Internet Marketing - Matt Bailey [229]
In-Person Interaction as a Complement to Social Media
My favorite form of social media is face-to-face and eye-to-eye contact. This is how business has been done for thousands of years, and regardless of how popular social media is, business will still be dominated by personal relationships. Sure, you may be able to build business online through online networking, but I have found that meeting a client in person makes an impact—one that will help create a client for life, rather than a contact in my digital network.
Some of my best friends in this industry were met on discussion forums, blogs, LinkedIn, and Twitter. What was truly amazing was how meeting in person made the friendship much deeper. When actually talking with a person, hearing the inflection of their voice, and seeing their facial expressions and hand gestures, we become much more familiar with that person and can build on the digital friendship by creating a real friendship.
It is common to hear that 90 percent of communication is nonverbal. When we text, tweet, blog, and Facebook, we limit the ability to communicate effectively. We cannot determine tone by text. We cannot hear irony in typed words. Yet we limit ourselves to primarily communicating by text. Sixty percent of communication is body language.
Strangely enough, as social media becomes more pervasive, I find that more and more seminars are dominated by people staring at their laptops or iPads more than staring at the speaker. What is more interesting is that most of the audience behind the laptop would describe themselves as being “social.” Yet, there is no eye contact and no association with the person next to them. The only social contact is to their network of associates outside the room.
I might be old fashioned in this regard, but I still believe that there is no substitute for the original social media, face-to-face communication. It’s effective, it gets the point across, and everything digital is to imitate the original. Don’t forget to use in-person meetings to solidify your social-media relationships.
Friday: Enact Your Social-Media Plan
I’ve often equated marketers who get involved with social media as excited dates who show up without their pants on. They are just a bit too excited and take things much too fast for anyone to be comfortable. To put it bluntly, too many marketers and companies see social media as a way to get sex on the first date (see Figure 18-10).
Social media is not a conquest; it is a journey. You’ll find out things about yourself and about your market and your audience. It’s a relationship. In fact, it is thousands of relationships that you are starting with other individual users. Simply because you get into social media does not mean you will instantly receive new customers, visitors, or business. Nope, you have to work for it.
Figure 18-10: Remember the rules for dating, and don’t be too aggressive.
©istockphoto/DivaNir4a
For those just getting started, the following sections contain a quick four-step plan to get started in social media. Starting with the basics, this plan works for those who are tentative getting started and possibly slightly fearful of social media. It ends with the goal of all types of social media. Ideally, when reading “Step 4: Cultivate a Fan Base,” any fear of the unknown will subside. There is a goal to work toward when entering the world of social media, and the goal of building fans definitely helps your business to succeed.
Step 1: Create a Profile
Getting started in the social-media world is as simple as getting out to the major social-media outlets and securing your account