Happy New Year! This year will provide another exciting and ever changing environment for online marketers. Personally, I’m thrilled about the opportunities presented to businesses that can adapt to the new normal and establish a conversation with their customers. Here are three resolutions every business can adopt this year.
1. Make your business social - every single company and organization can and should have some online presence where people can reach out to them, ask them questions and expect to receive a timely answer. Being social means being in places where your customers are. Your website won’t matter as much because people expect to connect with you on their terms, whether it’s Facebook, Twitter or YouTube. Personally, I’m finding myself using Facebook a lot more than Google when trying to find a company. Most often than not, the Facebook page is a lot more up to date than their website.
2. Seek first to understand, then to be understood is a Stephen Covey principle and it applies in today’s online environment. Listening has become a number one priority when trying to understand where your customers are and what they think about your business. Being social means actively listening online and being able to respond to positive and negative feedback. From free tools to paid platforms, there are hundreds of options to listen online and get the people’s view about your business. Ultimately, your brand is what people think it is so take advantage of this free research and use it wisely.
3. Quality message – please, please, please, stop using a new medium the old way. If every business continues to bombard us with their promotions and advertising messages, people will stop “following” and “liking” companies. A new social network will appear which will ban companies from using it. If there is one out there already, please, let me know so I can join it. Quality message means that it’s really newsworthy and you will share it with friends. If you don’t think it is, then don’t post it. It just adds to to the noise. You are not getting any new customers because of your latest update. Nobody cares but you. My advice is think twice before you post any message or you risk alienating your customers.
What are your business New Year’s resolutions. Please, share them here.
