5 Offline Best Practices to Integrate with Your Social Media Strategy
There are many things that offline marketers can learn from those who market online through social media. Conversely there are many things that online marketers can learn from their offline brothers and sisters. After all, the hand shake and the face to face relationship is where marketing and the notion of productive dialog and content came from. Here are 5 ways to integrate offline “Best Practices” with your social media strategy.
1) Concentrate on Building Trust through Value
There are three kinds of reality — yours, mine, and actual. Perception can substitute as reality for a time. However, it is for a very short time before trust erodes. Eventually, by experience and reputation, consumers are going to discover your true identity. Social Media often leads to the originator inflating their image just to be recognized. What many social media extraordinaires often fail to understand is that they have only a limited amount of time to bring up the measure of true Value to the level of perceived Value.
2) Manage Expectations
Cerebral (verbal) contracts are very important in the offline and online world. You should be very clear what you intend to deliver and then do your best to make sure the magic is magic! This practice is used not only as a means to secure your interests, but also as a means of protecting the relationship from misunderstanding.
3) Less is More
The Volume of words spoken or typed has absolutely nothing to do with the Value delivered to your audience. Volume is also not a strong indicator of what you know or what you have done. Mark Twain once commented, “Thunder is good, thunder is impressive; but it is lightning that does the work.” In a world where many social media exchanges are more thunder than lighting, we should remember that true value lies in what can be delivered in brief but brilliant packages.
4) Focus on the Offer (The Benefit)
Today’s social media agent must learn to become altruistically selfish. In other words, they must figure out that helping a group of individuals, companies, or causes will in turn help them, company or cause. The “Offer” or the benefit must be real, relevant and accretive to the person on the receiving end of the communication. Today’s offer has to be more than just tangible. It must be transcendental with regards to the value proposition. Value is often referred to when establishing margin in prices. In today’s social media ecosystem, just because something is free, does not make it valuable.
5) Be Intentional
People often approach dialog (in person or online) as if it is a tool that should be thrown about carelessly as if they are simply checking a box and getting it done. You must be able to be strategic and intentional with your content. Concentrating on the target as if they were the only person(s) in the world. Everything else is insincerity, and most people will see through that pretty quickly. People who have the ability to see and access the dynamics of productive, intentional dialog are those with the ability to sincerely connect with each person they encounter through social media. The result is often lines of connection and communication that create real relationships.
Relationships and Momentum in the offline and the online world are actually governed by the same principles. You can certainly move your ideas and initiatives forward by using the same “best practices” in each of these ecosystems.
Innovate On!
