This article was originally posted on cityshift.org. Shift is a New Media Conference coming to Greenville, NC on May 27th & 28th, 2010.
Shift Conference is a free event designed to educate businesses and business owners in the use new media for cultural and economic influence. This event will benefit the growing creative economy in Eastern North Carolina. Shift will feature training and resources to take back with you, and will offer a great opportunity to network with other professionals from our region.
For more information, to register, to volunteer, or to become a sponsor, please visit the Shift Conference website at http://www.cityshift.org.
Facebook, Youtube, Flickr, LinkedIn, Twitter. These social media sites and many others have gained increasing popularity over the past few years. Are you exploring these tools and learning how to effectively utilize them to connect with your customers in new ways? Perhaps you have been reluctant to jump into this space. Newsflash – Social media is not a fad! Just ask one of the more than 400 million users of Facebook, or one of the 75 million plus users on Twitter.
You must go where your customers are
Ten years ago, you would never think about not being listed in the yellow pages if you owned a business. Why? Because that is where people were going to look for you. These days, more and more people are turning to social media sites such as Facebook, Twitter and others to find you and your company. Gone are the days of thumbing through your local index to find services and local businesses. When is the last time you even remember looking at a phone book? If you are like me, I can’t tell you where to find one in my house – we simply don’t need it. Every service and every product that I want can be found on the Internet, at my convenience, using my laptop or my mobile phone. Wait, will I find your business there? Will I find your competitor there?
When they find you, what will they see?
Don’t think that you aren’t in these social spaces already. Even if you haven’t made an effort to create a Facebook Fan Page, start tweeting, or post a video on YouTube about your products and services, your customers and critics may have. Are they talking about you? If so, what are they saying? If you can’t answer these two questions, I encourage you to stop reading this article right now, and spend the next hour or two combing those sites to find out. You may already have a thriving fan community that your company could tap into. Then again, you might have a PR nightmare on your hands. Not knowing should scare the crap out of you.
You cannot afford to do nothing
Regardless of whether you find yourself or your company in either position, thriving community or PR nightmare, what message are you sending by not participating in these conversations? The opportunity here cannot be ignored. Think about this. If you knew that 150 of your best customers (those that love you and spend money with you frequently) were all going to be in one place, ready to hear from you, would you turn down the chance to connect with them? On the other hand, if one of your best customers was suddenly upset with you and decided to share that frustration with the entire world, how can you afford to not engage and attempt to make them happy again?
The time is now
Have you been reluctant to jump into social media? Perhaps you are worried about losing control. Maybe you don’t know enough about social media, or you are even intimidated by it. If you aren’t willing to take on the challenge of educating yourself and experimenting with these rapidly evolving tools, you are effectively planning to lose. The best advice I can give you about social media is to explore. You will never understand something that you aren’t willing to play with, and you can be assured that your competition is already or will soon be doing this. By the way, it’s free! The only thing you have to invest is your time. So go ahead, do some research and start exploring social media today. Either catch up, or you and your business will be left behind.
