I am sure this is not the first time you would have heard
this question! Some of us may have been cheeky enough to ask this question to
get a sales guy off his back.
Then there is another type of response which is more
mellowed than the earlier one – I have a website! Ah, well of course you do. As
Bezos would have famously responded – I am sorry, did I take my stupid pills
today?
To be fair, website is an online presence and it does
reflect on the organizations culture and its products & Services. If you
were to rely only on that presence, it is akin to having a store in the days
when there were no malls. People would have to come looking for you to do
business with you.
Now consider this, if you were in a mall, isn’t it easier
for your consumers to find you because there are many people coming to the mall
anyways!! Social & Digital media sites are nothing but modern day virtual
malls for the businesses.
The point is very simple – be where your consumers are. Make
it easier for them to find you! Coz if he does not find you, in all
probability, he will find your competitor!
Consulting to
Consultants is really a hard thing!
Most of the consumer products companies have recognized this
to a greater extent and have taken the much needed social and digital plunge to
reach their target set of consumers. Try telling this to businesses who are in
the professional services!
The most difficult thing to consult them on social media strategy,
objectives, framework…well you got it! This is exactly the stuff they do for
their clients and in all fairness they know quite a lot of it! The problem is with IMPLEMENTATION. Now
that’s not quite unique, is it? Well, we have seen that even companies who are
in the business of strategic thinking and advisory are very poor in terms of
their social and digital presence.
What’s in it for me!
Well now comes the real hard part of any social and digital
initiative. Are there benefits of having a social / digital presence? Are these
benefits real?
I would tend to believe there are real benefits and I have
given them monetary significance. If nothing, it does help get past the cynics
in the first step.
§ Monetary worth of Relationship
– People
have to see that you are credible when they do a search for your name or the
company’s name. This helps to build a foundation of trust to the relationship.
People know you even before they start their conversation with you or discover
new layers to your profile after meeting with you!
– Multiple
small touch-points towards building a relationship are often best done online
(to support your offline networking activity). Consider sending a Linkedin
request after a a good meeting with a CXO. It gets you on his network and help
build another line of connection to your relationship.
§ Monetary worth of Reputation
– Enquiries
always flow to firms with a strong reputation. Reputation also helps strengthen
the brand and its recall value. If you are looking to build a brand with
enduring value, you cannot ignore the online contribution of Reputation!
– Long-term
reputation building opportunities such as publishing a book, keynote speaker
slots, etc only come to people who are easy to find and consistently appear
credible online. These days any PR activity on Print and TV has a huge impact
on social and digital media. Similarly, the social and digital too contribute
back to Print and TV media and this contribution is only growing!
Seriously, is this
it?
Well, if you have not already noticed, the professional
services model in India is evolving albeit slowly. The newer lot of boutique
companies who work differently and approach clients on a relationship built on
value premise.
The value in a consultancy in not so distant past, used to
be in the Partner’s ‘black book‘, which was built through booze and
in-person meetings. These are still important but are being slowly eroded.
The new model of building long-term value in a
consultancy is through reputation, speaking engagements, articles & content
publishing and thought leadership. All of these are made easier and more
efficient when your online channels are working effectively.
For those who are on my side now, I would like to say that you
were not alone. Many professionals would see digital and social media as
being on the periphery to support marketing/PR or as project work for junior
members - “I got no time for social media, I’ve got work to do”. Thankfully, people
like you are now waking up to the possibilities of leveraging digital and
social media for driving some of the core objectives that flow down from the
Board. And so, increasingly digital and social media is giving them faster and
more poignant insights into the vertical markets in which they operate helping
them grow outside of the traditional business building methods.
We shall deep dive into the nature of content and the
objectives that can be driven from a comprehensive social and digital strategy
next time around.
You can reach me at uday@vondasoft.com
with your comments and questions. I would love to hear from you all.
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The author is the Co Founder of Vondasoft
Technologies which is a Mumbai based technology start-up. Vondasoft has
developed industry specific solutions for unstructured data analytics and has
business outcome focused solution for helping clients in Social Media
Marketing. www.vondasoft.com
