How often do you hear experts spurting out about how "social media enables you to connect with your audience" or statements along those lines? The answer is quite a lot if you ever frequent Twitter, Facebook et al. And although this isn't bad advice... it isn't good advice either. Allow me to explain.
Social Networking, in fact networking of any kind, isn't merely about connecting with customers, suppliers etc... it is about STAYING CONNECTED.
Think about it, how often do you meet someone for the first and only time, and they pass business your way, or purchase what you are selling? Ok, if you're a retail store owner this may happen often... but that's not a good thing, right? Wouldn't a repeat customer provide a better lifetime value to your businesses bottom line? Yeah, thought so.
Lifetime value is the greatest value of them all.
As most, if not all, business consultants and coaches say, "it's easier and less costly to sell to an existing customer, than it is to find a new customer." So why then are sites like Facebook and Twitter cluttered with businesses asking people to "like" and "follow" them, only for the engagement, value adding, content sharing etc to stop post "like" or "follow"?
Repeat business is easier to gain than new business (in most cases). New business (of any real value) rarely happens instantly. Hell, running a business in the Social Era is hard, right?
Best Practice: Put Effort Into Staying Connected
Introducing a supposedly inspiring and informative quote and analogy...
A full stadium with a capacity of 5000 is better than a 1/4 full stadium with a capacity of 10000
No sports team has ever filled their stadium without first making an effort to connect, and then staying connected with its fans. The players do daily interviews, opening training sessions, sports store signings, they play games at least once a week, and in todays world they tweet with fans. And all this is geared towards the sale of tickets on a saturday (or whenever they play). But the sale of tickets and merchandise would not happen if the club (and its employees) weren't staying connected to fans on a continuous basis.
Maybe the sports team isn't the best analogy, but I hope you get my drift?
In the Social Era there is a colossus amount of noise on an hourly (second-ly?!) basis, and that connection you made 2 days ago will likely have already forgotten you... and they certainly aren't likely to be buying from you anytime soon.
You have to maintain the effort of staying connected, creating and sharing relevance and value, and taking part in conversations that matter to your audience - remember social business is about creating mutual benefit for both business and consumer.
I'd like to leave you with 3 key tips to "staying connected":
1) Create a list or group of some kind (on every social platform you're active on) and place your current customers within this group/list... and more importantly, make a concise effort to engage/share/connect/add-value/etc with them at least 3 times a week... make it personal to them (i.e. quit the sales messages)
2) LISTEN, LEARN, ACT. Staying connected doesn't mean that you have to continually push out messages to your audience. As we all know from networking, letting the other person talk whilst you listen is good etiquette. And it provides you with a better platform to respond and add value.
3) You have to care. I cannot stress enough how important it is for you stay connected only if you care. In the Social Era it is so easy to spot falseness in peoples engagement and activity. If you don't care enough to stay connected, don't chase the initial connection in the first place, as this provides no value for either party involved.
I hope this helps you, entertains you, or sparks the energy in you to re-connect with your social connections. Please feel to free to connect with me... but only if you wish to stay connected, of course. Let's create and share relevance and value with one-another!