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Q&A: Culture Shock, How Social Media is Changing the Culture of Business

Posted by cgseo under Social Media

Good friend JD Lasica asked me to share answers to some fantastic questions for a blog post he published in celebration of the new book, Engage . I poured so much of myself into the responses, that I felt it was worth sharing here with you as well. #Engage Your new book Engage may turn out to be the definitive work on how social media is transforming business. Looking at the big picture, how is it changing the balance of power between customers and companies? I invested an incredible amount of passion and also vision into this book as I believe that the time is now to lead a media revolution based on insight, intelligence and experience. I think the minute you hold this book, its intentions are clear. The impact of new media is only just beginning and the road to where we’re going is, to channel the Beatles, long and winding. I believe that the destination is less important nowadays and it is this journey that we each embrace, that defines our experiences and teachings. As in many books and blogs on the subject of social media, theory plays a role of course, however, new media isn’t as “new” as we might think. There are lessons and applied learning that we must embrace in order to effectively change, not merely for the sake of change, but for the betterment of the tattered relations between businesses, customers, and the influencers and peers who connect them. The shift of balance skewed towards those who believe they held the power and in many cases, businesses invested profits into distancing the nodes that connect us to our networks of relevance in order to reduce the cost of actually “managing” customers. When we lost the universal ability to hit “0″ and connect with a live human being, regardless of medium, it was the final insult that sparked a social uprising. Social media is the democratization of information and the equalization of influence. Monologue gave way to dialogue and we the people ensured that our voices were not only heard, but felt. Now that we, as consumers, have the ability to vocalize sentiment and in doing so, cause meaningful and reverberating action, companies have no choice but to pay attention. They must respond. And, they’re not even close to doing so in a scalable nor efficient manner. Brands were blindsided because their focus was on distancing connections instead of embracing them. Social Media is our industrial revolution, and as sensational as it sounds, we have yet to fully realize its potential and promise. Tell us some of the success stories you spotlight in the book — one or two compelling examples of how companies have used social media to change the way they operate. I share examples for every viable aspect of social media within business ranging from service to marketing to product development to the complete transformation of a brand, its culture and purpose, from the outside in and the bottom up. To share a couple of examples right here, right now, would be out of context and also, I believe it would be a disservice to the overall value of what you, someone reading this right now, can bring to the game. The value of this book, if it’s one thing I want readers to take away, is that it answers your questions as well as the questions you never knew to ask. When we read case studies, we assume that their experience, their purpose, their intentions are similar to our business and the unique challenges we face. Additionally, we presume that the strategy driving the examples actively shared with us were calculated in their design and execution. More importantly, we also surmise that the KPIs, metrics, and potential ROI were premeditated, designed into the program and that all of the results that showered the company through social media did, in fact, offer true business value – at some level. Engage starts at the end and works you back towards the middle and makes no apologies for asking you to challenge yourself to understand every important aspect of social media and how it applies to your world. There are no short cuts and the best programs I’ve encountered or lived through, have been designed based on a balance between goals and intelligence – meaning, those initiatives created from scratch as inspired by our research. It’s time to answer our own questions and write our own success stories. You’re a veteran of the public relations field. How is the landscape shifting for PR, marketing, corporate communications and customer service? (It can’t shift fast enough in my opinion!) I’m a veteran of marketing, communications, and new media, but I am also forever a student, technologist and futurist. But in order to make sense of everything that’s unfolding before us, I’ve become an aspiring anthropologist, sociologist, and ethnographer as well. I believe that value-driven engagement is the new marketing and the key to effective engagement now is believability. Transparency and authenticity are table stakes, and quite honestly, they should have always served as the foundation for interaction. But that’s just it, interaction was missing. To be believable, well that’s something entirely different, and it requires a vested understanding for not only features and benefits, but also how it improves experiences. Believability is a trait that is actively sought by consumers at every step of the decision making process, including after the purchase. It requires a deeper investment from representatives to immediately barrel through suspicions and doubt to convey solutions, guidance, and in turn, inspire action. It’s how we earn credibility and ultimately trust. And, this is