t make you appear credible or trustworthy.\n\nIt makes you look like one of the nuts. \n\nThe first step, of course, is listening. Conversations and groups and relationships are already in progress online. You don’t just jump in there without going through a process of assimilation. \n\nYou start online like you do in real life. You start by listening.\n