Posts tagged Online Communities

If you haven’t noticed, the way consumers make purchasing decisions has drastically changed over the last few years.  With all of the information available with Google searches, ratings, reviews, and smart phones, the consumer is now extremely educated about nearly every major purchasing decision.  I mean, you can literally download an app on your iPhone that will scan the bar code of an item in a store and give you consumer ratings and price comparisons of every store that carries that item within 50 miles of you…now that is a well-informed shopper.  So, what does that mean for you?

It means you have to stop selling and start teaching, or as my good friend Scott Ginsberg would say, “Don’t sell, enable them to buy.”  You might be able to get a one time purchase through the old manipulative marketing efforts or trying to compete on price and features alone, but as our society’s interaction with one another is being reduced by technology, consumers are looking for more than just a transaction, they are looking for a business relationship with a company they like, a company they trust…a company they can personally identify with.

I was having lunch a while back with Steve Hughes of Hit Your Stride fame, and he asked me my opinion on social media and if it could be effectively monetized.  My response was that social media, as popular as it is right now, is not necessarily for everyone.  Social media is best used for businesses and organizations that can truly develop a community around it’s brand and service.  More importantly, I don’t think social media necessarily needs be used as a tool for direct monetization, it should instead be used as a forum for businesses to interact and educate their “fans” (or ‘likes’ now) about who they are, what they are doing, and most importantly why they do what they do.  If you try pushing your product or service, screaming “Buy! Buy! Buy!” from every possible location, including social media, your prospects will emphatically respond with the “Bye, Bye, Bye”.

So, take the time to give some valuable information to your customers and prospects.  Take the time to let them know who you are and what you are all about, get to know more about them, and stop having every message coming out of your organization only being about good-buys from you or you’ll end up getting a lot of good-byes from them.