true for every department as in a world of direct engagement, one where people have access to the same tools to connect and influence others, we are required to match or surpass their social prowess to steer activity in a favorable direction. Everything to do so, is simply enabled through the tools and services available today, relying on the channels that reach our desired communities based on how it is that they communicate with one another and what it is they’re seeking. The culture and behavior of each online community dictates our strategies and it’s there for us to discover right now. In the end, this is all rooted in the art and science of public relations (not PR)…and everyone within the organization is now on the front lines of influence. We are measured by our actions and words and therefore, putting our words into action requires engagement that is driven more by genuine intentions and solutions and less about gimmicks, selling, messaging, or pitching. What new ground does Engage cover that hasn’t been explored by books like Groundswell or Trust Agents? I purchased copies of Groundswell and Trust Agents those I work with because I believe they move thinking and actions in a direction that begets personal and professional transformation. Change is never easy and therefore, we need inspiration and guidance to take steps that lead us away form complacence and mediocrity and march us towards the redefinition of direct to influencer and direct to consumer engagement. Engage only works because of books such as Groundswell, Trust Agents, The New Community Rules by Tamar Weinberg, Social Media Marketing Handbook by Dan Zarrella, among others. Engage is a deep dive into everything you need to apply tangible, and highly effective, strategies and tactics into your day-to-day work, regardless of which division you’re in or your position within the hierarchy. This book is written to empower champions and executives, bringing them to the table more informed about what they need to accomplish and how…creating a truly collaborative environment that grows based on knowledge and not guesswork. This book is rich with proven lessons and instruction that starts with analyzing the tools at a much more meaningful level in order to grasp their potential, limitations, and ultimately how to form connections with the very people we wish to reach and inspire. Step by step, this book leads readers towards insight starting with… - How to find communities of influence - How to create worthy presences in each network according to specific goals and objectives and why - How to create content and social objects that trigger responses and encourage sharing - How to grow communities that react when activated - How to define success and in turn, measure it - How to ascertain the amount of resources required and how to get top-line support for pilots and campaigns How do you think social media will impact corporate culture and internal business processes? A lot of corporations are dabbling in social media at the edges but aren’t really internalizing it. What happens if and when they do? As mentioned earlier, social media represents the democratization of not only publishing, but also that of influence. As such, the communities we “thought” we reached via broadcast, top down branding, now only earn glances as attention rapidly becomes a precious commodity in these conversation-rich media networks. The reality is this, as consumer gain prominence within online societies, the challenge to connect with them directly or those around them elevates dramatically. Connecting with them is not an option however. Their activity in social networks builds and inevitably creates a groundswell or social tsunami that triggers a tipping point which inevitably forces businesses to pay attention. Engage is designed to help businesses shift from a reactive to proactive model, and in doing so, we can then employ trust agents and linchpins to cause change from the outside in. Moving away from the play on words, culture is something so powerful that consumers can invariably channel what we represent through their actions and words to assist in the expansion of reach and purpose. However, culture is usually something that is not as intentional as we might think. The exercise of identifying who we are and who we want to be is usually documented in a mission statement but not embodied in our daily interactions. But, as social networks are powered by people and emotions and interests are the ties that form bonds between them, our culture becomes the very thing that attracts affinity, and without it, the humanization of our brand is hindered. Because influence is surmounting, it is now a requirement to foster a culture within that becomes the essence that cultivates collaboration inside and out, serving as the catalyst for inspired activity in our communities of interest and beyond. Give consumers something meaningful to talk about. Empower employees to willfully share their pride and talent. Become something that everyone can believe in. Yes, our culture is something that is going to change as a result of social media, as it should. No brand is an island and if you think about engagement as that of a tourism bureau, it is our job to go to where people are discovering and sharing information now in order to attract them to our story, realizing that without culture, experience, community, and corresponding value, we will not earn the relationships nor advocates we seek. Connect with Brian Solis on Twitter , LinkedIn , Tumblr , Google Buzz , Facebook — Please consider reading my brand new book , Enga ge ! — Get Putting the Public Back in Public Relations and The Conversation Prism : — Image Credit: Shutterstock

