Tuesday, October 20, 2009

Businesses: stop talking and start listening

As I am compiling all my notes from Inbound Marketing Summit Boston in preparation for my company presentation at lunch, one point sticks out in my mind that I really want to talk to you about: Yes, content is King, but please for the love or your customers stop talking about yourself!

Online Marketing today has taken in a form of Inbound Marketing. Businesses shouldn't be talking about themselves, not about their history, not about how many people they have but rather where can they help, how they can help, and who they can help. To do so businesses need to start by listening.

Listening is perhaps the most time consuming aspect for many businesses, that is because they are so used to be the one talking. Listening in the Social Media world is not just sitting in front of your Twitter page, facebook page and wait for your friends or followers to comment, but it is a proactive exercise and go find the people who are talking about the business or the industry the business serve.

Since most of us are not Comcastcare (a Twitter account from Comcast customer service that spearheaded the corporate Twitter movement), where it is hard to find people actually talking about your business or product, we will have to look search for people online who are talking about your industry and perhaps your competitor, then engage them with knowledge and points that benefits them.

Word of caution here: don't start by selling your products or telling them how they should have used your service or products in the first place. It is about offering advice or knowledge to better educate your audience.

If you need a place to start, then why not start with Twitter? Setup an account, and start searching for people who are talking about your industry or the products you sell. Follow them, reply them with suggestions, then setup a simple blog that answer questions in detail if 140 characters is not enough, then point them to your blog. The goal is to let people know you care and also have the capability to care. Then in your blog create links to your website and let your audience do the clicking.

Once you get a handle on basic Twitter operations and searching, check out this list of Twitter applications and tools and enjoy!

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