I have a social media strategy (actually, multiple strategies), though I’m not going to tell you about it/them in this post. I daresay that virtually all of us who are businesspeople using social media/community networking tools have some sort of strategy, whether articulated or not – or we wouldn’t invest our time creating, reading, and conversing.
Yet one of the most wonderful things about blogging, Twittering, Facebooking, or (fill in the blank)-ing is that unpredictable and unanticipated connections happen. Strategy meets serendipity.
As happened to my wife just this morning, contact was re-established with an old high school friend because of Facebook. People find each other in airports while Twittering during flight delays. New jobs are found because someone knows someone who knows someone else via blogging. The examples are legion.
Each day, I look forward to finding new resources, connecting with friends new and old, and wondering what new and seemingly random things might happen through networking. And this is something that any business jumping into social media has to account for. The Pinball Effect. Much of marketing is driven by predictability, metrics, and measurable ROI. But involvement in purposeful networking with PEOPLE is going to have a delightfully unpredictable element to it. One critical conversation, occurring as part of a long-term networking strategy, might be the key to a 25% increase in business.
I’m all for measurable results. But can you afford not to bake deeper interactions with customers, and the power of serendipity, into your growth plans?
What are some ways in which the serendipity of social media has impacted your life and business? Share in the comments!
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Steve,
How do I love social media? Let me count the ways.
Social media in all its forms has been not only a game-changer for me so far as business is concerned, but more importantly, a life-changer. The best friends I have in the entire world (and some of them hail from across the globe) I’ve found via social networks like Facebook, Twitter, and, yes, good old blogging.
I cannot imagine life without it.
BTW, what you refer to as serendipity we call “lagniappe” here in Louisiana. Social media has added spice to my life and made it all the more meaningful.
IOWs, don’t even get me started!
Thanks for reminding us marketing is not all about metrics and ROI. There is a human element that’s just as important.
Steve, what a “coincidence”? I’m writing a blog post and one of my points is to encourage the use of social networks and allow for “strategic serendipity.” I got to wondering who else has used this exact phrase–surely I’m not the first; after all, there’s nothing new under the sun–and when I googled the results, this post comes up. I’ll be linking here!
@connie – well, the funny thing is, Seth Godin just posted something today on a similar theme of luck: http://is.gd/eGj2
@Paul – Ah, that’s a good word! One that @acclimedia would appreciate!
This post dovetails nicely with David Alston’s article on MarketingProfs today, “What’s the Return on Ignoring?”
http://www.marketingprofs.com/9/social-media-roi-whats-return-on-ignoring-alston.asp
David produced this at the MarketingProfs Digital Marketing Mixer in Arizona this past October — and it includes Connie Reece, Gary Vaynerchuk, Sean McDonald, and the like! Check it out.
p.s. to Connie and Steve – Sounds like a case of “BSP” (blogger sensory perception)!
Coming across this post was a fortunate accident as well – a question on Twitter about great blogs prompted me to visit MarketingProfs. That apple would not have hit me on the head if I wasn’t sitting under that tree – chance conversations yield concrete conclusions (e.g. gravity).
Love that dichotomy of articulated and unarticulated strategies, Steve. And I bet there are dozens of “shades” in between.
The beauty of social media is that we’re ALL participants in a global experiment. We are each a variable, each an unpredictable factor. Plan all you want…someone will introduce an element of surprise.
Embrace that unpredictability and you win.
Steve,
I could not agree more with the ’serendipity’ part of your post. Some of the best things that have happened to me, have been via social media networking. One must be brace oneself for unpredictability and the snowballing effect.
Steve,
I couldn’t have said this better myself. I reconnected with someone on Twitter after losing contact for 4 years. I was like a puppy dog. She actually became my client too which was a huge bonus I wasn’t expecting.
Thanks for such an enlightening post.
@Trish – how delightful! I have also had some “unplanned” re-connections this week via Facebook. One of the things I like best about this stuff!
Great minds think alike – just did a post on this topic at http://dooleyonline.typepad.com/dooley_post/2009/01/what-are-we-measuring-anyway.html
And a comment that I shared on Beth’s Blog (http://beth.typepad.com/) – how do you measure something like when I connected with the son of someone I used to work with 20 years ago who now works for a group that offers a great free environmental news link service that I now use on a regular basis to find stories I don’t get through my Google Alerts or digg.com. And that we have gone on to create a facebook group – http://www.facebook.com/group.php?gid=38979624830&ref=ts – that is encouraging people to decorate beach balls with an earth theme to take to the mall on Inauguration Day to remind people of the importance of environmental issues for/to the Obama administration.
Some cool stuff happening out there that needs to be captured but goes beyond numerical measurement.
Steve,
Thanks for such an interesting post. I very much agree with you on the idea of strategic serendipity. I have reconnected with multiple friends on Facebook with some of the relationships becoming stronger the second time around because of the reconnection.
Thanks for posting about some of the more personal implications of social media!
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