Relationships Still Matter

As recently as 10 years ago, the old rules of “being there” still applied. Unless you had a local presence, you didn't have the ability to be truly connected to your prospects and customers. Being there physically allowed you to place extra emphasis on building the relationship.

Now, thanks to social media and the Internet, you can be there without being there. You can stay connected authentically – and profitably, as most businesses have discovered – by using the social web and the tools of Web 2.0 such as Twitter, Facebook, and LinkedIn.

The adoption of social media has been pretty amazing. Here are some statements that show the value to any company considering whether to invest in social media strategies:

• Tech decision makers give user-generated sites equal importance to traditional media sources when considering tech purchases.
• Decision makers consider their personal experiences first (58%) when short-listing tech vendors, followed by word-of-mouth and industry analyst reports, tied at 51%.
• Advertising (17%) and direct marketing (21%) were listed as the least important information sources when short-listing possible vendors.

(Study: “Tech Decision Maker,” Hill & Knowlton, January 2009)

But it’s not anonymous “decision makers” who rely on social media. It’s real people. Consider:

• Friends still play an important role in influencing buyers. 83% of online buyers said they are interested in sharing information about their decisions with people they know, while 74% are influenced by the opinions of others in their decision to buy the product/service in the first place. ("Manage Smarter", September 2009)

People are not likely to go back to their previous buying habits. In fact:

• 85% of social media users believe that a company should go further than just having a presence on social sites and should also interact with its customers. (Cone Business in Social Media Study, September 2008 ) [r2]
• 81% of marketers surveyed say that their social media spending will meet or exceed their traditional advertising spending within the next five years. (TWI Surveys/Society for New Communications Research, November 2007)
• By 2020, 84% of marketers agree that building customer trust will become marketing’s primary objective, and 82% agree that collaboration with customers will prevail over marketing. (1to1 Media survey of the 1to1 Xchange panel, April 2008)

Despite all this change, it is important to keep this in mind: the only thing that has really changed is proximity. Proximity has expanded exponentially. You no longer need to live in the same zip code as your prospects, Partners, and clients in order to operate in the same community.

[r2]The 2008 Cone Business in Social Media Study presented the findings of an online survey conducted September 11-12, 2008 by Opinion Research Corporation among 1,092 adults comprising 525 men and 567 women 18 years of age and older. The margin of error associated with a sample of this size is ± 3%.