Meeting One to One: Reality Check

Personal Service should be our focus.

Can you imagine a sit-down restaurant where you order your food without a waiter or waitress?

Can you imagine a retail store where everything is self-service with computers and monitors and no store help?

Now some services have gone self-service like gas stations. However, think about some of the inefficiencies. If a client has to pay with cash, they must go inside and make payment inside. Some stations have tried monitors and messages over the intercom, but how personal do they really get.

Ultimately, are we connecting with our clients. Are we servicing their needs, answering their questions, leading them to a transaction or a new account or some valuable information. This should be our goal and we, as marketers need to take them there. How do these concepts work online with social media platforms? Keep reading!

Getting more one to one online: (Reality check)

Right now, many people would say they engage regularly with their online friends and followers on social media sites. I have to tell you I struggle with this a bit. I feel more like a broadcaster or news person who is sharing information. My goal is to be more like a well known author who knows his subject and gives people something to think about. (Branding – Keep your name out there for people to see)

I am working on taking this conversation to another level. Most of the time I try to share information links to my sites and to other people’s sites to direct them to hopefully give them something of value. Obviously, I cannot do this every time, but I continue to work at different ways to keep people interested. (Personal Branding – Be human, but don’t stop there. Give people a reason to connect with you)

I also think the key to good, one to one connections is being interesting and different. Right now there is so much noise on the internet and social media sites. Each hour there are breaking news stories and reposting of news happenings. (Branding and networking – Go after a particular audience and do not be like all the rest of the people. You do not have to connect with everyone you come in contact with. )

Listen more and talk less is another way I am looking at social media. I believe a lot of people are doing this too. It doesn’t make sense to post information every hour of the day to people. I understand the real-time reach, but frankly it is important to really look closer at conversations. Do some credible searches and find those people online that you want to reach and build messages that those people will want to hear. (Branding – Listen to what others are saying in the industry as well as your competition and then create content that will hopefully address the needs of these people.

Summary

Your goal is really to meet one to one. If you can take a conversation from social media off-line through your website or an email, you will find great success. Social media is one approach to making this happen. It is the starting point. Providing a destination point for meeting one-to-one should be the place where you spend most of your time. Getting them to that destination is a daily task.

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