We held a breakfast meeting this morning with several NC business, association, press, and political leaders. Following Zach Clayton and Pete Wylie’s presentation on the benefits of social media marketing and PR, the questions poured in.
“How do customers know which voice to trust online?”
“How do I get my social media campaign started from scratch?”
“What of the legal issues with blogging about regulated industries?”
“How does online marketing work with B2B?”
Interestingly – though not surprisingly – no one asked “why should I do this?” Then again, Zach, Caroline, Pete, Matt, or I didn’t expect them to. These are all very savvy businessmen and women who grasp the vast marketing potential in content-based social media. (Our presentation certainly reinforced the notion, as well.)
The folks we spoke with this morning are some of the best in their respective businesses. They’ve have built brands, formulated strategic product offerings, and clarified marketing aims across years of customer engagement. In the offline world, they know exactly how they want to position themselves and who their respective target customers are.
But they are the first to realize that they require guidance to be successful when delving into the social media landscape.
Owners “get it” – they realize that that “social media” is growing in popularity and can be immensely beneficial from a sales, branding, customer engagement, etc. standpoint, but they don’t yet visualize how they can capitalize on the micro-level. They don’t yet know the right tactics to combine to make a strategic online plan. Some were openly intimidated by the notion of getting started.
Again, this is not unique, but luckily, they’ve already done most of the hard work themselves. As we explained and will delve deeper as we continue conversations with this group and others, social media is a tool or forum for expanding a brand. And the folks we spoke with this morning – like so many other small business leaders – have already done the leg work in establishing their brand, cultivating a customer base, and discerning where they want to be in the marketplace.
Now they simply need to formulate a cohesive online strategy to reflect and continue that existing brand success through genuine customer engagement and provocative content generation. Luckily, that’s where we come in.
This morning was a huge success, and we look forward to hosting another event next month (details forthcoming in the blog).