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Q&A: Culture Shock, How Social Media is Changing the Culture of Business

7 Insanely Useful Ways to Search Twitter for Marketing

Posted by cgseo under Social Media, Web Marketing

Share 7 Insanely Useful Ways to Search Twitter for Marketing This content from: Duct Tape Marketing This article originally appeared on American Express OPEN Forum and is one of the most retweeted articles I’ve ever written so I thought I would share it with you here. As a marketing tool Twitter gets much more interesting and useful when you can filter out 99% of the junk that doesn’t apply to your objectives and focus on the stuff that matters. The basic search.twitter.com functionality is fine for searching things that are being said about your search terms. The advanced search function offers more ways to slice and dice the stream, but still leaves some room for improvement as it only searches what’s being said and where. From a marketing standpoint who is saying it might be more useful. Now that the search engines are all pretty geeked up over real time search you can create some very powerful searches and alerts combining Google and Twitter. 1) Target by occupation Let’s say you have a business that sells an awesome service to attorneys. A simple search on Twitter will turn up thousands of mentions of the word attorney, but many of them will be from people talking about this or that attorney or the need to hire or not hire one. That’s probably not very helpful for your purposes. However, if you cruise over to Google and use a handful of operators from the Google shortcut library (more on that here) you can create a search that plows through Twitter and gives you a list of all the users that have the word “attorney” in their title (username and/or real name) – Click on this search phrase and see what happens – intitle:”attorney * on twitter” site:twitter.com – what you’ll find is a handy list of attorneys of one sort or another on Twitter. Without getting too technical, this search basically asks Google to look in the title attribute of profile pages on Twitter – obviously you can use any word to replicate this. The * tells Google to find the words “attorney on Twitter” without regard to order or other words – “on Twitter” appears in the title of every profile page so we need that term to make sure we search profile pages only. 2) Target by bio In some cases searching through the optional biographical information can be more helpful than the username or real name fields. Maybe you’re looking for a very specific term or some of the folks you are targeting only reference their profession in their bio. Google search to the rescue here again. This time add the intext attribute, the word bio and our key phrase to search bios – So a search for web designers would look like this – intext:”bio * web designer” site:twitter.com . When you look at this list you might notice that none of the people on the list would have been found by searching in their title, as in the first tip, for web designer. Try it both ways to test for best results. 3) Target by location Location search by itself is simple using the Twitter advanced search tool – if you want a list of people in Austin you would use this in Twitter – near:”Austin, TX” within:25mi and Twitter would use the location field to show you Austin Tweeters. But . . . let’s say you wanted to target salons in Austin or maybe the whole of Texas – it’s back to Google to mix and match – (intitle:”salon * on twitter” OR intext:”bio * salon”) intext:”location * TX” site:twitter.com – we search the title, bio and location to get a very targeted list of Salons in Texas on Twitter. Note the OR function for multiple queries. 4) New sign ups Another handy thing about using any of the searches above is that you can also use the exact operators to create Google Alerts . By going to Google and putting in your search string as described above you’ll get everything they have now, but by setting up an alert you’ll get an email or RSS alert when a new attorney (or whatever you’re targeting) joins Twitter – I can think of some powerful ways to reach out to that new person just trying to find some new friends! 5) Keep up on your industry Some of the best information shared on Twitter comes in the form of shared links. In other words people tweet out good stuff they find and point people to it using a link. I love to use a filtered Twitter search to further wade through research on entire industries, but reduce the noise by only following tweets that have links in them and eliminating retweets that are essentially duplicates – “small business” OR entrepreneur OR “start up” filter:links – this gets that job done and produces an RSS feed if I want to send it to Google Reader. Don’t forget the “quotation marks” around two or more word phrases or you will get every mention of small and business. 6) Competitive eavesdropping Lots of people set up basic searches to listen to what their competitors are saying and what others are saying about the competition. I would suggest you take it one step further and create and follow a search that also includes what the conversation they are having with the folks they communicate with – not just what people are saying about them, but to them and vice versa – from:comcastcares OR to:comcastcares . 7) Trending photos Photos have become very big on Twitter and the real time nature of the tool means photos show up there before they show up most anywhere. If you want to find an image related to a hot trend, or anything for that matter, simply put the search phase you have in mind follow by one of the more well known Twitter image uploading services such as TwitPic and you’ll get nothing but images. So, your search on Twitter might be – olympics twitpic OR ow.ly (You can add more photosharing sites to expand the search). There, Twitter just go way more interesting didn’t it? Related Posts: Mining Twitter with Google Turns Up Some Interesting Stuff A Practical Use for Twitter Twitter People Search is Back Adding search to your site Google Alerts Hack Powered by Contextual Related Posts Like this post? Share it with others

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7 Insanely Useful Ways to Search Twitter for Marketing

