What You Can Do Now with Social Media in a Relationship Economy

We are now in The Relationship Economy.

The only real traction businesses are getting right now is directly tied to effective 2-way relationships.  Social Media allows you at will, to quickly learn how to interact directly with your Customers and Market.  There are two tracks for Business Social Media: Individual Professional Presence and Company based interaction.   Both matter, both are different strategies.  Getting and staying connected requires multiple mediums applied carefully.

The purpose of Social Media is to generate:  Interest, Following and Trust with the people you want to do business.  These are core traits of relationship.  This applies in your Business and your Career. You will want to Set Goals, Make a Plan and Measure Progress.

Market focus:  When you are a Customer, what do you want?   Many people consistently mentioned:  Access, Value and Ease.  These matter to your Customers and if you think about it, they matter to you.  When you talk with your customers, you are learning about them, what works and what doesn’t work, so recognize patterns from what you learn and you can accelerate your effectiveness.

With the Technology, the most important aspect is the Relationship focus.  Relationship literally means: the qualities and character through which you relate.  Those qualities are determined by what kind of relating you want to have with customers.  Qualities like easy, professional, responsive, interesting, useful, honest and real are examples that people report are present in trusted relationships.

The essentials: Select the resources where your customers are. Create presence on LinkedIn; make Facebook profiles for yourself and your company (separate Personal use from Professional use).  Blogging can make a huge difference because it allows you to get deeper into topics.  Video is the best short story around (it is 53x more viral than a tweet) . Participate in Social Communities where your customers currently interact. Build a following based on what you help people accomplish for themselves.

2011 is about getting and sustaining traction, and great Relationships lead to your Success!