What works?

http://thesocialosophy.blogspot.com/2009/10/getting-back-what-you-have-in.htmlThere are so many questions swirling around the social media phenomenon lately. It's the proverbial new kid on the block (although, relatively, social media as a communication function has been in use for a while) and everyone wants to get in on the hype.

But what do we do with it once our Facebook pages are built and our Twitters are tweeting and our connections are growing? Where do we go? How do we know what is a viable course of action for what we want to accomplish? There are a lot of things out there that work and provide good results. While this is encouraging for the growth of the technology and innovation, it makes it difficult for us to narrow down what works, and what best practices are.

However, as with all things, there those principles that, when applied, will point you in the general direction that you need to go. Here are a couple of things that you can be doing right now as you figure out specifically where you want your social media strategy to be heading.

1.) Offer Value.

The people who will engage with you will do so because of what they receive in return. Simply telling your potential consumer base that you make the best widgets in town will not be reason enough for them to spend their money on your product. They are being told the same thing by every other widget maker on the block. But if they know that your widget Facebook page gets them great news on widget technology, offers them specials for being engaged with you, and provides them with unrelated content like X-Games videos and interesting swine flu articles, they will consider you a resource, and you will be the obvious choice for their next widget purchase.

2.) Ask for Engagement.

Good, quality content will generate organic engagement, all on its own. But the guy who sets up a hot dog stand and opens his newspaper will not do nearly as much business as the guy who opens his cart then pulls out a mega-phone and begins hollering about the virtue of his franks. Do not be afraid to ask people for feedback. Let them know that you want their opinions, questions, comments, and queries. They will respond in turn.

3.) Follow Through

If you are going to pull out your megaphone, be prepared for the onslaught, and decide ahead of time how you are going to respond to positive and negative feedback. Then respond. Leave no comment unanswered, no question unacknowledged, and no message unattended. Give people a return on their investment, and you'll see a Return on Engagement.

Set the Example

Ever watch a street performer? I lived just outside of Chicago for a year, and I spent a lot of time in the city. Uptown, on the north side of the city, just of Lakeshore Blvd., there were always a few street magicians, musicians, and assorted other performers, trying to peddle a few bucks from the passers-by. On a couple of occasions, I found myself on those streets early in the morning, as the would-be stars were setting up for the day. I noticed that they all had an interesting habit. They would set out there collection apparatus, whether it be a hat, an instrument case, a plastic bucket, and they would pull a few dollars out of their own pocket and toss it in. As I watched, people would come up to listen or watch, and, before throwing a little change or a few bucks in, they would look to see if there was any there already.

It's interesting how this phenomenon transfers to the world around us, and, particularly, to the world of social media and the virtual market. People are terrified of making poor choices. Often, that fear alone is not enough to deter bad decision-making, but the fear exists nonetheless. Perception is everything to most people, and the thought of contributing a few dollars to a performance that no one else enjoyed is anathema.  So they check.

People behave the same way in today's social market. They check to see how others have reacted before they dive in with open wallets and checkbooks. If the sentiment is popular, they feel better about their investment. If it's not, they run scared. The street performers understood this, and they were proactive, investing a little of their own, to initiate a return from others.

We ought to be doing the same. If we are afraid to invest our own resources in what we are trying to sell, why would other people want to get on board. Talking about the virtue of charitable giving, and refusing to join the ranks of givers, come off more than a little disingenuous. Making claims about the incredible value of a particular investment, but not investing yourself, is outright hypocrisy.

People, for the most part are followers. Sales, in any market, is leadership. You can't "boss" people into buying and expect to be successful. That is the reason so many car salesmen have such terrible reputations. You have to lead them to a decision. Leadership is example. Showing them the way, the ups and downs, the benefits and detractors, and showing them through actual performance, gives them the peace of mind that those street spectators look for when peering into a plastic bucket or guitar case.

How do you sell by example?

Friday Blogwatch

Happy Friday! This a Mashable! Blogwatch. Enjoy, and have a great weekend!

A Guide to Mobile Web Design Tips and Tricks
- Some very helpful pointers in getting you started, or helping you improve, your organization's web presence. Kudos to Christiana Warren for putting this together!

Remindo: Social Web Collaboration for Business
- A great idea, a nice user interface, and a well-thought platform make this very interesting, indeed! I'll be trying it out this month! Let me know what you think! Thanks to Christina Warren for this as well!

HOW TO: Use Social Media to Find Deals this Holiday Season
- We can all use a little savings this year. Use your social media outlets to help you do it during the holiday crunch! Thanks, Sara Dunham!