Do What The Rich People Do: Invest In Facebook Marketing – OfficialWire

Posted by cgseo under Social Media

Do What The Rich People Do: Invest In Facebook Marketing OfficialWire When it comes to Facebook marketing , there are basically two kinds of people. There are those who use Facebook marketing and those who don't by Leon Hill If ... Opportunity Knocks With Facebook Marketing OfficialWire Decoding The Social Media Marketing Mystery OfficialWire Don't Waste Time: Learn The Social Media Marketing Ropes OfficialWire OfficialWire

Brands Become Media

Posted by cgseo under Social Media

What follows is the complete version of my recent post on Mashable, “ Why Brands are Becoming Media. “ One of the greatest challenges I encounter today is not the willingness of a brand to engage , but its ability to create . When blueprinting social architecture and the engineering that connects people to other people strategically, enthusiasm and support typically derail when examining the resources and the commitment required to rhythmically produce, distribute, and support content. Indeed, we are programming the social web around our brand hub and as such, we’re required to capture attention and also hold it through the introduction of engaging dialogue, interaction, and the introduction of relevant information packaged and published as social objects. Social Objects are the catalysts for conversations and occurrences — online and in real life — and they affect behavior within their respective societies. They are personified by our Tweets, our pictures in Flickr, videos on YouTube, events in Upcoming, profiles and updates in Facebook, the links we share in Delicious, our votes in Digg, the places we check into when playing Foursquare, the documents we publish in Docstoc, a destination or service we review in Yelp, a subject we host in Ning, a thought shared in the comment of a blog post or through a dedicated blog post, etc. But once we introduce a social object, we must stand ready to handhold existing subjects throughout the social web as well as create a publishing calendar rich with relevant content, programmed specifically for each network in which we maintain a presence. We Become Media There’s a saying in theater, a big part of acting is reacting. This is especially true when we consider how many individuals, brands, and organizations engage in the Web today. Instead of seeking inspiration and direction from those around us however, we simply react to activity, which may or may not benefit us in the long run. In Social Media, many of the existing programs are either dictated by the community-driven conversations strewn across the web, with an emphasis on Twitter and Facebook, or creatively designed to elicit specific responses in addition to the crowdsourcing of brands and dissemination of corresponding messages. But social media represents a greater opportunity that invites us to participate proactively, introducing new thoughts, ideas, and solutions through the people that inspire us to try something new. Social Media is an earned privilege. While establishing a presence is elementary, captivating audiences is artful. In the near future, brands and organizations will create new or augment existing roles to serve as editor and publisher to all channels with a primary objective of ensuring that timely, relevant, and captivating content is produced, distributed, and connected to both captive and desired audiences. This work is in addition to the other reactive and proactive social media campaigns that are already in progress, but held to a strategic editorial calendar that blends video, audio, imagery, text, updates, and other social objects and networks to reach, inspire, a galvanize communities. As brands, we become media. Through the democratization of publishing and the equalization of influence, we can create, connect, and attract a wider reach, establishing meaningful connections and building dynamic communities and interactive paths along the way. Everything starts with creation of a mission and purpose and fortified by the content we create, the processes in which we distribute it, and the activity that supports social objects and the reactions they engender. Perhaps among the most powerful rewards we procure through dedicated publishing is the generation of good will, social capital, and influence. It comes at a price however, and the price is defined by the cost of resources, production, distribution, and support. In the end, you get out of it what you invest in it and the investment represents time, money, creativity, and passion. We not only become media, through production and engagement, we become influential. Earned, Paid, and Owned Media In media, there are several channels that populate and shape perception, intent and action – earned, paid, and owned media. Each require a dedicated management system that actively creates, monitors and stimulates strategic movement as we broadcast relevance directly to our main channels and syndicate aggregate signals to our network of branded satellites and streams. Recently, Sean Corcoran , an analyst at Forrester Research, published a detailed post that described the differences between earned, paid and owned, clarifying the roles for brands who undertake the responsibility of embracing