RonAmok!

A storyteling analog engineer who studies the power of networks
Aug 27, 2008

Seek First to Help

Mitch Joel of Six Pixels of Separation – The Twist Image Blog started an interesting project to gather the best practices of Social Media Marketing. Here is the one that I tell all my clients.

Social Networks are places for people to gather, share ideas, experiences, learn and have a little fun. Companies, on the other hand, have a hard time with these motives because they only know one way to market — using war analogies. They traditionally:

  • “target” their demographics,
  • “launch initiatives” at them
  • “orchestrate campaigns” against them,
  • and “blast” them with messaging.

Unfortunately, companies that rush pell-mell into these Social Networks with traditional marketing guns a blazin’, end up at the wrong end of a firing squad.

Therefore, I remind my clients that it’s better to ease their way into an online Social Network the same way one would with an offline social event. Be a wallflower for a little while, simply observing. Look around. Listen to the conversations. Try to understand the overall vibe of the place.

Then, after you begin to understand the vernacular and can feel the rhythm of the conversations, ask yourself the following question: “How can I help make this community better?”

Be useful. Seek first to help, even if (especially if!) it has nothing to do with your product or service. Soon, as members see that you are willing to invest in the community and its members, they will likely reciprocate, in more powerful ways than you can imagine.

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Filed under: Content Development
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  • http://www.commbasics.typepad.com/ Lou Covey

    You know, the funny thing is that every really GREAT sales person I’ve ever met has told me essentially the same thing about successful sales. One guy put it this way:

    “If I’m trying to sell my pencils to make my quota for the month, I may do it by brute force, but I’ll probably never sell pencils to the same person twice. But if I see my job as helping a customer communicate something non-verbally to someone else. then I make sure that my solution is a reliable part of a that solution, and that it is ergonomically effective for that customer. I put myself into that customers position. When I do that, I make my sale everytime, and I get a customer that comes back to me.”

    Social media not only encourages that kind of attitude, it punishes anyone who doesn’t take it.

  • http://www.commbasics.typepad.com Lou Covey

    You know, the funny thing is that every really GREAT sales person I’ve ever met has told me essentially the same thing about successful sales. One guy put it this way:

    “If I’m trying to sell my pencils to make my quota for the month, I may do it by brute force, but I’ll probably never sell pencils to the same person twice. But if I see my job as helping a customer communicate something non-verbally to someone else. then I make sure that my solution is a reliable part of a that solution, and that it is ergonomically effective for that customer. I put myself into that customers position. When I do that, I make my sale everytime, and I get a customer that comes back to me.”

    Social media not only encourages that kind of attitude, it punishes anyone who doesn’t take it.

  • Ken Wetherell

    Well stated Ron and Lou.

    The attributes of communication ushered-in by new media are challenging people and organizations to evolve. Those who don’t adapt to the changing environment will become less successful and fewer in numbers.

  • Ken Wetherell

    Well stated Ron and Lou.

    The attributes of communication ushered-in by new media are challenging people and organizations to evolve. Those who don’t adapt to the changing environment will become less successful and fewer in numbers.

  • http://ronamok.com ronploof

    Excellent point, Lou. As someone who has spent the majority of his career on the sales side of the house, I’ve always felt that the skills to be successful in Social Media are more prevalent in the sales department than in the marketing department.

  • http://ronamok.com Ron

    Excellent point, Lou. As someone who has spent the majority of his career on the sales side of the house, I’ve always felt that the skills to be successful in Social Media are more prevalent in the sales department than in the marketing department.