Which would you prefer: a blind date or a night out with an old flame? Chances are the old flame will be more fun because you can relax with the familiarity you share. First dates can be tedious as each person tries to assess the other person’s knowledge of axe wielding or fluffy toys (both equally as scary). Breaking the ice is difficult. If it were easy it would be called ‘breathing the air’ or ‘cutting the cheese’.

Doing business is the same. Sifting through a prospect’s ego to find their true nature can be time consuming and costly, especially if you get it wrong. It works the other way, too. Try putting yourself in your prospect’s shoes. They are about to spend their hard-earned money on your services and want to know that you can deliver. They need to trust you, but they can’t until they like you, and they can’t like you until they know you.

Know, Like and Trust

Trust is the goal, but we have to know and like first. This is ‘getting to second base’, which I call The Julie Andrews Principle.

So, how do we enter into a business relationship from second base? It mostly involves things unrelated to business. It’s about the personal stuff: what we do on the weekend, what we find funny, whether they still live with their parents, etc.

The Julie Andrews principle in action

These are some of the techniques Julie would employ to get to the ‘like’ stage in the relationship if she were in business.

1. Make small talk in meetings and on the phone.
2. Network or go to social functions (do lunch!).
3. Use social media sites like Facebook, YouTube, Twitter, Flickr, WOMF, LinkedIn (plus thousands more).

FACT: Most people will do business with someone they know, even if they don’t like the service.

Web 2.0

For the first time in history we have a vehicle that lets us communicate and market ourselves in a passive way, i.e. people listen to you if they want. This is so much nicer than the interruption model, where ads are blasted at you between snippets of content. When people can choose whether to listen to you, it’s much easier to build rapport with them. I can’t say I’ve ever felt endeared to the Rugs-a-Million guy. In fact, I’d love him to accidentally run into a lump of wood I just happened to be carrying.

The other difference with social media is that your conversations are not limited to work related things. Mixing in some of your personal life can be good. It helps build familiarity. When you are considering doing business with someone, just like before a first date, you Google them to find out as much as you can before it’s too late (see fluffy toys from paragraph one). So, it’s important that your online profile communicates the correct message.

Your online profile

What does your online profile look like? One of our project managers has a shirt that says ‘I Google myself’. Jokes aside, he actually does. Why? Because it’s important to ensure your message on the web is true. What comes up when a prospect searches for you or your company on the Internet? They should be able to find examples of your work, expertise, testimonials, photos (good ones, not drunk in a chicken suit), and gain a feel for who you are.

We usually share our wins, losses and challenges with close friends over lunch or a game of golf, but otherwise rarely. These are the things that make our friends, well, friends. The information you share sets them apart from others and creates a level of trust that enables you to do business instantly and skip all the cautious getting-to-know-you time.

Sharing things that happen on a day-to-day basis, both professionally and personally helps you build your profile online. This is where social media comes in. You can share information with the whole world and, if anyone’s interested, they’ll listen.

5 ways to use Twitter in business

1. Find recruits (KND has found two people through Twitter, for FREE).
2. Ask questions and give advice. This is a very quick way to build yourself as an expert in your field.
3. Write about your daily wins and challenges.
4. Announce new products or articles (be careful not to do too much blatant advertising).
5. Listen to what your competitors are doing. What’s happening in your industry?

5 Ways to use Facebook in Business

1. Create a page for your business.
2. Run events using the excellent RSVP functionality.
3. Push a feed of your web site content to Facebook so readers can comment.
4. Grow your network.
5. Share the more personal side of your business; i.e. Friday drinks, birthdays, photos, videos, etc.

Innovative uses for social media

1. Some Starbucks café’s take orders via Twitter.
2. Dell uses Twitter to message coupons, clearance events, and new arrival information on discount Dell technology. Dell generated $3 million in sales at no cost using Twitter.
3. Twitter has been a key communication tool in the recent Iranian conflict when all other media was shut down.
4. I saved 30% of my renovation costs by finding recommended tradesmen through WOMF.
5. A landscaping company uses a private Facebook page as their Intranet. They keep track of staff locations, download timesheets and organise social events.

What’s the bottom line on social media?

Social media marketing doesn’t appear as a number on your balance sheet, which makes it a little hard to justify, however, a strong social media presence will have the following effects:

1. Marked increases in web site traffic flow as each media site directs users back to your web site.
2. Marked increases in enquiries for services
3. Inbound cold calls won’t be so cold. Prospects will already feel as if they know you a little. They are reasonably confident that you don’t have fluffy toys all over your bed.
4. You will have something in common to discuss; e.g. ‘I enjoyed your article on homeostasis and its effects on your to-do list. Riveting!’ This makes the sales process shorter and more reliable.
5. You are top-of-mind in your circle of colleagues and they will more likely refer work to you.
6. You will be able to find answers faster. Twitter your question to a large following and see how fast a quality answer comes back.
7. Find employees. We’ve found two!
8. Save money on web development. Rather than building a booking engine for your events, just use Facebook. It’s free.
9. Deliver video and image galleries without the huge server overheads. Use YouTube and Flickr to host your content. They pay for storage and data transfer while you get smooth streaming and reach a wider network. Fa nuthin’!
10. Widen your marketing net. This is really the crux of it. With social media you can reach millions of people for very little cost.

It makes sense. Marketing evolved when television was invented and now it is evolving again to take advantage of this fantastic new medium. It’s passive and not-so shouty.

War has gone online using mainstream social websites for the first time in history. The recent re-election of Iranian President, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, has sparked widespread violence and rioting with claims of voter fraud.

Iran has always had very strict media filtering, second only to China in its scale, but after Ahmadinejad claimed victory in the most recent election, the country has gone into total lock-down.

