This past Wednesday I had the pleasure of attending the LinkedOC event featuring renowned author and thought-leader, Brian Solis. Solis is the author of the best-selling book “The End of Business as Usual”, and his keynote revolved around the book’s themes of social commerce and social media in business.
The consumer marketplace and the way businesses are operating are changing. That much was reflected even at the very beginning of the talk, when Solis encouraged all of the attendees to be on their phones, iPads and devices in order to Facebook or Tweet about the event. In the past, this—playing on your cell phone while someone presented a keynote– would have been socially condemned. But now, people are encouraging it. Why?
Solis discussed that many businesses erroneously try to target one single audience, but in reality there are different types of consumers who exist in the marketplace today: the traditional, the digital, and the connected. The traditional consumers are the ones who rely on old-school media, like print, television and radio, the digital consumers thrive on digital mediums and devices, but what about the connectors? Those are the ones that are willing to spread your products, messages and ideas, because technology now empowers them to do so. They are the ones who are constantly curating content, and then sharing it to others through the web and social media. These are the consumers that we need to be targeting the most, Solis says. Like the attendees of his keynote event who will sit through his talk and tweet out and proliferate everything he is saying, or will be so impressed with his talk that they will seek him out on Facebook later and tag and cite him in their subsequent posts.
So to reach these consumers, what you offer must be compelling enough for them to care and to talk about. It’s not just about being on social media anymore, it’s about being able to provide your consumers with what they want to know, hear, see or read.
The quote that most resonated with me was when Solis said, “It’s about understanding the psychology of why people want to be connected to you.”
You can be on all the social media channels you want, but how will you use these channels to facilitate relationships, engagement and conversation?
