At the July London Meet Up we will be hearing from Interaction London about measurement and insight in social media.

Sentiment and listening in particular grab my attention when this topic comes round for discussion. Surely it is just common sense? So common sense in fact all the “Social Media will save your business” and “if you are not on twitter you will die by the end of this sentence” people are so far behind they think they are first.

The technology available merely enhances our ability to do an even better job of what we were doing already.

I often find myself crossing swords with traditional sales people who do “cold calling -because that is what works in our industry.”
Really, the only reason they do cold calling is “because that’s what they do”. They don’t know any better because they are so busy cold calling they have not got time to listen to people.
I consistently strongly, passionately and adamantly argue that we should seek human social and interactive behaviour to engage with each other. This means less time wasted, less annoyed people and a more often than not a win / win. Most of you will know this as ‘permission marketing’.

Why I love Meet Up is not so much the technology is it the ‘sentiment, culture and community around the brand. “Use the internet to get off of the internet” is their tag line.

It is very easy to hide behind a phone an advert or a flyer; being genuine, admitting your mistakes and taking responsibility (or not as the case maybe) is more engaging and attractive to people because it removes doubt and develops trust so things move faster.

This is at both ends of the business spectrum. Big brands who try to cover over mistakes end up with egg on their face; or smaller companies and sole traders pretend they are bigger than they are “We work for major brands on product launches”. (You were giving out flyers at a school fete for Tesco you mean.)

My point is that honesty and trust works in several different directions, if we claim we are authentic we are cursed with instantly sounding Inauthentic. However, if we accept and practice honesty with no attachment we get some of the most valuable feedback ever and that sets us on the path to winning. It is easy to muster up compliments from people but takes a braver person or brand to go out and find what is being said and deal with it. While this looks a very unattractive route to take it is certainly where the real gold lies.

Jim Collins uses in an example in his work of how Johnson & Johnson recalled millions of products in the early 70’s from supermarkets in the United Sates and won major brand trust, whereas another company had a similar situation a few months later and only recalled one consignment – this company shut down a few years later.

Building a community of advocates is, quite possibly the most intelligent way forward. Way before we were glued to our Blackberry’s and iPhones the words ‘know like and trust’ were bounded around in business. I would venture to suggest that is even more prevalent in today’s social engagement economy – YouGov surveyed 80,000 UK adults and tagged 25% of them as the N – generation, (this is the subject of a later post) but essentially these people live online and are influencer’s, in a higher earning, disposable income bracket.
Of course you have to meet people to get customers; most of all you have to know what they are saying and how to engage them.
So… meanwhile back in the ‘Cold Calling Hell Den’.
“How many meetings have you booked this week? Any of them this new N-generation thing?”
“I have not got time to find out about that, I’m on the phone!”

Guest post by Bernie Mitchell