Brands that win see the world as a dialogue not a monologue…

Posted by Shelley Walters on Aug 21, 2011 in Uncategorized | Comments Off

Social media marketing is changing the marketing landscape so fast that companies are struggling to adapt their strategies. What worked in 2009 is becoming less and less effective, and if we hope to get ahead of the curve – brands are going to have to rethink the way they do business.

So what does the consumer using social media expect from your brand?

Well, I will tell you what they don’t expect; they don’t expect to be sold to. They don’t want you force feeding them more and more information about your organisation, and if they choose to engage with you via social media, they do not expect to be ignored!

We are in a battle for people’s attention, and as Andy Rice says; the cry of the consumer is: “Stop interrupting what I am interested in and start being what I am interested in.”

Social media means your brand is on display, in real time. Your consumers are more discerning and more sceptical than ever before. Brands that win, will keep this in mind and pay their audience the respect due to them.

Social media is about informing and solving people’s problems with relevant answers and information, whether that is through a blog, sharing links on your tweets or by way of updates on Facebook.

Your clients are real people who expect real answers, in real time.

It has been said that content is king, if this is so then conversation must be the queen. Do not make the mistake of using your social media channel as just another means to broadcast your message. I have been amazed to see that a large number of big brands do not allow their Facebook fans to post on their wall! Brands that win see the world as a dialogue, not a monologue. Brands that understand social media, will understand that allowing your clients to engage with you in open dialogue is where the power of this medium lies.

Social media is not just a means for you to connect with your customers; it is a means for your customer to connect with you. And when you engage with your clients bear in mind: nobody expects your organisation not to have any complaints. What they want to know is how do you deal with it when someone does complain? Do you reply promptly, with relevant information?

For better or worse, every connection with a client on Social Media could impact a brand’s own relationship with several people in his or her own network. If you are going to engage in social media, and you hope to be successful, you must understand this.

As featured on www.marketingweb.co.za: http://bit.ly/p1mV7u

Twitter Aids South Africans in National Fuel Crisis

Posted by Shelley Walters on Jul 14, 2011 in Uncategorized | Comments Off

Are you still sceptical about the advantages of Twitter? If so, you probably wouldn’t have seen what happened today as South Africans pulled together to help each other through a national fuel crisis.

All over Johannesburg people found petrol stations had run dry due to the strike. You can imagine the stress! The petrol light is on (maybe it has been on since yesterday), you are late for an appointment but you have to stop; you rush into a petrol station only to find no petrol! You ask the petrol attendant where you can find another petrol station with petrol, he shrugs his shoulders and walks away.

You drive 5 kms down the road, now the reserve light is flashing and you are half an hour late. You turn the radio on hoping to get some information but its just adverts and music…..

You find another petrol station but they too have run dry. Now you are just about stranded, you have very little fuel left and the last thing you can afford to do is drive from one petrol station to another!

Enter Twitter.

Leigh_723 Leigh Nightingale #gotpetrol – looking for 95 in the Boksburg/Benoni area – let me know please

Wintermooncat Karin BP N1 @ Beyers Naude has #gotpetrol

GillianMeier Gillian Meier #GotPetrol Engen at Northgate has 93 and Diesel left. No 95.

thinusswart Thinus Swart Lambton Shell in Weber road #gotpetrol

zelda_potgieter Zelda Potgieter Shell Zambesi next to Builders Warehouse. #gotpetrol yfrog.com/klewjmj

GillianMeier Gillian Meier #GotPetrol Total at Rock Cottage in Randparkridge have about 10,000 ltrs left.

JaxJvR Jacqui JvR Shell on Rivonia Rd only got Diesel #gotpetrol

Click_a Vusi MalukaFor the latest Petrol Reports—> petrol.crowdmap.com #gotpetrol

Call me sentimental but I get all warm and fuzzy when I see people pull together like this, and it would not have been possible without a platform like Twitter.Using the hash tag #gotpetrol anybody with information about fuel could make that information available to anybody who was looking for fuel, see how handy that could be?!

These people aren’t “friends” in the way that you would be friends on Facebook, no, the circle of influence and access is much wider on a platform like Twitter – giving you access to more than just “your friends” and in fact allowing you to make new ones!

Maybe its time you sign up, before we have our next crisis!

Twitter Aids South Africans in National Fuel Crisis

Posted by Shelley Walters on Jul 14, 2011 in Uncategorized | Comments Off

Are you still sceptical about the advantages of Twitter? If so, you probably wouldn’t have seen what happened today as South Africans pulled together to help each other through a national fuel crisis.

All over Johannesburg people found petrol stations had run dry due to the strike. You can imagine the stress! The petrol light is on (maybe it has been on since yesterday), you are late for an appointment but you have to stop; you rush into a petrol station only to find no petrol! You ask the petrol attendant where you can find another petrol station with petrol, he shrugs his shoulders and walks away.

You drive 5 kms down the road, now the reserve light is flashing and you are half an hour late. You turn the radio on hoping to get some information but its just adverts and music…..

You find another petrol station but they too have run dry. Now you are just about stranded, you have very little fuel left and the last thing you can afford to do is drive from one petrol station to another!

Enter Twitter.

Leigh_723 Leigh Nightingale #gotpetrol – looking for 95 in the Boksburg/Benoni area – let me know please

Wintermooncat Karin BP N1 @ Beyers Naude has #gotpetrol

GillianMeier Gillian Meier #GotPetrol Engen at Northgate has 93 and Diesel left. No 95.

thinusswart Thinus Swart Lambton Shell in Weber road #gotpetrol

zelda_potgieter Zelda Potgieter Shell Zambesi next to Builders Warehouse. #gotpetrol yfrog.com/klewjmj

GillianMeier Gillian Meier #GotPetrol Total at Rock Cottage in Randparkridge have about 10,000 ltrs left.

