Valeria, you have hit on the fundamental reason that social media marketing is so important. There is a fundamental shift in the way we consume advertising.

It is as if communications technology has become so prevalent that it has reverted us to the good old days before the telephone and newspapers. In those years people depended on recommendations from friends and family for buying goods. You grow up in a neighborhood or small village and you used the vendors your parents used.

Once mass media technology came to pass we were so thrilled with "choice" we were willing to listen to and watch ads in anticipation.

Now we have so much choice we are once again relying on the community and friends and family to help us choose the goods and services we buy. But, instead of those influencer's living just in our neighborhood they live all over the world.

It is time for companies to embrace relationship building through social networks.

Valeria,

Excellent suggestions. Yesterday, I read an article that said businesses aren't looking for an agency with the tools that they need; they know where they are and believe that they all say and offer the same things.

Instead, businesses are looking to hire a firm that understands the company's strategic focus and offers solutions to achieve its strategic goals. Most important, they seek a firm they can trust, and they don't trust most because we don't have a relationship with them in order to gain that trust.

That tells me that we need to work hard at communications and building relationships to even stand a chance of getting a business's work.

Lewis has my point in mind, in that if you take the time to get to know your audience (or in this case prospect), and really do your homework, your first contact will go that much easier.

I gave a vendor an audience a few weeks back because his first introduction was intelligent, personalized and he brought forth relevant business needs. 99% of the other pitches I get end up in the trash.

I think if you see what people are looking for then you will know what to create.

Valeria,
For me this article has put a lot of things in perspective. I know that this article dove deeper into the social marketing and advertising aspects, but as I read it I thought of it as more of a personal branding message, and it really helped me in a better understanding of social media and the power of networking.
I am Gen Y, and I just think that the points and suggestions that you touched upon are very important to everyone, but I also believe that they will be a deciding factor in the success in people lives in the near future. When I was in college I was always told grades were the most important thing in the world and that is what was going to determine your future, was the fact that you had good grades, but now it’s as if school was thrown out and it’s all about networking and connecting with people. Though I still think grades are important, I just think this social media and networking have had such a large impact in all generations, whether it is social media veterans or newcomers, that it is here to stay.

I think directing people to take a look at Chris Brogan is an excellent idea. He has been at the forefront regarding the use of social media and has been doing a lot of experimentation and development.

Marketing and sales needs to start thinking about what it’s like to be sitting on the other side of their current pitch and stop with the typical SALES CLICHES.

I would also caution everyone to consider the fact that anything that smacks of new that works gets picked up and used immediately by everyone who perceives that the use of that methodology could mean success. When this happens your back to square one. Change happens at the speed of light today - so one needs to stay fresh and ahead of the curve.

Valeria, your post is excellent advice for both sales and marketing.

I cannot count all the times I have been called by a fast talking salesperson who had little interest in listening and a lot of interest in getting through a script. If people slowed down a bit and had a conversation they would be much more effective.

Talking is necessary but listening more so...

Hi Valerie,

Everyone is lauding social media marketing and I'm all in favor of listening first for prospects' needs--after all that's the main service that my company offers. What I'd love to see in a future post is concrete examples/case studies (complete with results) of companies that have done this well. As Chris notes in his post, it's relatively easy to reach a small sample to "listen in" but much harder to scale. One of the largest challenges is finding the places where prospective customers hang out, since everyone is time-squeezed today. You can usually talk to those you already know--but it's harder to learn about new market segments that you'd like to explore--and even harder to meet new people face-to-face. What if you decide to listen through online communities? Blogs are promoted as social media, yet most writers attract relatively few comments--despite their attempts to stimulate conversation. So, maybe you go to other blogs that have attracted a strong engaged following. It would be great to hear what's worked and what hasn't within the social media rubric...

Thank you all for the wonderful comments. I was out all day generating leads ;-)

@Harry - you make an important point: we do rely to others in our network for referral. With the onslaught of information, we need more filters, people or publications or even companies that have proven themselves to us.

