Starting with Social

I will begin this week by apologizing for the delay in posts during the past few weeks while I was out of the country and addressing some personal items. It is important that I begin with this statement as this blog is a form of social media and you will notice that one of my topics is the continuous engagements of conversations using social networking.

Where is the Conversation?


In the past, people have engaged in various conversations. These conversations have been held in person, mail, phone, writings, speeches, recordings, etc. When it comes to the concept of social, there are many people who have made the comment over the years, “social media is a fad.” While there are many social technologies that have failed or succeeded the concept of social is one that is changing the way that we communicate, both in person and in business. It is very similar to the concept of eMail when it first started. The primary difference is that eMail was a common technology used to communicate in a similar style and with common features. Social encompasses many technologies, all with a common theme … to allow users to communicate with others (hence, the name social) using various forms of technologies.

With various social technologies available, there are many conversations occurring at the same time. If you want to be part of the conversation, then the simple thing to do is begin by listening and engaging. You’ll notice that I did not begin by stating that you should start with a FaceBook page or even a YouTube channel. You may find many conversations in these various social technology sites, but the fact is that conversations are usually held in forums that are common to a specific topic and for you to be successful, you need to move away from starting the conversation yourself and move to joining existing conversations.

Why not begin like everyone else and use your preferred search engine. You might have to scroll through a few pages before you begin finding results from various social sites, but Bing and Google are great starting points. Later, you can use monitoring software to get more data on the conversations. Some great monitoring software includes Radian6 and CoTweet (I would recommend CoTweet as you get more relevant features for the price and is the tool that I use), but I’ll spend some more time later on specifically talking about these monitoring tools.

You’re Listening … Now What?

OK, you’ve found a great social site where there are many conversations. Now what? The first instinct would be to immediately begin engagement. I think that your best alternative is to wait. Waiting and listening gives you information and information, as you know, is the key to success. For example, if the conversation is about grocery stores, take your time and study the conversation. Listen and learn from those that are active in that specific forum. Are the conversations specifically about service or specific issues? Do the active users reference other social sites and if they do, can you begin to follow those sites as well?

Finally, watch the style of the conversation. You’ll notice that people tend to be guarded, but will migrate to those that they respect and trust. The more engagement on a site, the more trustworthy the other participants will hold that individual. In addition, if someone participates in the conversation, you’ll notice that people will give them more respect if they are open and honest and try to add value to the conversation. Jumping into a conversation and assuming a false identity is always a bad idea and you’ll run the risk that someone will find out and call you out. In addition, people who jump into a conversation and immediately try to sale their products and services will disrupt the flow of the conversation. I’ve found that those individuals that enter the conversation with great advice and consultancy tend to gather more respect faster. I’ve also seen that those individuals get questions aimed directly at them and ultimately are asked about their specific products and services. If you are trying to participate and represent your company, don’t hide it and include that information in your profile. Hold yourself back and try to not push your products and services and I promise that it will pay off.

Final Comments

I’ve tried to be honest and state that my views are from lessons learned and I’ll wrap up by saying the same thing applies to this week’s blog. Research, Research and Research. Everyone makes mistakes, but before you jump into the world of Social conversations, do your research. Look online for some other respected authors and learn from their expertise. I have recently begun learning from an expert, Scott Klososky. I recommend visiting his site, http://www.klososky.com/ and following him on some of his many sites. You’ll see that he shares his lessons learned and references many others for you to learn from.

Finally, next week, I’ll began focusing more on how to start in your social efforts, followed soon with the topic of involving your social efforts in your existing marketing campaigns. As always, I encourage your feedback and don’t forget to follow my Twitter feed at http://twitter.com/ebizlessons or my FaceBook feed at http://facebook.com/ebizlessons for daily updates to complement this blog.