JaxJvR Jacqui JvR Shell on Rivonia Rd only got Diesel #gotpetrol

Click_a Vusi MalukaFor the latest Petrol Reports—> petrol.crowdmap.com #gotpetrol

Call me sentimental but I get all warm and fuzzy when I see people pull together like this, and it would not have been possible without a platform like Twitter.Using the hash tag #gotpetrol anybody with information about fuel could make that information available to anybody who was looking for fuel, see how handy that could be?!

These people aren’t “friends” in the way that you would be friends on Facebook, no, the circle of influence and access is much wider on a platform like Twitter – giving you access to more than just “your friends” and in fact allowing you to make new ones!

Maybe its time you sign up, before we have our next crisis!

Have You Got a Social Media Plan?

Posted by Shelley Walters on Apr 15, 2011 in Uncategorized | Comments Off

Have you got a Social Media plan? If you don’t have a plan don’t be overwhelmed, over half of the worlds businesses have no plan for web 3.0 or for a Social Media Implementation.

The means potential for crisis, or opportunity for leadership.

Over 100 million enterprise businesses now generate less than 20% if the data on the internet! That means fully 80% of the information on the internet is being generated by people just like you, people just like me. How are we doing it? Well blogs like this one are a good example, then there are blogs on finance, recipes, photography clubs, origami, children’s stories etc etc…….. Sites like Flickr.com allowing people to share photos, You Tube allowing for video blogs, interviews, press releases. Facebook, Twitter, My Space,Wikepedia – the list is literally endless.

This means there is a digital playground out there waiting for you and your organisation to leave your fingerprints behind. There is a world waiting for you and your business to be creative, engaging and relevant.

There are people waiting to engage and talk to you about your business, isn’t this what you have always wanted?

Come on, show us what you have got…..

Changing the Way We Do Business

Posted by Shelley Walters on Apr 14, 2011 in Uncategorized | Comments Off

There is little doubt that Social Media is changing the way that we do business, at a pace that is hard to digest. The reality of Social Media can no longer be swept under the carpet, the implication is that if you and your business are not geared for this change you are going to have big problem.

So why the reluctance?

One of the biggest concerns I hear from corporates is “what will people say about us?”. The truth is people are talking about you already, the only question is will you listen? Will you take the opportunity to constructively engage or will your strategy be to stick your head in the sand and pretend nothing happened?

Quick thinking brands have already recognised that Social Media is changing the way we do customer service. Social Media channels are rapidly replacing the old 0860 numbers. Setting the trend in this area are brands like @vodacom111; @woolworths_sa; Discovery Health and many others. These guys have already figured out that the most important person in their business is the consumer, and it is in their best interests to engage with me and hear what I have to say. And, if you ask me, its about time!

Perhaps your concern is that you have nothing new to add to the mix, if that is the case I would urge you to seriously consider the implications of that for your business. Because, as I said earlier the way we do business is changing, that means the way you do business will need to change……are you ready?

What is a Social Network anyway?

Posted by Shelley Walters on Apr 13, 2011 in Uncategorized | Comments Off

So there are about 6.7 billion people in the world,  and thanks to the internet, these people are now constantly connected to each other. In fact, we are now more connected to each other than at any other time in the history of the world. And these connections are growing in the thousands, every single day.

I will remind you that these connection are made up of people, in groups, tribes or networks, using tools like Facebook, You Tube and Twitter (to name a few) to get their message across.

At some point, somewhere in this network and idea is created in the mind of an individual, or sometimes a few people, or even an organization. From there the spread begins, and this is what we refer to when we speak of a “social network”.

What makes these networks effective, these ideas that were cooked up in the mind of an individual? Someone you have never met, in some place you have never been!

Well, (I hate to state the obvious here but…) He (or she) followed through on their idea. He started his social network, he sought out like minded people. He over came his fear of the unknown, the fear of how this will all work out.

He made a start.

Are you still toying with the idea of getting into Social Media? Perhaps it is time to make a start….

Social Media – Power to the People!

Posted by Shelley Walters on Mar 12, 2011 in Uncategorized | Comments Off

3 weeks ago I was reading through my Facebook news feed and came across a link on the lost tribes of Peru (www.survivalinternational.org),posted by my friend @ryanhogarth.

These guys (Survival International) “help tribal peoples protect their lives, lands and human rights.” They “oppose the racist attitudes which underpin the way tribal peoples are viewed, and seek to stop the illegal and unjust way they are treated.” (this is the kind of stuff that gets me really excited!)

But how do they do that? It seems like a mammoth task! Creating awareness for lost tribes, not exactly top of our priority list – and it sounds really expensive. And probably would be if it weren’t for social media…

Thanks to Ryan sharing the link on Facebook I was able to click and learn about these fascinating people; and I was able to take part in their initiative by adding my name to a petition. Well, since when did signing a petition ever make any difference I hear you ask – in this case it did.

The latest update I received read:

Peru’s authorities have announced that they will work together with Brazil to stop loggers entering isolated Indians’ territory along the two countries’ joint border.

The move is the first success of Survival’s campaign to protect the uncontacted Indians of the Peru-Brazil border. Global coverage of the newly-released photos made public last month has pushed the Peruvian government into action.

(http://www.survivalinternational.org/news/6956?utm_source=Survival+International&utm_campaign=59fca26e41-E_news_March_2011_3_3_2011&utm_medium=email)

Who would have thought a lost tribe in Peru would be saved through the influence of a medium they do not even know to exist. And that, my friends, is the power of social media – the revolution has begun!