a new media role. Dave Fleet , a thought leader in new media and public relations, also visualized Corcoran’s thoughts through a series of graphics that represent the social media ecosystem. Fleet’s work inspired a new graphic of my own (coming soon). As Corcoran points out in his recent report … Increasingly, interactive marketers are being asked to manage a wide range of paid and unpaid marketing communication — despite the fact that many marketing departments are still organized around traditional paid marketing channels. All types of online media (whether “earned,” “owned,” or “paid”) can play specific roles in meeting marketers’ objectives — especially when seamlessly working together. To find the right balance between these types of media, marketers should take stock of their resources, listen for the impact of earned media, look for opportunities to shift short-term paid media to the role of catalyst, and begin to build out a solar system of long-term owned media touchpoints. In other words, paid, earned and owned media require thoughtful programming and targeted distribution and must be linked to a systematic review of behavior and activity that surrounds each object. And, the analysis of activity and ultimately the end result should play a monumental role in the creation of future publishing and social activation. Corcoran uses the word “touchpoint,” which by standard definition, refers to any point of contact between a buyer and a seller. Touchpoint is part of the greater opportunity here. But more importantly, these touchpoints require direction and the establishment of a path that offers a complete experience – a beginning, a middle, an end and a reward. These experiences are definable by paid, earned, and owned media. New Media necessitates a collaboration between all teams involved with creating and distributing content, including advertising, interactive, communications, brand, and marketing – with an editorial role connecting the dots. We are competing for attention and our success is dependent on our ability to not compete against each other. Producing content and lobbing it over the firewall to an “audience” will only confuse communities. Therefore, we are obligated to build pipelines that carry strategic communications each with calculated intents, targets and outcomes. If we examine the differences between earned, owned, and paid, we can visualize necessary programming and dedicated channels for each. Owned Media is media that essentially, we control. Perhaps I should clarify what I mean by control. We design the object; we own the content within the object. Most likely, we also own (or lease) the distribution channels that present these objects to our target communities. We do not however, control the impression and perception of our objects. We lose that control at the point of distribution. For example, in addition to standard Web pages, social media presences contribute to our portfolio of owned media including, Twitter accounts, Facebook Fan Pages, Blogs, YouTube channels, etc. By creating presences in the communities where our customers, prospects, partners, and influencers congregate and collaborate, we can set the foundation to contribute to “earned” media based on the value we contribute through each profile and the social objects we introduce through them. How we embrace and fuel owned media determines our social capital and influence and its value and prominence is representative of our contributions and participation. Social Hubs are also gaining prominence in 2010 – 2011 social media plans as brands weigh options for directing traffic.  The creation of strategic landing pages can extend the rich, interactive experience within social networks (channels in which we partially own) to pages we do own, thus shaping the experience in a way that maintains interactivity and targeted options for action. I’m not necessarily recommending the creation of microsites, unless it’s warranted in the overall program, but a bridge that continues the desired experience, connecting people to value and benefits in a destination that serves their essentials. Forrester’s Corcoran recommends that brands create a “solar system” of owned media. However, I suggest that brands instead create a focused ecosystem of media that establishes presences where their communities are already active – a brand or organization specific social media ecosystem. This requires research and in the process, we uncover not only locations that require our engagement, but also how, where, when and to what extent to participate. We just may find that the given locations for social profiles represent only part of the many opportunities rife within the Conversation Prism . The differences between a solar system and an ecosystem are derivative of our actions and concentration. Meaning, we don’t need to be everywhere, only where our communities reside online with an emphasis on ultimately steering people in our direction (websites, hubs, etc.) Paid Media represents the visibility we purchase, such as display ads, paid search, and sponsorships. When paired with owned and earned media programs, paid media serves as a hub for complementing, reinforcing, and polishing brand voice, directives, mission, and stature. While many argue over the future and fate of advertising, what’s clear is that online paid presences can benefit initiatives where action and experiences are defined and promoted through the click path. Current trends reflect a shift away from branding programs and place emphasis on sparking desired activity, empowering viewers and their social graph to share in the experience all in ways that measure the cost per action. Earned media is the result of our owned, paid, and participatory media programs and is reflected in the blog posts, tweets, status updates, comments, and ultimately actions of our consumers, peers, and influencers. Earned media is linked to owned media campaigns as well as proactive initiatives that attempt to incite viral and word of mouth activity.  