BEING VS USING SOCIAL: DO YOU CARE?

It dawned on me that if you really care about fulfilling market intentions then your media must reflect a caring attitude. A caring attitude wins the hearts and minds of people when the intent is matched with a real desire to serve. Using social media to push out your proposition to the masses reflects that you don’t care at all.


What Do You Care About?


Sellers are consumed with selling. Their media reflects their obsession with selling. The buyers' media reflects an intention to find solutions and they care about how much care sellers put into helping them find solutions. Most businesses care about results but they don’t care how they get them.


The mindset of today’s seller is to capture the buyers attention using old and new media. Their model is based on getting the market's attention so they can convert 2-3% into a sale. This model is reflected by the sellers behavior.


97% of the ads on Facebook never get “clicked through” because buyers don’t care. Sellers ignore what buyers want and continue to follow models that satisfy what they care about….short term results.


Brands are driven by results. All businesses are driven by results. However, the methods of getting a result determines the quality and quantity of results. Using social media for quality and quantity are two different things. You can buy followers and show how popular you are by having the most followers but what is the quality of those followers.


How Do We Know You Care?


The word “care” reflects an attitude which is concerned about fulfilling others' needs. To care about someone or something means we make provisions to fulfill their needs. It means to have an inclination, liking, fondness, or affection for someone’s intent.


When we look at the thinking and subsequent behavior of today’s marketplace of sellers few are concerned about our intent rather their behavior screams of attitudes aimed at fulfilling their intent.


Do you really need examples? Go to 99% of the websites used by brands and organizations. What will you find? A clear intent on selling us something and making the process very difficult. Follow a sample of businesses and individuals on Twitter. What will you find? A clear intention to push out their message instead of listening to what the buyers are discussing and engaging with an intent to serve buyer needs.


Caring about buyers ought to be foremost in every business owner's mind. Being social means you care about serving people’s intent. Using social does not require you to care rather using it for the wrong purpose demonstrates your carelessness.


Do you really care? Guess what? Everyone, your employees, suppliers and customers know. If you don’t buyers will reject your message. If you do you can use social media to demonstrate just how much you care. But you can’t demonstrate it unless you are indeed being social. Get it?

Jay Deragon
The Relationship Economy
Linkedin
01/14/2010