International press have been kicked out and their visas and press passes revoked. Reformist newspapers have been suspended and the mobile network has been shut down. Facebook, YouTube, Flickr and hundreds of blogs and websites, which are usually filtered to some extent, have now also been completely shut down or blocked.

“The public and traditional media working together side-by-side to get the story out” – Nicole Johnston from Al Jazeera

Regime supporters can easily coordinate themselves with the support of local government-controlled television, radio and newspapers, while the protesters have been limited to face-to-face contact with no mass media communications.

Social media sites like Twitter have become a key resource in protest coordination and communication. Micro-blogging on Twitter in short messages (140 characters) from computers or mobile phones has proven to be extremely effective in communicating instructions and tactics to each other.

In an effort to have their voice heard, protesters are Tweeting step-by-step instructions on how to set up proxy servers enabling them to circumvent the government’s harsh Internet filters. This Twitter content is made up mostly of IP addresses, with makes it extremely difficult for the government to filter. The lightning speed of thousands of short messages has been too quick for the Iranian government to effectively smother. Savvy protestors have been able to use this technique to set up a direct connection to a friend outside the country and slip videos and information out.

As protest supporters around the world learn about the conflict in Iran, a digital attack is being launch against Iranian government websites. They are being hacked and bombarded by millions of hits in an effort to bring them down. And, it’s working.

News of the situation in Iran is updated every second by the people on the street directly to the world. A photo taken on a mobile phone can be sent out to the web instantly. By the time the authorities find it and remove it, someone in the western world has copied it and republished the story for the rest of the world.

The information monopoly can no longer be controlled, but with so much information flooding the web, not all of it is reliable. The short Tweets are unsourced, unreliable and lack context and should be consumed in conjunction with blogs and videos to gain a full understanding of the situation.

In one way the news is being diluted, but a strange phenomenon occurs when thousands of individual voices can be heard. A single opinion holds very little weight, but a thousand opinions creates a more complete picture and the wisdom of the masses begins to emerge.

Social media web sites have created an entirely new way to communicate. Never before have we shared the minutiae of our lives with strangers. Suddenly we can communicate with anyone on the planet. Within a few seconds we can find someone with the same interests and passions; ask them questions, provide help, sell them something, or just chat. All we have to do is listen in on the words that interest us.

Further Reading

Watch the Twitter conversation on the Iranian Election live here. One savvy Twitter has released a green overlay for your avatar to indicate your support for the protests. This explains the large number of green avatars. http://search.twitter.com/search?q=%23IranElection

Try searching for a keyword that interests you.

A great piece on Iran from the New York Times

Re-blogged from KND – Web Design Brisbane

Matt has outlined a popular point of view regarding the latest social media technologies on the web. Sites like Facebook, Twitter, Flickr and WOMF are used daily by predominantly, but not entirely, the younger generation to waste time, chat with their mates and share drunken photos from the weekend. What value can there possibly be in sharing the minutiae of your not-even-remotely-interesting life? Who cares if you’re brushing your teeth at the moment or feeling depressed because you are the only person left on the planet still watching LOST?

Well, a lot of people apparently.

Chris is: writing an article on Social Media

Social Media sites are a valuable and up-to-date source of an enormous variety of information, but they are also extremely time-consuming. There is an argument that goes like this -

Employer: “Social sites are a complete waste of company time?”
Employee: “It’s like the best way to network and find info, dude!”

As an employer, but also heavily involved in building afore mentioned diddling sites, I am caught right in the hey-diddle-diddle (that’s middle for Gen Y’ers).

WOMF

I have seen buyers’ choices swayed 180 degrees by popular opinions on WOMF. A recommendation from a stranger will always hold more weight than an advertisement, no matter who the stranger or their background. 21st Century humans have developed an immense distrust of advertising. So, an opinion from someone on our side of the retail fence will hold much more weight, simply because it’s a third party endorsement.

WOMF explained on YouTube

Twitter

Today, in fact, we were looking for some HTML coders for a short-term contract. The prospect of writing a job ad and then interviewing all the candidates just seemed too difficult and expensive for a small job. We mentioned it to our team to see if they had any friends looking for some part-time work. They didn’t, but our head-diddler suggested Twittering it. He has an enormous online network and uses Twitter to find a wide range of answers throughout the day from coding problems to wedding planning. A few moments later we had a hand full of willing HTML coders that came with an in-house endorsement.

Twitter explained on YouTube

Facebook

We have another client who runs a climbing gym. What better way to create a community around the business and organise events (with RSVPs) than Facebook. All the functionality is there to use for free and most of his customers are already in Facebook, so the viral marketing immediately extends to all his customers’ friends.

As is often the case with new technologies, they start out just for fun, but eventually find themselves in commercial or serious applications. Take the Wii for example. It’s now a “serious” fitness tool. Larger companies are increasingly requesting tools that provide the same functionality as Facebook or Twitter. They obviously need to communicate internally, usually over several locations. They want to keep an open conversation across the business for rapid problem solving and keep an auditable record of it. Sharing documents and collaborating on projects and events is another popular request. This is essentially social media with the drunken photos and minutiae removed and project documents and collaboration in their place. Suddenly the information being shared is not so inaccurate or ill informed.

If you diddle too much, will it really fall off?

I think we will see a gradual migration of social media tools moving into the commercial environment over the next two years, just like Wiki’s, Forums and Blogs have done. Perhaps the key is not to call it social media. After all, fun has no place in the work environment, apparently. So, we’ll call it an Intranet, swap the fun colours for corporate colours, add a bit of jargon, some document handling and reporting and, alacazam, we have non-diddling social media in the work place.

Now, I better go and check on the development team. Bloody Twitter!

BNI Riverside Twitter
Social Media in Plain English (YouTube)
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