Me Marketing

I'm a pretty big fan of myself. I mean, I ought to be. I've been with myself for a good while now, and I don't foresee a parting of company with myself in the very near future. So appreciating myself makes the relationship a little easier.

There is a secret to marketing yourself, and it may not be what you think.

Think carefully about why you make the decisions you make. The basis for our foundation always boils down to the Like-Want-Need model. You buy, eat, consume, purchase, watch, enjoy, etc. the things you do because you either like, want, or need them. But, further, for the deliberate consumer, you make those choices based on a value proposition. You make the choices you make based on the inherent value that you perceive in your selection.

When marketing yourself, this really is the key to making yourself likable, desirable, and necessary. You have to make yourself valuable. Now, it is human nature to perceive ourselves as inherently valuable at the outset. None of us wants to be worthless. But, the value which we perceive in ourselves may not be perceived by our consumers. So we often have to create it.

I sincerely believe that the key to this is making it more than worthwhile to do business with you. Your consumer ought to get more than what they expected to get. People expect to get what they pay for, but if you exceed that expectation, you will have made yourself more valuable than the others who simply deliver what is expected.

Many are afraid serve their customers in this way because they feel like they aren't being profitable if they do. It is up to you to decide what you deliver to your customers that will exceed expectations. Often, good customer service and friendly interactions will suffice to surprise and delight your customers. That doesn't cost you anything.

As you market yourself, the best thing you can do is to deliver on your promise of over-delivery. Build a culture of exceeding expectations within yourself and your organization, and let the product, the value speak for itself.

Pick your sandbox.

Remember junior high school? The first week was full of stress and anxiety, not because of classes or homework, but because of lunch. The table to which you would find yourself relegated had the potential of changing the face of your entire socio-academic career. It was never a decision you could make for yourself, at least, that was the case for most of us. Our peers, those who had come before us, they chose our table. It was all a matter of waiting, wondering what would happen, what would THEY think of us?

The social media phenomenon feels a lot like a junior high school lunch room, especially for those who are getting on board at this relatively late stage in the game. There is so much to learn, to process, to formulate and make a decision on, it seems just a little simpler to let someone else decide for us at which table we should sit. After all, we don't have time to spend worrying about all of this do we? There is too much else going on. Isn't there?

The question you ought to be asking yourself is whether or not you truly understand what is happening. If you don't, you have to be up front and honest about that. And then you have to educate yourself. The difference between this new media landscape and those smelly lunchrooms is that nobody here wants to be your friend. They want the money that your consumers would otherwise spend with you. And they will pick your table for you. They will relegate you to that table in the corner where people who don't meet the acceptable standard sit.

You have an opportunity, much like you had when you were much younger, to pick, not which table you sit at, but which sandbox you play in. As a child, you simply brought what tools you had to the sandbox and built your own castle. Social politics aside, he who could build the biggest castle was king. So bring your tools to the sandbox and start building. Learn, educate, discover, and adapt. Make yourself organic, growing with your surroundings, and changing as is necessary.

Social media provides the single greatest opportunity to date for effective communication with your consumer audience. They crave interaction from you, and will gladly spend their money with you when you meet that social need. The old rule to live by was "Pay to Play." You're not effective anymore unless you are willing to actually play. No more arm chair quarterbacks with fat marketing budgets. Now you've got to put on the pads and make it happen.
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The wonderful thing about this shift socio-economic dynamics is that it puts you in control of your own destiny. You finally get to pick your own table. And guess what? You get to bring your sand castle.

Improvement

Personal. Organizational. Social.

How do you define it?

The smartest people in the world focus on improving themselves, then make a genuine effort to tell other people about how it worked.

Personal Motivation

Motivation has been a big theme on my linkedin.com profile this week. I've been asking people how they motivate themselves and other people? How they stay motivated? How they keep others motivated? It's a big question. Motivation is the impetus of accomplishment.

Isn't it?

I think motivation-personal, social, organizational-really boils down to purpose. I've talked about this before, but it everything we do, whether it be in our personal lives or in our professional lives, is guided and directed by the underlying purpose, or lack thereof, we have for what we are doing.

I motivate myself by keeping my purpose clear and recognizable, and by keeping myself reminded of it. I carry 3x5 cards that have several purposes written on them: my purpose for loving my wife, my purpose for serving my clients, my purpose for keeping my faith. As I continue to remind myself of these things, I am motivated to accomplish my purpose. I am reminded of my goal, and urged on to achieve it.

So how do you motivate yourself? How do you keep yourself, and those around you, pressing toward the mark?