As the world economy teeters on the brink of rapid recovery or further collapse it strikes me that business is at a fairly major crossroads.
The recent collapse of economies around the world seems to me to have been caused by greedy people trying to ‘cheat’ the system. Bankers have shorted markets, banks have lent inappropriately, businesses haven’t done a good job and generally everyone seems to have been trying to ‘pull a fast one’ to make a quick buck.
The last couple of years has seen technology equip us with a range of great tools to engage and keep in contact with customers, prospects and partners alike. The opportunity to access great networks and great platforms for little or no cost should have facilitated openness, equality and fairness.
However, there are some people ‘cheating’ at it, in the same way that others have ‘cheated’ us in to a recession. Spamming on Twitter, growing ‘networks’ of people they neither trust nor even know, using these networks as broadcast rather than narrowcast channels – all short-term attitudes to grow numbers rather than value.
If we’re not careful we run the risk of killing the golden goose. The very tools which could usher in a new era in business and personal communications will be broken before they are even have a chance.
If businesses use Twitter, Facebook, and the like they need to start to address their followers as if they were real people…(which is so often forgotten). They must forget automation to large numbers and start to ‘talk’ to people as individuals. But most important of all they need to listen to what’s being said. From listening comes insight, understanding and truth and these are a great basis for a long lasting relationship with your customers.
So, I believe that we need to use social media for relationships, sharing and education. If we do this and do it well, business will flow.
This is the world of “SOCIAL media” not “social MEdia”