Garnered visibility is also tied to communications and public relations programs as they continually seek to gain the attention of reporters, bloggers, analysts, influencers and catalysts who can drive awareness and behavior based on the words, stories, and social objects they create and distribute. This isn’t a one way street, however. Earned media is just that, it’s earned. Success is absolutely conditional on the techniques and methodologies that inspire dedicated programs focused on outreach, relations, and hopefully the engendering of productive and mutually beneficial relationships. Crowd-powered visibility also merits an official and devoted listening and response initiative to ensure that each respective community aligns with the story and our mission and purpose. Participatory Media – Representing an extension of earned and owned media, participatory media takes the shape of a hosted hub where brand representatives and our communities can interact and collaborate. For example, go to examples usually refer to Dell’s IdeaStorm and Starbuck’s “My Idea” network which resemble branded wikis designed to elicit responses, dictate direction, establish community-focused governances, etc.  Participatory media equalizes the balance of power, providing a dedicated platform the gives voice to the consumer and a channel for their ideas to trigger transformation or change. Sponsored Media - This new category fuses owned, paid, and earned media.  Sponsored media is one that is championed by companies such as Izea (disclosure, my company works with Ted Murphy and Co.), Ad.ly , Twittad , among others and is creating a new medium for packaging messages through trusted voices within highly visible and social channels. Sponsored media can take the form of paid tweets, blog posts, appearances, and featured objects on targeted profiles. And, whether you agree or disagree with the idea, the reality is that they work and they seem to benefit all parties involved, from brand to paid affiliates to their communities. In fact, Forrester’s Josh Bernoff and Sean Corcoran shared their thoughts for why sponsored media is worthy of consideration. Sponsored Media fuses earned, paid, and owned as technically…1) the messages are owned, 2) the voices are paid, and 3) with more thoughtful approaches, the responses within targeted communities can inspire a positive wave of earned media. Influence As media, brands earn prominence and hopefully influence, social capital, and authority as rewards for contributing meaningful, genuine, and helpful content. On Twitter, brands can earn legions of loyal and responsive followers who in turn, become brand advocates and ambassadors, extending the messages, mission and purpose to their followers as well. In Facebook, brands can cultivate vibrant and dedicated communities where interaction inspires increased responses with each reverberating across respective social graphs. On uStream and/or YouTube, we can earn global audiences of viewers who tune in to watch our programming and to also interact with brand representatives in a live community that spills over to Facebook, Twitter and other social networks. And of course, our blog is more important than we may realize. Through our posts, we can establish a strong alliance of readers who subscribe to learn something of value, to participate in the direction of future ideas, to share their views and experiences, and also to inspire groundswells that motivate industry authorities and compel them to respond through the creation of earned media within their channels of influence. As Tom Foremski points out, we have the ability to earn noteworthy, equal, and in some cases, greater influence than those authorities whom we relied on over the years to help us reach greater audiences and communities. As influence is equalized, our ability to earn presence and relationships is derived from how we program, manage, and participate in all forms of media. And, it is through a balance of media and engagement where we also establish the foundation for affinity. People align with movements they can believe in and it is through the human, intellectual, and financial investment in sincere and empathetic content that define experiences and hopefully one day earn the attention and bonds that symbolize our significance – online and offline. Connect with Brian Solis on Twitter , LinkedIn , Tumblr , Google Buzz , Facebook — Please consider reading my brand new book , Enga ge ! — Get Putting the Public Back in Public Relations and The Conversation Prism : — Image Credit: Shutterstock

