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“Come gather round people wherever you roam, for the times they are a changing” Bob Dylan

The times are “a changing”, and people are gathering on social networks and sites on digital channels roaming – making sure their voice is heard and change takes place. Like it or not!

Business today is still about good old-fashioned networking and relationships, not redundant marketing techniques. But how businesses can, or will, network with the common public and their consumers, has undoubtedly changed.

This is my thought point, as I often struggle to find refreshing things to write about digital media. When directed by journalists who approach me, my passion rating goes up and I fire off answers to their questions, usually to good affect.

Sitting on your own, without the questioner, seeking your expertise, whether a journalist or a client or my industry peers, it is sometimes hard to work out the value you can offer through a blog post that hasn’t been said before, especially about digital media.

I analysed myself in this scenario recently. Kristen approached me from Telstra to do an email round of interview questions with her for Telstra Exchange (it goes up next Monday). Australia Post Priority Magazine got in touch, on a different topic. Then Dorothy Perkins Research Company in the UK about the Aussie Online market, followed by Power Retail in just the last couple of weeks. I find I can quick fire back some pretty valuable insights that are in my head due to experience.

But sitting alone with a blank blog page. I struggle to get what’s out of my head and also making sure I don’t share any confidentialities or advice I have passed to our clients. I realised it was because everyone is writing about “Social Media” – the digital channel and its ever growing effect on the marketing industry. If I am overwhelmed with the number of articles, what value or insight can I add? I decided this was my writers / bloggers block!

So I did a quick Google & Slide Share search under the generic term “Social Media”
It threw up:
• 41,300,000 generic results
• 17,300,000 results for blogs
• 885,000 results for books
• 22,800 results for video
• 11,900 results for news
• 18,900 presentations on slide share
These figures are without the comments and interactions and pass on rates / RT’s of the content.

No wonder, I wonder, (excuse the pun!) how to add to this medley of content and advice! When I dug around, I realised there was plenty of “how to guides”, “flashy presentations”, EVEN “a how to guide to find the elusive big red button – press and it will send you viral” (NO!), lots on “social media advertising”, and plenty of people playing the amateur psychologist. There wasn’t much on some old fashioned values which I think, regardless of technology are more important now, than they have ever been before, for business as a whole, not just your marketing department.

Networking and relationship building with customers is so important for businesses today. Opening your doors to the energy and input of your customers and their mindset is now essential and many companies feel totally uncomfortable with it. BUT that doesn’t mean if you are Telstra (for example), you have open your doors to all of the 70% of the Australian public who are your customers. BUT you need to open your doors to a percentage of your lovers and haters and engage with them in an old fashioned way. These are not necessarily the Twitterati or bloggers, these are just normal people and normal people these days are all over social networks, online forums and blogging.

Have a chat, invite these customers in, listen, learn, and ACT with intent on the information, instead of ignoring it. You are able to network with them because of the digital channel. It is all Ok monitoring and pumping out fancy reports with graphs that please the board. But what about monitoring and listening with intent to ACTION? Yep, guys that’s the next stage – an intention to action on what you learn. It is harder than you think, which is why many companies are not doing it, just pleasing an internal board with “we have it covered”.

My whole career has been built on networking. Many times a week, I put people together, or share my knowledge, NOT for financial gain, but because that’s what you do in business, in my humble opinion, you network and connect. This is not an online thing, or a technology thing, this is basic communication and business skills, the transaction is not to my mind, the transaction comes later, if it does. It could be 2 years later when someone recalls you & recommends you. That’s fine, as the recommendation is worth more, than the shouting about yourself or your business. That’s what I did tonight when I spoke to the research agency for Dorothy Perkins in the UK (our equal in Australia is Supre) for ¾ of an hour during my evening, that’s what I do when one of my peers calls me and asks for advice. It is reciprocated and can lead to better business than yelling how great you are! My own businesses are built on this principle and all our business comes from referral.

In 1992, I presented a marketing paper about Dialogue NOT Monologue – it was met with complete suspicion. You can’t ignore this any longer. Marketing has changed as much as doing business has changed. BUT important to note; what has changed is that social networking is a fundamental part of doing business, even if you don’t see the rewards straight away. These days business at the highest executive level needs to understand how to network with their staff and customers across a greater reach, than just networking with your executive peers at the club on a Friday night.

By doing so you will deliver leadership, revenue and respect in this new economy & talking of respect – it is your biggest asset – your reputation.

Up for the Challenge?

As Bob Dylan said “The times they are a changing”