Really good article at Mashable on four ways that social media is changing business.
One thing I push to everyone when talking about this space is that you have to stop trying to sell. People these days – especially Generation X-on-down – don’t want to be sold to.
That’s number one on their list, and it’s a huge one – both because it’s so important, and also because in my experience it’s the biggest hurdle for people to get over in trying to comprehend and implement all this stuff.
Recently Mountain Dew started a campaign to create a new flavor, and the way it’s being done is to have regular people vote and create videos explaining their votes, etc. Think about that – every one of those videos is a mini-Mountain Dew commercial.
Yeah, maybe it’s a hundred views on this one, a couple hundred on that one, but do the math – as of this writing, they have 571,000+ fans on their Facebook Page.
Now, you may say, “Oh, well yeah, Mountain Dew, of course. But they have big PR teams, and blah blah blah.”
All true – you’re quite right.
But they’re still running the entire thing through their Facebook Page, Twitter, etc, and those tools are the exact same ones your business has access to. (Free tools, I would add.)
No, your retail furniture store isn’t going to mobilize the nation in this manner. But create an online community and presence, be creative and engaging, and you can do it on a smaller scale.
I’m active in several communities based around products I have no interest in whatsoever – I just like the people and environment. That may not mean they get my money, but you can be sure I’ll send people who would like the product right over there every time the opportunity arises.
One more link, because I’m a junkie for this type of stuff – this official-seeming English scientist says we’ll all be perpetually 28 and basically immortal within 20 years time, through the use of genetic manipulation and nanobots.
