WEEK 40
BUILD TRUST IN ONLINE COMMUNITIES
When marketing and selling products online, trust is an all-important commodity. Studies consistently show that consumers will pay a little extra on
Amazon.com and other established retail outlets for the peace of mind of placing orders with companies that have a proven track record of security and customer service. Likewise, eBay sellers who have lots of positive buyer feedback have a huge advantage in the marketplace over sellers who are just starting out. The fact is that trust sells.
Another fact is that consumers talk. They talk about products, services, companies, and even individual salespeople and merchants. They post product reviews. They expose scams and incompetence. They rail about defective products and companies that over-promise and under-deliver. And they sing the praises for top-notch products and services and the people who sell them. Consumers who share common interests also form their own communities where they share information.
With the assistance of a computer and an Internet connection, consumers can log onto the Internet at any time of day or night and check out what their peers have to say on social media sites, like FaceBook, MySpace, LinkedIn, YouTube, and Second Life. They can instantly connect with one another using instant messaging programs. They can even vote on the content they like or dislike, rate businesses and products, and much more.
Through a host of technologies including social networking sites, discussion forums, and blogs, consumers create their own social media that empowers consumers to market and advertise products and services to one another. Consumers can generate either positive or negative press for you and what you sell, depending on how you present yourself online and on the quality of products and services you provide.
In this chapter, you will discover the various forms of social media, examine some of their benefits and drawbacks, and learn techniques for attracting positive press from consumer-advertisers.
WHAT CONSTITUTES SOCIAL MEDIA?
Social media is a term that loosely defines a collection of tools and technologies that enables Internet users to create and publish their own user-generated content. Developers are constantly releasing new tools and technologies, so any list of social media is destined to be out of date by the time it’s published, but during the writing of this book, social media encompassed the following:
• Discussion forums (often referred to as message boards, bulletin boards, or newsgroups) have been around much longer than most other types of social media sites. They cover every topic imaginable, from caring for your car to training your dog (or cat) to knitting socks.
• Blogs, as discussed during Week 37, enable anyone with a computer and an Internet connection to publish their own thoughts, insights, and opinions.
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Collaborative information sites encourage users to contribute content. Wikipedia (
www.wikipedia.com), for example, offers an online encyclopedia composed by Internet users. Users can even create their own mini-encyclopedias, called
wikis, which can remain independent from or tie into Wikipedia.
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Bookmarking tools enable you to tag Web pages and stories that you think are most important. Bookmarking sites can also estimate the popularity of certain content based on the number of people who have bookmarked it. The most popular bookmarking site, as I was writing this book, was
de.licio.us (
de.licio.us). Other sites in this category include Diigo (
www.diigo.com), TekTag (
www.tektag.com), and Spurl (
www.spurl.net).
Every type of social media provides you with an opportunity to present yourself and your products and services to dynamic communities and individuals who may be interested in them. The challenge is to present what you have to offer in a way that appeals to the community. This usually means that you need to take a soft-sell approach, if you choose to advertise or sell at all.
Caution: Social media can make or break a company or an individual retailer or salesperson. If the social media turn against you for any reason, they can destroy your business overnight because word spreads almost instantly across the country or around the world. This is not necessarily a bad thing. It simply challenges you to be your best, act with integrity, and be careful of what you post and how you treat your clients.
TAP THE POWER OF SOCIAL MEDIA MARKETING
Whether or not you become actively involved in social media marketing, your clientele or prospective clients are likely to be talking about you or the products and services you sell. They will also be searching for information about what you sell and perhaps looking for a supplier of those products or services.
To use social media marketing to your advantage, I suggest that you take one or more of the following steps:
• Find out what people are saying about you. Use your favorite Internet search tool to find out what people have to say about you, the company you work for, the products and services you sell, and your competition. Use Google to search the Web, News, Blogs, and Groups for your name and Company name. Find out what consumers like, dislike, and are looking for but not finding.
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Identify yourself. Before customers will buy from you, they will want to know a little bit about you, so provide some information about yourself. You can do this by creating an About Me page on your blog or web site. Create a profile on social networking sites, including LinkedIn, MySpace, and FaceBook. If your industry has its own networking site, such as ActiveRain (
www.activerain.com) for real estate professionals, post your profile there. Wherever clients or potential clients tend to hang out and where the service allows you to post your profile or resume, do it. You can find me at
www.AboutRalph.com,
www.myspace.com/ralphroberts/,
activerain.com/blogs/ralphroberts/,
www.linkedin.com/in/ralphroberts/, and several other social networking sites, in addition to my own web sites and blogs.
• Get connected with influential people. In the world of social media, communities often assess your trustworthiness by the company you keep. If influential people in the community give you a positive recommendation, others in the community are more likely to buy from you.
• Interact with your clientele. Look for ways to engage your clientele directly online via message boards, blogs, Q&A sites, and other social media venues. You may even want to include an e-mail form on your web site and blog, so consumers can contact you directly with questions.
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Meet your clientele face to face. Seek out opportunities to engage with clients offline. One of the goals of social media is to allow people with similar interests to locate one another in order to set up face-to-face meetings. You might consider scheduling a get-together, seminar, or workshop that enables your online connections to gather and gives you the opportunity to meet prospective clients in person. To schedule and promote face-to-face meetings with likeminded professionals, use Meetup (
www.meetup.com).
Remember that social media marketing is all about transforming customers into marketers and advertisers. This requires a concerted effort on your part, both online and offline, to deliver valuable information, insight, products, services, and customer service, so all of your customers will have only good things to say about you. Social media isn’t just about creating marketing buzz or hyping a product; it’s about serving your clients with integrity and learning as much as possible about your own business in the process.
Ralph’s Rule: Be real. Social media is all about transparency—exposing the truth, however painful it may be. If you make a mistake, never try to cover it up or dodge the truth. Admit your errors, apologize, make it right, and then move on. As long as you are genuine, people will be forgiving. If you try to pull the wool over people’s eyes, expect to be tarred and feathered.