At the Crossroads: Business and Social Media

This weekend I read with interest Stuart Crawford’s post over at Social Media Today titled, Social Media and Business: Can They Coexist?

Crawford’s premise is that Social Media is predicated upon an environment of trust, while, on the other hand, people tend not to trust businesses. And he correctly points out that the road to “trust” is paved with a culture of sharing.

That’s what we try to do here with our blog, and in our business model: share.

We give away a lot of free information, and in the next few weeks, we’re creating a whole new section of our website where we’ll be giving away even more knowledge and information. Some might call it professional suicide; I call it smart business. This is what I encourage my friends and clients to do.

Can business and Social Media coexist?

Of course they can, particularly for those who choose to let Social Media shape their business model, rather than the other way around. The principles of Social Media are diametrically opposed to how we are used to doing business, so if we want to take advantage of all that Social Media has to offer, we are the ones who must change. If we don’t, then we’ll merely be trying to fit a square peg (Social Media) in a round hole (traditional media).

Don’t get stuck in the trap of thinking things need to be done the way you’ve always done them. Social Media and traditional media can both be useful, but don’t think that they operate the same way.

Be flexible, be willing to change, and enjoy the ride!

Tagged as: Marketing, Social Media, traditional media

kmueller62

Suzanne, thanks for your comment.

I know that by giving away free info I'm putting myself and my business at some sort of risk. But the way I look at it, is that one of three things will happen as people read the info:

1) they do it on their own
2) they like the info, but realize they can't do it on their own, and then get help
3) it builds trust, and at some point, when they DO need help, we may be the first ones they think of as a result of how we do things.

I try to instill this philosophy into the blogging and Social Media strategies of all of my clients as well.

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Suzanne Vara

Your strategy is what will garner trust and bring in new clients. People buy from people and from people they trust. I model Kherize5 the same way. I believe we are giving people the knowledge from our knowledge (which can be higher or lower than the reader) and showing them the tools. Now, how many people have the time to put into this as we have OR are willing to put the time into it. So yes we are giving away FREE information and it is being shared but if everyone was following/executing the free information then why are we still able to write about it? There are always new people to the space who need help and if they are not able to read articles or get advice for free, they would never stick with it.

If a company came out with a new product but you could not find any research, opinions, how to's, etc anywhere and the only way was to pay for it, there would be a select few who would move on it. We can never stop early adopters but I know with clients they have to be able to hear some feedback as to why they should engage in SM before they sign a contract with me.

Keep sharing and look forward to the new section on the website.

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