Yes in a people to people environment you need to avoid people! Well, people who play it safe. Who don’t share ideas. Those that won’t collaborate and people who talk about customers as if they were just a transaction.

Avoid people who tell you to shout. Who talk about marketing! Run fast from anyone who thinks they own you. Become adept at picking out those that just detract rather than add value. Make a hasty escape from people who only see the money. Turn the other way if someone’s ego is the size of a small country and never engage with anyone who is talking at you.

It’s not about being rude and ignorant, manners cost nothing. Just learn to avoid and get rid of them fast and in a smart way. There are other people to converse with that are so much more inspiring!

Well I don’t need to blog in depth today because Scott Gould has just posted this. Need I say anymore? Just a fabulous overview of how social media needs to be useful…..I think that goes for anything doesn’t it?

Well worth the read, click below.

http://scottgould.me/be-useful-the-6-social-media-presences/

Enjoy….you should, its brilliant!

Hmmm…. your customers are creating the market place now not you. Give us choice and we will take it! Look at us has been replaced with look at what we are doing. The big question; is your marketing designed for a static world or an ever changing one?

Markets will always outperform individual businesses, they also learn a lot faster and are better connected than� business too. If you’re marketing ain’t broken, its about time you asked yourself why? As Jeff Jarvis said “The mass market is dead. It committed suicide. Google just handed it the gun.”

Most companies, for the last 10 years, have taken the easy way out to market their brands, they have essentially bought customers. Sadly, its cost more and more and had less and less impact. In the past it was about driving traffic to your business, now its about loyalty.

Remember this equation; Feeling valued = loyalty + commitment

Most of us are still acting as if what we do is scarce. Shouting isn’t going to get you heard above the crowd, not when everyone else if shouting too. Now really is the time to tear up the marketing you have been doing in the past. Measure its return on investment and, then when you’ve picked yourself up off the floor, go and find some other way of connecting with your customers.

In October I had to queue to get into the Likeminds Conference in Exeter. This time I was one of the many getting kicked out by Scott Gould at the end of the night!

Well they went and did again didn’t they? The organisers, speakers and delegates raised the bar without creating one! “People to people” was the focus of this full day conference which threw up just as many questions as answers, but that’s the point.

There were particular vibrant and engaging presentations from Jonathan Akwue, Joanne Jacobs, Olivier Blanchard and the irrepressible Chris Brogan. Even the thought of Chris stood on stage in his Superman underpants did nothing to dissuade the audience (sorry you needed to be in the room to get that one!)

There was nothing irksome about the day. Superbly organised with a truly community feel, we all felt a little bit human again. The key lightbulb moments;

1. “When you give people a voice, you have to be prepared for what they are going to say.” Jonathan Akwue. That one� is for all you leaders out there!

2. “Understand, participate and then lead.” John Bell. Yep you got to eat an elephant in bite sized chunks.

3. “Having a prescence in social media is worthless unless you do something with it.” Olivier Blanchard. You know sometimes a blinding flash of the obvious is so bloomin’ powerful.

4. “You have to make people feel special.” Chris Brogan. Many of us commented we did feel special!

The buzz in the room was inspiring and so positive, there were obviously no Daily Mail readers in sight! People talk a lot about the social media hype. I’m curious to what they mean by that. Social media for many businesses is the Titanic’s iceberg and its no good re arranging the deckchairs on the old ship anymore. Its a difficult time for many companies. But, perhaps by humanising the relationships we have with people, we can actually thrive.

This conference showed that even in six months not just the technology has moved on, but so has our thinking. It can’t be taken as a token gesture, its serious stuff and it has serious implications. Miss the next one? Er no!

Some people, in fact more than we would like to admit, are underestimating the scale and the power of non financial motivations. This is also true of freedom to express oneself too. I recently had a delegate offer ” why on earth would my employees want to express themselves?”

The web is not a separate world, so far in the distant, too difficult to reach and understand. It really isn’t Jupiter. It’s actually just a different one that is presenting a different set of rules, a change in the way we do things and allowing us to connect in a way we have never experienced before. It’s unprecedented.

A lot of us are having to unlearn things, lots of things. For those of you who think the web is isolating and responsible for a generation of people who don’t communicate with each other, think about this; all of us watching the Winter Olympics around the world at the moment, in our own living rooms, passive, one way, broadcast stuff, now who’s isolated?

As the new tactics of marketing really start to have their say, as the case studies begin to roll in and as the mass market gets used to using these new tools to communicate, connect, share and collaborate with customers, it will demand a significant shift in your business too.

Gone are the days when you bought a bit of advertising and then waited for the customers to roll in. We’ll laugh loudly with slight embarrassment in a few years time when nostalgically we remember the days when we used to send brochures and leaflets out in an attempt to attract people to our business.

This change is unprecedented and like a ball rolling down a hill its gaining momentum. As Clay Shirky says “Communications tools don’t get socially interesting until they get technologically boring. The invention of the tool doesn’t create change; it has to have been around long enough that most of society is using it.” Well they are getting boring and whilst we may be a little way off mass adoption, it will hit us like a barge pole from behind if we are not prepared.

It won’t necessarily mean marketing budgets will soar, in fact they are likely to plateau if not reduce. Individual customer experiences and solid relationships will become more important than you being in the local rag (mainly because it may not exist anymore.) What social media may do is reduce your marketing budget but be aware it may also increase your own personal time investment in communicating.