@Lewis - you have been talking about relationships and trust in business. As coincidence would have it, my friend Peter just left me a comment at my blog in response to my post on trust (yesterday). His observation is that we are impatient. Yes, we are. Internally, externally, with employees, with customers. Technology has only rendered the tasks faster, not better. We still need to take the time to cultivate the fundamentals. Thinking together is one of them.

Great post. It speaks leaps and bounds to those who throw marketing dollars at campaigns and suposedly information blogs which, in the long term, do not have much useful information and thus fail to generate any type of momentum. Is it any wonder that individuals now are building better personal brands then their respective employers ever had.

@Paul - I am the same way. If someone really takes the time, I do the same. Attention calls for attention back.

@Blog Expert - taking the time to learn and listen pays off.

@Mike - it is always about helping each other and connecting, since the day we are born. We are very social animals, after all. In providing the example of grades in school you made me think that with networking is not really about who gets the best grade. It is very much around how we connect.

@Courtney - like Chris, I have been an interested participant in social media for about ten years. We experimented with building a social network that was passionate about Fast Company magazine in Philadelphia and grew the membership online and at events (we did about 100 free monthly events) to an average of between 500 and 800 people per year cycling through. People will copy, but they cannot be the secret sauce. Differentiation needs to be at the root of what you deliver and how you do it. In many cases, what that means is that experience is king.

@Neil - yes, many are quite anxious to get into what they do. It does not stop at the sales pitch. Many companies still write all of their literature that way.

@Barbara - you would be surprised at how many companies do not talk to their customers or do not know who their customers are. Scale begins there. Blog comments is an ongoing conversation. If you are interested, I posted about it at my blog recently. Just because there are few comments, it does not mean that people are not reading or valuing that person's opinion. Links and discussions away from the blog proper are also an indication of interest. I have also found that it is easier to talk to stranger online. We think we "know" those we read frequently, so we skip sometimes. But we do often seek new content and new voices. Does that happen to you? I have observed that in many. We want certainty and percentages and numbers, I know. My friend Chris Guillebeau at The Art of Non Conformity, for example, had a 3-4% success rate selling his book to readers at his blog. These were interested people with whom he had built a relationship over time. I think in hos first week he blew away his goal. What is the success rate of direct mail? 1%? Going to people who have not requested your message... it's worth pondering.

@Peter - previous generation marketers often ask me "how do you get your message/stuff onto that blog?" or another good one is "how do you push RSS?" That's the point, you don't.

Excellent points, all, Valeria.

Gauche is out; sfumato is in.

You hit it on the head, Valeria.

For Barbara, you can catch great examples of specific social media campaigns @ viralblog.com (Don't worry, it's not mine. :)

But your conversation reminds me of one of the important rules of social media - Engage your audience in conversation.

What better way to generate sales leads than to actually ask the customer what they want? Social media lets you do that on a grand scale.

Here's an example from Starbucks:

http://mystarbucksidea.force.com/ideaHome

I used lead generation to generate sales and it works amazing. I can get a couple hundred visitors from seo without too much hassle...

@Neil - glad the conversation is useful.

@Roland - thank you for sharing more ideas. That is also one of the points of social media, connecting with each other leads to higher access to resources and tips. I would modify asking what they want (we often do not know) with asking the job they want to do. I wrote a post at Fast Company Monday about that.

What do you think the keys of driving business and generating leads are for the solopreneur? The guy who's new to Internet marketing and wondering how to implement theses same tactics on a smaller scale? Obviously "branding" in the corporate world is generally outside the scope of an individual in business for himself. Effective lead generation for the individual is probably more important to have a good system in place to process and qualify leads automatically.

"Authenticity" is a thread I perceive running through your article recommendations. Listening and being in the conversation - actually dealing honestly with the prospective client - are touchstones for me when proposing website overhauls for clients. Many don't really get it at first, they think there is a magic technology to deceive the surfer into converting. Only when the sites are live and converting well do some marketing directors concede that honest product description and delivery is what wins.

Dennis Foreman

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