How many times have you been asked “Can you explain social media to us?“
Then you have to think about how to explain the entire (r)evolution of
the internet and its present state. Try doing that and you’ll lose
most people’s attention.
It has been said that “pictures speak a thousand words“.
As a consultant I have always found that if you can provide a picture
illustration and a simple story to explain something very complex then
you have helped a client understand something they need.
Given the consistent questions we get asked we decided to try and
provide pictures that hopefully convey the message and help people “connect the dots“. The illustrations in this post and the following dialog are aimed at explaining why the web is critical for business success.
The Story And The Illustrations
Everyone seeks solutions to problems. Problems represent opportunities for businesses whose product or service provide solutions to problems. When people have a problem or desire to fulfill where do 95% of them go to find the solutions? On the the web or to friends and family for advice and recommendations.
Every day of the year there are over 250 million searches done on
Google. In other words people are looking for solutions that address a
multitude of issues. The greatest library of solutions is the web. If you are in the back of the library you are not likely to be found.
So when people seek solutions if they can’t find you they are not
likely going to consider you as a solution to use, whether a product or
service. If your web presence is weak (not properly built) and worse
if your content is anti-social you are not likely to not only not be
found but to be considered clueless if found. Last but not least if
you are not engaging the market with relevant and relative
conversations (content) then those seeking solutions will not find
your value because no one is discussing it (peer to peer).
Thus the critical path to commerce is to be found and be noted as a
solution provider or an organization whose products and services people
talk about. However, in order to do so you must understand what all
this social stuff is about. Using social media (the
internet) effectively demands mind-sets and capabilities that are
unfamiliar and sometimes even counter intuitive to previous management,
marketing and advertising methods.
David Gillespie writes: If both the web & media are
inherently social, & if business must have a presence online, then
business must have a social element. To not have that is to fore go
both logic & opportunity.
Now your challenge is figuring out the how, what, where and
who you want to reach and providing them value they can use and share
with others. The consumer market has shifted from mass media
to media that provides the most meaningful value. Meaningful value is
relational while traditional mass media is not. For your business to
survive and compete it must learn how to build relational value and use
the internet to propagate that value effectively.
So What Should You Do First?
The
first step for any business is to learn and apply new thinking about
its relationship with the market it aims to serve, both internal and
external. To learn one must have relevant and relative data
that provides insights as to how well your business relates to the
market it is trying to serve.
The illustration on the left outlines critical research that must be
conducted in order for your organization to gain an understanding and
learn the critical skills and thinking needed to better serve your
market. In other words first you must listen to understand before you try and engage with any market.
Without having the relevant data concerning how, where, who and what
are your markets interest, needs and desires you cannot effectively
provide a reason as to why the market should pay attention to you.
Once you have this data and insight you can then begin to learn what
meaningful value you can create for the market and give them that value
for free. Use free to pull the market to a higher value proposition
they will pay for. Giving free knowledge that is meaningful is
considered meaningful, valuable and relational.
If the knowledge you give is in context with your markets interest
then you just increased the probability of a transaction which is what
you ultimately want. The difference today is how you get what you want
is by giving others what they need, when they need it and enabling them
to find it at the click of a mouse or from their friends. If they can’t find it or their friends aren’t suggesting it well then you lose.
The internet has now become the place to be found and to
create value people are seeking. To not understand and use it
effectively is akin to saying “I don’t care how our market behaves”.
How is that for an explanation?