discount

I was reading a wonderful post by Mack Collier on how Social Media is a trust enabler. And it got me to thinking.

He is dead on, it is the 2 way communication that makes Social Media and Marketing so much different than the traditional uni-directional methods. At Learn About Web I talked about how the phonebook is becoming the dinosaur because of how little information you can learn about a business with a smiling picture and some words. Think about that, what do you actually learn from that? Only that company X either has more money or wagered more money that the phonebook could drive traffic to them.

I know, I was recently a gambler!

But a customer in the Web 2.0 world sees things differently. But what about those not familiar with it?

How do we get our customers involved in Social Media?

Now I know some of you people in larger towns may not see this as a relevant issue, but in small towns like ours.. it’s half the battle at least! I am telling Small Business they need to use Social Media, but how do you educate those customers or people in general who know little or nothing about it? The ones not interested in coming to see a Conference on their dime because they don’t understand its merit?

Challenging Question – perhaps it’s been answered, but here are some thoughts I have, and perhaps you can add something to this?

The most obvious – Word of Mouth – Tell them! Talk to them about the benefits you have gained from Social Media and the tools they can use to get involved. Point them to your blog.

Bring a friend/colleague/customer to the speaking portion of a conference, let them learn about about why they should be interested, and perhaps they will join in. Don’t try to take them to training session on their first trip out, the idea is to get them some exposure.

Write about them! Why not have a featured customer blog post and ask them to read it? They would likely share it with all of the people they know and so on!

A discount if they add themselves to one of your Social Media tools? Added value for you and your customer!

Using 2 way communication to gain the attention of people not involved in Social Media seems to be the smarter strategy, after all, we should practice what we preach right?

I’d love to hear if you have anything to add to this list or comments about the idea in general…