People and relationships.  We come in and out of each others lives at different times and in different places.  Markets are central meeting places where we can come together for reasons of exchange.  Products and services are exchanged for a price.  The price may be as common as an exchange of currency.  Or the parties involved may agree to trade products and services in lieu of payment.

By understanding who the people that come to our marketplace we begin to learn about how to serve them.  We have the opportunity to teach them about our products, services, and how they relate to our prices.  Through building relationships we are able to show customers the way we can benefit their wants and needs.

Where once, TV and radio ads steered us into stores  for  products.  Today, we meet in markets of all kinds!  Brick and mortar stores are still the foundation of our meeting places, but the Internet has shifted the dynamics.  While people and exchange are still at  the core of business relationships,  the meeting places have changed. Information on products and services are searched by customers online via email, blogs, videos, and websites.  Social media and social networks have ushered in an era where customers have joined the conversation.  Products are developed through crowd-sourcing.  Feedback on prices, products, and promotions are instantaneous and an integral part of business relationships.  The consumer has a more powerful role and voice.

The use of social media today can prove to be an ultimate game changer for the success of certain people, products, and services.  Engaging with consumers, or potential customers, needs to be managed very carefully.  Although it can be a daunting task to figure out how to get in this new “game”, there are a few basics that you can follow to jump start your social media campaign.  First of all, knowing the big three platforms, that currently dominate the playing field, is crucial.  With so many new sites endlessly popping up out of nowhere, knowing that you must be on facebook.com, linkedin.com, and twitter.com is invaluable.  Yes, there are other platforms rising in popularity, but right now concentrate on these three and you will be in the game.

Thinking of Facebook as your living room or kitchen is best when you try to relate to the kind of engagement and sharing that will happen there.  The conversation is personal and informal, with the focus on sharing thoughts, moments, pictures, and videos from our daily lives.  Linked In can be treated as your cyber office where the formalities of the workplace are in order.  Here we are connecting and linking to other people with whom we are interested in networking.  Twitter is a fast paced news and content aggregate where stories, news, and content are almost shouted out in very short 140 character micro blogs.  I think of twitter as the quick phone call people used to receive to share information of a more urgent and time sensitive nature.

Often people ask about how do you build your online following, network, and friends. My answer is simple.  Do it the way you do offline in your everyday life.  The key is here is in the word “social”, meaning the conversation is multi-dimensional.  This involves listening to and observing  other people’s conversations.  Learn about people by observing the types of topics they share.  You can almost “window shop” letting others reveal themselves.  With an understanding of what interests them you have a very strong starting point to jump in the conversation.  Finding people to engage with seems to be another topic of concern in the social media world.  Begin by following the same people who inspire you in your life.  Friends, family, and anyone else you find interesting or motivating make for great people to begin your online engagements.

Capturing your customers today is a more complex.  Your message needs to be consistent across all platforms.  Your products and prices need to be more competitive. You have to reach people where they are accessible.

Engage your customers.  Use all the free websites  and new media platforms available to market and advertise.  There are no gatekeepers holding you back!

 Get your message out!!

And remember that viral marketing is nothing more than this generation’s  “word of mouth.”

These three wizards of the web, Bill Sobel, Andrea Syrtash, and Ann Nyberg came together yesterday to discuss the opportunities social media offers in personal branding and growing your own personal community.  These online topics were discussed live in a very relaxed round table style of conversation.

Ann Nyberg, Connecticut’s self appointed “fairy godmother”, opened the discussion by introducing Bill Sobel.  Instantly, I knew we were not in Oz when Bill Sobel began speaking.  He is open, honest, and so immediately had my trust, that I would allow this “superconnector” to lead me down the yellow brick road or anywhere his conversation leads.  “Dating expert”, Andrea Syrtash, has so much going on for her between books, tours, coaching, and creating online content, that she truly is the leader of the brand. The personal brand that is. 

The conversation between the three of them was focused around connections, conversations, sharing content, people helping people, and the importance of developing your voice.  Authenticity, transparency, and the need to be real were woven throughout the dialogue.  Tools for getting into the online conversation were highlighted, as well.  The big three; Facebook, Twitter, and Linkedin were unanimously agreed upon as being  the most important platforms to be engaged with for growing your personal communities.  The power of tweeting, retweeting, linking posts to tweets were topics that were raised by Nyberg, with both Sobel and Syrtash, in agreement about the importance of them. 

While they all agree that what’s coming next is anyone’s guess, the urgency to get onboard “the train”, as Ann says, has never been more important!  Everything has shifted and all of us are in “Oz” trying to figure out the new rules, the new way of the world.  The power is back in our hands, the hands of the people.  People like me. People like you.  Our voices need to raised, in concert, rising up above “the noise”, like a beautiful symphony.  In unison. Together we have the power change our world. Individually, it is up to each one of us to build our communities.

With such leaders sharing their visions with us, I think we have little to fear, and everything to gain, if we join them.  My plan is to connect, both online and offline, with Bill Sobel, the “human link”, Andrea Syrtash, the self coined “slasher”, and Ann Nyberg, Connecticut’s “Glinda, the good witch” as often as I can. 

My lesson here……follow, follow, follow, follow! Follow the clickable link!!