First of all my utmost respect to the organizers of the conference for putting up such a great event. Given the fact that it was the first one I can only give my biggest kudos to the iStrategy crew.
See the web as a marketplace, not as a marketing instrument!
One of the primary things I have taken away from the event is that hardly any organization pays attention to what their website visitors experience once they have arrived. And even though this event was promoted solely around social media strategy, thus of course perceiving all the social media channels as marketing instruments, I can only repeat what I stated in the MeetTheBoss.tv interview: Please try to put yourself not only into the situation of the customer, but also move forward and start seeing the web as a marketplace, not only as a mean of marketing.
In my interview (for those that had to depart early or didn’t manage to make it to this great event at all) I stated a pretty plastic example; that what is being done now compares to running the energizer bunny through the city, catching everyone’s attention.
Those people will definitely visit your store, but if there is no sales staff there to engage with them your products can have all the value proposition they want and no one will buy, thus rendering the marketing efforts invested in this campaign(s) obsolete.
Wikipedia describes a market as “any structure that allows buyers and sellers to exchange any type of goods, services and information” and this is where you have to go people… the level of the web are customer centric web presentations allowing both customer initiated and proactive engagement from the side of organization running this web operation.
Real time website analytics, backed by behavioral targeting will allow you to pinpoint interested visitors, mark them as prospects and allow your sales staff to directly speak to them through a chat window which will appear on the visitors screen.
Just to give you an insight: I have been experimenting with proactive customer engagement instruments for the past 5 months and have seen two extreme results:
1. Once you initiate the chat window on your visitors screen roughly 40% immediately shut it and leave your site because they perceive their privacy to be invaded and they have never seen something like this before. Due to the fact that I see this kind of interaction to spread magnificently in the next months because of its simplicity however, I think that this rate will drastically reduce over the next 18 months.
2. The other 60% accept the chat request simply because you introduce yourself to them on the fact that you have seen their interest in the specific product/page they’re currently viewing and giving them the opportunity to ask questions they may have in context to this product. Questions which they would have not asked if you would have made them access the contact form (if you offer points of contact at all).
For those of you who would have expected the all healing solution in the post: I’m sorry to disappoint you at this point, but it’s not out there simply because your organization is too unique starting at the vertical you’re in and ending with factors like the mindset inside your company or enterprise and how willing the employees are to embrace new things or how keen they are to engage others.
Utilizing social media as an instrument for internal communication!
Social media has so much more to offer than what it’s primarily being (mis)used for by the companies out there today.
Another very interesting aspect is the internal usage to gain and preserve intellectual property, preventing/reducing the risk of – for instance – re-initiation of projects which have been worked on prior reducing process faults and costs resulting thereof.
An internal blog made available to the whole organization can not only enable horizontal communication which will allow you to spread innovative ideas immediately (and improve them through the discussions which inevitably are going to happen over time) but also catch other ideas for improvement of processes and organizational purposes.
As I have pointed out above, there is no all curing prescription drug which will take care of all your needs. And nor is Microsoft’s Sharepoint!!!1
Corporate Online Reputation Management (CORM)
Nothing is as bad as leaving something uncommented. And why should you? I have just recently found out that pretty much none of the fortune 500 companies of the world listen to what is being said about them on Twitter.
While I could understand that not all channels can be monitored (which is also a lie) Twitter is one of the “hottest” portals.
Don’t see it as negative energy being spread about you on the web but see it as an opportunity to engage with a customer, thus strengthening your relationship with them. Don’t believe me? Well, give it a try. It works, trust me. John McCrea does a magnificent job with it on Plaxo, so why shouldn’t you or Lufthansa, or Bose, or Allianz Global Investors?
Beside the fact that you directly engage with the customer however, you can catch a lot of FREE!!! (That’s the thing without paying millions for people collecting market intelligence for you) customer feedback. Not only what your customers think about your products but also where you should go to have a look for more info about you which you may have not been able to assess which may be stashed in a third party discussion board, blog, etc. Oh yeah, did I mention that THIS INFORMATION IS FREE?
BOTTOM LINE!
Yes, the iStrategy is definitely worthwhile, especially to those organizations which have not undergone any efforts of implementing social media into their marketing strategy. (IMPORTANT: the marketing strategy is only ONE PART of what you should do. Don’t forget the: the objective of social media marketing is to drive customers to you. Don’t make the mistake and leave alone in your desolate virtual warehouse, a. k. a. your website!)
Should you join the next one? Pretty much so.
The value proposition is there, loud and clear and it will most likely give you important insights into the market (and hey, I’m probably going to speak there).
And if you don’t learn anything there is still the possibility to network with some really big people there from several industries.
Even if I repeat myself: there is no golden rule. The more individual your strategy is the more authentic it will come across. Copying is not really the solution. But copying for inspiration and then making it better definitely is an idea to pursue.
For any questions you may have please comment them to this post and/or use my contact info to reach out to me. Or follow @lars_hilse on twitter.
Merry Christmas from Lars Hilse and all the people working with and for us to make the digital economy a better place on a daily basis.
Note: this blog will remain up and running as a supportive feature to display and post associated material such as images, downloadable files, etc., yet the primary shift is going into the direction of audio.
Stan wrote the following about me:
