Everything you need to know about social media you can learn in church.
After listening to a dozen social media leaders this past weekend I couldn’t help but think Id heard what they were preaching before. The question in they were answering was, what does it take to be successful at social networking. Everyone of the presenters used at least, if not all, of three reoccurring themes.
- Give more than you get
- Love people
- Tell the truth, be authentic and transparent
I’ve certainly heard that before, just didn’t expect to here it at a social media conference. No doubt this type of talk is one of the stumbling blocks for executives around the world when it comes to social networking uptake.
How to Measure Social Media Success
That’s the thing about social networking, it runs counter to what we may have learned with other digital media. Historically the secret to success would be associated with users, page views, click through rates, hits and ultimately sales. No doubt this is one of the reasons social networking uptake is slow. Unfortunately its hard to measure the results of “loving people” or “being transparent”. Not to mention even if you could many companies would only be interested in it if you could ultimately draw a clear line between that and sales. Obviously companies need to make money and all things need to ultimately, even if indirectly, achieve that goal. So the question is can social media sell?
Can Social Media Sell
If being successful at social media means you need to have an idealistic approach how then can you turn that into measurable results? Well that’s just it. The point is to approach these tools with the frame of mind of giving, loving, transparency and ultimately all of that will lead to sales. Ah, I can hear it now from all the executives out there saying “prove it!”. Until you put the time into social networking you wont be able to see what the results will be. This is where companies need to take some sort of measured risk. The traditional sales channels, TV, print, retail are all in decline, social media use is up 300%. You tell me which is more of a risk?
Social media also allows companies to be more “human”, show they care about something more than just sales. Now more than ever peoples trust is at an all time low when it comes to companies and everything you can do to combat that is going to help in the long term.
The bottom line, social media will sell, but not before you give.
