Social networks - Have the hunted become the hunters

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Why do some marketers still shy away from social networks?

Its funny how things can take such a flip turn in just a few years. I have seen how marketing concepts have transitioned along with the evolving internet. The greatest difference in the emergence of social media as a marketing medium is that 5-10 years ago marketers would be the ones with the lists. Marketing would be a one-way communication of messages from companies to consumers. They would work off a database of customers to find ways of penetrating them. TVCs, Radio Ads, Publications, Direct mail, Cold calling etc were all a core part of all marketing activities. The impact of the Ads was difficult to gauge.

Google search engines have turned the hunted into the hunters. Consumers now work off a list of merchants or providers and through a substantial supply of information to choose from. They decide who to listen to, trust and buy from. They are more empowered and in many ways less gullible. More access to information makes them wiser and better decision-makers.

This information gets to them via search engines and community based platforms. Search engines run algorithms to parse through information and show it to the consumers. On the other hand, community based platforms are enabled by elements of social interaction. Humans (not machines) filter content based on preferences and popularity. It is us who sort the information to protect our networks from poor choices.

Its the hunted who now have the power - the merchants must win over the prey if they want the prey to endorse whatever they are peddling & invite their social network to embrace it. To some naive marketers these facts represent a nightmare, which it is not. If you use social media effectively and not for spamming, a marketers cost of sales can drop considerably. Not only that, we now have the power to leverage mob-effects, community shifts, emotional linkages - all using simple social networking strategies.

If you are event marketers or promoters you can now directly interact with your audiences and get a direct feel for their thoughts and opinions. You can get early feedback. You can involve them in planning the different dynamics of the event. You can create groups and communities around your event to help build hype and excitement. You can let evangelists and fans promote your event for you. You can allow your prospective audiences to blog about your event. You can enable live twittering at the event. You can allow them to share photos of the after its over to build lasting memories and nostalgia.

Get creative.

Making Friends in the online Social Networks

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If you can remember the first time you signed up for Facebook and you had no friends or very few. You hear all these strategies for utilizing these platforms but with few friends to start with, its kind of hard to be taken seriously.

I am often asked where to start?

Social marketing is all about getting the most out of social networks. Here are some important friending techniques to be aware of:

Step 1 - Creating your networks

First of all, create your presence on different social networks like facebook, MySpace and Linkedin. Set up your accounts and customize your pages.

Step 2- Adding people to your network

Once you have your pages all set up, you need to get people onto your network. First of all make sure you can distinctly define what kind of people you would want to add as friends. These will be people who can benefit your business in any way. People who are part of your market segments, people who are domain experts, people who can benefit you through synergies, people who are influential in the industry, people who look up to you as an expert.. etc

There are different levels of potential friends on social networks: First of all, add all of those people that you know directly. If you know someone, then approach them in an a way you would to a real human being and not a robot. That is, introduce yourself.

I get friends requests all the time from spammers who use automated software for friending or cut and paste the same message to hundreds of people they find in other people’s friend networks. Be realistic - thats no way to befriend people. Be warned that if you do this you can be locked out of the platform for spamming, your IP address can be blocked from ever accessing the domain again. Recipients can click a link in each request that says, “report as spam”. A few of these reports against your name and you’re out of the game.

So when finding old acquaintances out of the blue, approach them like you would if you had seen them in a crowded bar. I’m assuming that if you come across them after a long while; you would walk over, re-introduce yourself and engage them in brief conversation after which you would initiate a desire to share contact details to remain in contact.

Its no different in these online networks, except that the crowded bar extends across the globe and its open 24/7 and you don’t need to exchange contact details. You simply send a friend request.

Next, you can introduce yourself to the friends of your friends by letting them know who you know in common. It’s not recommended to say “hi, I am a friend of John Smiths do you want to be friends on Facebook” - although a lot of folks do adopt this tactic.

I prefer to look at the persons profile to find something in common. I then introduce myself on the basis of our common friend and try to reference the topic that person seems interested in. Its an idea to be positive and complimentary where you can and end your comment with a question so it’s easy for the recipient to reply. If done right you can come back at their reply and before you know it you’re no longer strangers - so at a convenient time you can ask them if they would like to hook up as friends.

Thirdly you can search for groups in whatever niche you’re into and invite the people in these groups to become friends. Its recommended to join the group first and always contribute to the conversations in the group in an intelligent way before attempting to friend its members.

Expand your network as much as you possibly can.

Follow and be followed:

Find people that you want to have on your lists and follow them on twitter and other social network sites. Later, send them invites - a good percentage of them will accept. Social networking is all about following and being followed. Its about giving first and then expecting something in return. The more you follow and the more you contribute towards adding value to the more you will be followed in return.

The rule of thumb is the more value you bring to other people’s daily lives by what you do and say; the more people will follow you. Its no different to life offline, really except its far less forgiving than real life.

Web2.0 platforms take life as it has always been and makes it possible to maintain relationships with far more people that the offline world ever could. It takes away the factors of space, distances, traveling and communication logistics - and viola, there is no limit to the number of people you can befriend online. Um, yes, you will need high-speed internet though. This changes the social dynamics somewhat, which I will go into in another post but the thing you need to be careful about is that in the online world everything is recorded.

Everything you do leaves a footprint so there is less room for error. Offline if you say something you regret to someone, the damage can be limited to those who hear you say it first hand, those that hear what you said second hand and to a lesser extent those who hear it third hand.

Make the same mistake online and what you did or said can haunt you for life, so be careful.

A good writeup from the blogging world around us…

What Social Networking Can Do For You - Social networking is literally the way of the future.

Is Facebook good for event managers?

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This is a discussion in which I would like to hear your opinions and thoughts, more than share my own. I have seen how different organizers have made interesting groups in facebook for connecting with their existing clients, attracting new businesses or for networking with other professionals in their fields. Its great to see how facebook provides an environment which is conducive to building these relationships. In the comments, share your stories on how you think facebook benefits you to manage or market your events better.

Throughout my life, I have been studying and testing ways of how to effectively market events. I discovered soon enough that it all comes down to getting people excited about a thing and enabling them to build their own stories around it. Building evangelists. Evangelists are people who are sold on your service so much that they go around marketing it for you – for free! I found out about the “American Idol 2006 concert” through a fan even before it was announced. About the details of the “Macworld” through a fan. About a local “Eastern fusion dance party” through a fan. So if these fans are so good at marketing events to other people, imagine what they can do for your business.

Do you think Facebook allows you to build fans and spread excitement about your events? Let us know your thoughts.