Have you changed your behaviour on social yet?

@linkedin & @gapingvoid

Not sure what is meant by the question? Let's explore.

You are currently in one of 2 camps. Either you're in the massively active camp, social has become a 3-5 hours per day work and leisure time or you you're in the ‘I need to spend less time on social and I'm monitoring my own activity there’.

Spending time away from social media, in particular Facebook is becoming one of the top New Year resolutions, right up there with weight loss, stopping smoking, going dry for a month and of course more exercise.

And every time we feel compelled to move away, we are pulled back by feelings of FOMO, ‘fear of missing out’ and international events, liked POTUS (President of the US), political drama, terrorist incidents and many other ‘I must way in with my opinion’ events.

The fact is, you were never able to contribute your opinion in the past, but now kids have never known anything different have they?

They ALL have an opinion now and sometimes it's not that great either.

And if you are in the 3-5 hours a day camp, well, you're either really, really enjoying it or need to do it because it's your job or you're trying to get noticed or you have a need for more love.

After all we all have a massive need to feel loved. And this love is felt when many friends, family and yep strangers engage with your posts, your content, your shares and your opinions. That's the addictive bit by the way, the content is actually of no consequence, really it isn't.

Inevitably, and it is possible that you may have heard this prediction before, this route to feeling loved will reduce and reduce and eventually you will not feel anything any longer about social media. The next big thing will then take your gaze, your attention and your time. It might be Virtual Reality, who knows!

The engagement on social is changing, mass engagement will continue to reduce, that's why Facebook is upping the advertising game. If you have a business page, have you had the $10 voucher yet to try their adverts?

The only route left is building relationships on a one to one basis, one person at a time. No blanket emails, no massive advertising campaigns, no autobots on Twitter, LinkedIn or Facebook messenger. They are all interesting time saving tools but they will be easily overlooked, ignored and deleted.

So, let me ask the question again.

Have you changed your behaviour on social yet?

I'd love to hear from you and how you are changing your behaviour on social. Use the comments section below to share your thoughts on engagement and content strategies.

LinkedIn created a brilliant eBook with my favourite illustrator. @gapingvoid (Hugh Macleod) creates the most amazing messages through his illustrations. Read more about him and @gapingvoidhere: (http://www.gapingvoid.com/blog/team-members/hugh-macleod/)

Regularly I will share one of the articles and illustrations from the eBook and give you my opinion, interpretation, insight and my meaning.

 http://linkedinlectures.com

#contentmarketing #content #socialmedia #engagement #marketing #socialselling #sales #empathy #distraction #purpose #relevance #trust #love

Online is great and talking is even better. Everyone's ultimate goal in business and life is to make real connections, where you meet someone face to face. Before that meeting a conversation is the ultimate icebreaker. I value my LinkedIn connections and realise that I don't really know you or what your goals are and how I might facilitate or support those goals. Feel free to click through and book a call with me (https://www.stayingaliveuk.com/discovery-call/). I have blocked out only Fridays each week, excluding holidays, for calls. Hope to speak with you soon.

Is Your Brand Loyal?

Whenever I hear ’business’ folks talk about ROI - (Return on Investment) in connection with Social Media, I laugh. Not because I don't respect their point or their need to see proof and sales results, but because we don't demand ROI on our relationships with our friends do we?

When you have a loyal buyer, they do become a loyal friend, you share knowledge and insights with them in order build that loyalty and after all it’s easier to keep a buyer rather than having to continually find new ones.

Therefore I believe that our opinion and execution of Social Media has to improve. 

Firstly we should rename it ‘Social Loyalty’.

‘Social’ has many meanings depending on whether you’re a Marxist or not.  Wikipedia definition, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Social.

For me, very simply, it’s when individuals or groups of individuals co-exist together for their joint benefit. When we co-exist together with our buyers we are being ‘Social’. That co-existence can take place in person or nowadays to a large extend online, cue ‘Social Media’.

‘Loyalty’ has even more meanings, go and have a look, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Loyalty.

And generally speaking most of us understand it to be that our buyers will repeat buy from us or at least give us the opportunity to bid first for a piece of work or consider buying from our website before looking at the competition. 

Usually loyal buyers will be prepared to wait for our products, e.g. Apple, or may even pay more for our products compared to cheaper alternatives, because their loyalty means more to them compared to price.

I call those folks ‘raving fans’. If you’re in business your objective should be to collect ‘raving fans’. 

In addition those loyal ‘Raving Fans' will shout about your products and services. They will tell their friends, business associates and connections. You better be amazing, because when things are not going so well, they will shout about it too.

Once we develop ‘Social Loyalty’ with our buyers, we will develop a predictable sales model. All of us have stats available somewhere that will indicate to us whether the sale was from a loyal buyer or a brand new one.

It’s possible therefore to create a ‘Loyal Buyer’ vs ‘New Buyer’ ratio to indicate the amount of sales we’re getting from those ‘Raving Fans’. I’m sure someone somewhere is already doing this and if you’re not, why not?

When we have this data only then we can understand ‘Social Media’ much better. Then there won’t be any need for ROI, just ‘ROL’ = ‘Return on Loyalty’.

Therefore when you witness your staff being active on ‘Social Media’ developing ‘Raving Fans’ you will realise that they are building loyalty amongst the ’Social’ community, which in turn will deliver repeat sales from the same buyers.

Now it’s your turn, share with us what you or your organisation is doing to create ‘Raving Fans’.

@stayingaliveuk - ‘Share Your Story’

Quick message from Staying Alive UK’s chief storyteller...

Do you Appreciate Diversity in Social Media?

I engage with dozens of individuals each and every week and discuss the merits or otherwise of Social Media. Nowadays the workplace consists of different generations all trying to work together to fulfill a company’s mission.

The trouble is most of us don't have a clue how we can ensure that all the different generations get on together, let alone catering for them in the social media stakes.

Let me share what I mean in a bit more detail.

Born between 1925-1945, you're a traditionalist, 1946-1964 and you are the famous baby boomer, the largest population group on earth. Gen X 1965-1979, Gen Y 1980-2000 and Gen Z 2001-now.

If you're a traditionalist you may already be retired or you will be in a mentoring and/or chairing capacity or very likely to be working in the 3rd sector.

As a traditionalist you value respect above all else. So being mentioned in a tweet incorrectly, accused of some wrong doing, you’ll be on the phone to your lawyer promptly. Not being shown respect is a major issue for you.

Baby boomers really value relationships. That's probably why this group is one of the largest on Facebook, which in essence is a massive relationship community.

Believe it or not Gen X value life/work balance and these will be CEO’s who tell their teams to leave on time and spend more time with their families, making them more productive at work and satisfied with life. Social Media more than likely is a way to relax for them. Something traditionalists and boomers would never even consider as relaxing!

Gen Y, want to be heard, they are likely to be the most prolific on twitter, making their opinions known to the world and feel happiest when they receive likes or retweets. It means someone’s listening to them.

Gen Z, are too young I know, but watch out, they will be there soon and despite age restrictions on social networks, they've already been active for a couple of years and by the time they get to work, they will have been active for 7 years or so.

Most of us have only been active for a few years!

With all of these different generations working side by side, you can learn a huge amount about them from just watching their social network activity or maybe even the lack thereof.

It allows you some insight into how they relate to the other generations too.

Would you put a Boomer alongside a Gen X and get them to learn from each other or do you let all the Gen X and Y’s sit together in a pool and feed of each other?

Respecting diversity is important in communities, appreciating how they behave on social media, with some of THE largest communities on the globe, is becoming even more important.

Wishing you massive success always.

Michael

http://www.linkedin.com/in/stayingaliveuk