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Brands Become Media

Is It Time To Practice a Little Selfish Networking

Posted by cgseo under Social Media

Is It Time To Practice a Little Selfish Networking This content from: Duct Tape Marketing This post is a special Make a Referral Week guest post featuring education on the subject of referrals and word of mouth marketing and making 1000 referrals to 1000 small businesses – check it out at Make a Referral Week 2010 You know him. He’s the perfect networker. He’s at every event. He’s a brilliant conversationalist. He’d give you the shirt off his back. He follows up. He keeps his commitments. He’s always happy to make an introduction. And yet he’s always broke. He drinks water at every event. He skips the meal if that’s an option. He’ll spend hours on Twitter doing essentially nothing, but won’t spend $50 for a tool that will actually help his business. There’s always a hint of desperation hidden in his voice (or his blog posts) because his business really isn’t doing that well. He’s drunk the networking & social media Kool-Aid. It’s a poison, and if you’re not careful, you might easily fall victim to it too. Networking is fun. Furthermore, there’s generally no rejection in networking. People can succeed at networking even if they’re not succeeding in their business. And if you’re any good at it at all, occasionally it will work and actually generate you some business. “See? Networking works!” That becomes a validation of whatever you’ve been doing. It doesn’t matter that if you did things a little differently, you could have had ten times the results with the same amount of effort – what you’re doing “works”. It’s an addiction. And it’s an insidious one at that. Why? Because… More networking is not necessarily a good thing. First off, it can pull your attention and financial resources away from other, more important things. Secondly, more networking means more exposure of anything in your business or relationship management practices that’s not absolutely rock solid. Now I know you’ve all heard that “givers gain” – that you should give first in a networking context, without thinking about what’s in it for you. I’m not going to disagree with that…I’m going to qualify that, and I’m going to tell you that… It’s OK to be selfish sometimes when it comes to networking, or at least to appear that way. Let’s look at a few facts: · In order to take care of others, you must take care of yourself. On a plane, they tell you to put your mask on first – you can’t help your child if you’re unconscious. The more resources you have at your disposal – money, time, connections, etc. – the better you can be of service to the people you know. “Love your neighbor as yourself” requires you to first love yourself. Perhaps spend less time networking and more time becoming someone that people would want to network with. · Time is a zero-sum game. 24 hours, 7 days…that’s it…same as everybody else. An hour you’re spending networking is an hour you’re not spending with your current clients, your employees, your close friends, your family, or personal development. Sure, networking is rewarding, but really think about this when you consider attending a particular event or whether to spend an hour on Facebook – is it more rewarding in the long run than all of the other things you could be doing with your time? You can’t help everybody. · Your networking contacts are not the most important people in your life or your business, even for referrals. Who really gives you the most referrals (or at least the best ones)? New networking contacts? Or your current happy customers? If it’s not your current customers, “you’re doing it wrong.” The single most important thing you can do to drive referrals is to make sure your current customers are not just satisfied, but RAVING FANS. And your employees are what make your business possible. In most cases, clients are more easily replaced than good employees. And your family and close friends? They’re what make it all worthwhile. Don’t ever sacrifice those relationships on the altar of networking. · If your business isn’t solid, your network is a house of cards. More exposure means exposing the weaknesses as well as the strengths. If you’re stretched so thin that you can’t even begin to keep up with all the little commitments you make — “Sure , I’ll get that over to you” or that stack of “let’s talk next month” people – then why are you spending your time meeting a lot of new people? Do you really think all those new people will create more value for you (or that you’ll be able to create value for them) greater than those opportunities that are already in front of you? I’ll be the first to admit – I’m terrible about this. I get massively over-extended, because I have a really hard time saying “no” to people. That’s why I frequently disappear from social media for days or even weeks at a time – I’m taking care of business that’s more important. · People who don’t understand the items above are not your friends. If a networking contact can’t understand that in the event of a commitment conflict, you’re going to take care of your customer over them, do really even want them as a customer? Now I’m not suggesting that people start thinking “what’s in it for me” about every interaction. What I am saying is that you need to be selective with your time. You are going to have to make some choices. And sometimes the choices suck. Once I was scheduled to do a teleclass and cancelled the day of the event. There were a couple of hundred people registered and a very good networking contact of mine had arranged for the event. I knew it would damage my reputation to cancel and put a dent in my relationship with the friend who set it up. Why did I cancel? Because a client of mine had a meeting for a $2 million funding deal the next day, and we weren’t done with the presentation and prospectus. Taking even a couple of hours out for the teleclass could have meant a botched meeting for him. Maybe not, but I also had to be able to give reasonable notice to the teleclass organizer and attendees, so I made the call. Sure…in hindsight, I didn’t plan it all well. But as of the morning of the event, I had to make a very difficult decision. If I had it to do over again, I’d make the same decision. I’d risk my reputation with a couple of hundred people I don’t know and have never worked with to make sure that my current client knew I would do whatever it takes to keep the commitment I made to them. So go ahead…put yourself first. Take care of your business. Develop yourself. Stay healthy. Spend time with your friends and family. Put your customers ahead of your networking contacts. Don’t be afraid to ask yourself “What’s in it for me?” about your overall networking activities. If you’re not getting the returns you want, maybe it’s time to push away from the networking buffet table, go on a networking diet, and spend more time getting your business into shape. A 20-year veteran technology entrepreneur, executive and consultant, Scott Allen is the Entrepreneurs Guide for About.com, one of the top ten websites in the world with over 37 million readers, and a subsidiary of the New York Times. He is also the coauthor of The Virtual Handshake : Opening Doors and Closing Deals Online, published by the American Management Association. Related Posts: Online Social Networking is Really Neither Social or Networking International Networking Week is Coming Is networking online really that different? Does Anyone Know What Networking Really Means Anymore? Build Your Brand So People Will Refer You Powered by Contextual Related Posts Like this post? Share it with others

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Is It Time To Practice a Little Selfish Networking