by 
People are really having a hard time incorporating social media into their line of work. We still hear the messages that you need to engage people on social media to be succesful. Really? When I hear that someone engages all day with people on social media, I see this person with multiple monitors looking at Facebook, Twitter, Linkedin and GooglePlus looking for that conversation or chat to join and add their two cents too. When Twitter first came on the scene, the network was almost like this, but over the last few years things have really changed on social media.
Broadcasting has taken over…
We should not be surprised. It started with email. Remember when companies would send sales email after sales email. Some companies still do. People said email is dead. Guess what – email is coming back in a big way and it is more effective than ever.
It really comes down to the following, “We need to help customers process information and help them make a decision faster with more knowledge than ever” When you are able to do this, you will quickly find that people will find you and will be calling you, visiting you, emailing you to learn more or ultimately buy your product or service.
Yes – all of this is real-time, but you need to start thinking like a company that is growing its “Knowledege Assets”. This really starts by listenting to your customers and your client service staff. Our staff listens to the same customer questions everyday and answers those questions on a regular basis. However, there are also a lot of new questions that are recorded and addressed and sooner or later those questions are repeated in time. It’s a never-ending process.
Content Marketing
As an executive, part of your work should be continiuning to keep educated and abreast of news that is affecting your clients. Many companies look at content marketing as a way to write more information about their products and services. I do writed some posts about our company, (10%) but the majority of the content I write about is curating information that affects our customers. (90%). It is important for companies to talk about the current topics that customers are interested in and find a way to create content that can be referenced as part of the company’s “Knoledge Assets”
Social Media
From here, it is important for companies to recognize good, quality content and to share that information with others. Customers want to be connected with companies who are recognizable on social media and share good content.
The best learning I have found from social media is that if you share good information on sites like Facebook, Twitter, Linkedin or GooglePlus you will see follow-up results not necessarily through engagement, but through an increase in searched content, phone calls and emails. People rarely share their final decisions on social media sites. 02/09/15
Summary
Give people a reason to connect with you and continue to refine that process to make the decision-making process less confusing for the customer. Make sure you are looking at this process on all levels: online, client service, quality service and make sure you are listening to your clients more than ever. Be availalbe and continue to develop those “Knowledge Assets” for your company and the clients it serves.
Picture Source: StockPick.com
