By Andrew Seel
Social Media Marketing focuses on building personal relationships, creating trust, talking to others as real people and being honest and transparent – not things you'd always associate with business to consumer (b2c) marketing. But if you look at selling to businesses (b2b), isn't that what we've always been doing?
If you take this as your starting point, Social Media Marketing is not as scary as you might think. It's not even new or unknown, it's just a reinvention of a tried and tested technique.
Moving forward with b2c marketing
One of the things that differentiates b2b sales from selling to b2c is often that b2b sales and marketing is done on a one-to-one basis by building individual relationships with people.
Much consumer marketing has generally been on a one-to-many basis using techniques such as advertising, but these days this is becoming less and less effective.
Social Media Marketing has enabled a b2b approach to be applied to b2c online.
Making it economical and effective
The problem until now was that this model was too expensive for consumer marketing. Social media techniques allow you to create more personal relationships with your customers – and make a significant impact on your business in the process.
Blogs and social networking sites like Facebook make it easy for you to begin the process of building a personal relationship with your customers or potential customers.
Find out where your customers hang out online, listen to what they are talking about. Think about how you could join in. But just like the real world, don't just barge in – look for an appropriate way to join. And when you do make sure you add something of value to the conversation.
Over time you will find the people who are more influential and interested in what you have to say. These relationships will form the basis on which to do business.
The next big challenge for marketers is the 'many-to-many' facet of social media, where everyone is ultimately equal and conversations evolve by their own rules without any authorial 'control'. It's a powerful tool – and working out how to use it for business without alienating consumers is what makes Social Media Marketing so exciting.
To find out how we can help you harness the power of Social Media Marketing call us on 01273 689672.