People do business with people they trust.  This time-honored adage applies to the Web as well.  After all, we are all human.  We love to be in groups, cliques, tribes (just ask our friend Seth Godin, Tribes).

Social media is our way of staying connected.  And when it comes to making purchasing decisions, social media is one way to gather information.  Who do our friends recommend?  I see it on Facebook almost every day:  “Does someone have a roofer they can recommend?”  “I need a plumber – willing to pay for quality.”  “I need a CRM Partner that actually cares!  Please ReTweet!”

In the current economy – and especially these days – what is more important than trust?  In the last two years, people have seen their home values and 401(k)s cut drastically.  While financial portfolios are starting to improve again, there is not one person working today who has not been affected by greed and mistrust.  Trust is any company’s most valuable asset.

Social media provides an excellent platform for companies to establish themselves as trustworthy.

So the question is… who do YOU trust?

As recently as 10 years ago, the old rules of “being there” still applied.  Unless you had a local presence, you didn’t have the ability to be truly connected to your prospects and customers.  Being there physically allowed you to place extra emphasis on building the relationship.

Now, thanks to social media and the Internet, you can be there without being there.  You can stay connected authentically – and profitably, as most businesses have discovered – by using the social web and the tools of Web 2.0 such as Twitter, Facebook, and LinkedIn.

The adoption of social media has been pretty amazing.  Here are some statements that show the value to any company considering whether to invest in social media strategies:

• Tech decision makers give user-generated sites equal importance to traditional media sources when considering tech purchases.
• Decision makers consider their personal experiences first (58%) when short-listing tech vendors, followed by word-of-mouth and industry analyst reports, tied at 51%.
• Advertising (17%) and direct marketing (21%) were listed as the least important information sources when short-listing possible vendors.

(Study: “Tech Decision Maker,” Hill & Knowlton, January 2009)

But it’s not anonymous “decision makers” who rely on social media.  It’s real people.  Consider:

• Friends still play an important role in influencing buyers. 83% of online buyers said they are interested in sharing information about their decisions with people they know, while 74% are influenced by the opinions of others in their decision to buy the product/service in the first place. (“Manage Smarter”, September 2009)

People are not likely to go back to their previous buying habits.  In fact:

• 85% of social media users believe that a company should go further than just having a presence on social sites and should also interact with its customers. (Cone Business in Social Media Study, September 2008 ) [r2]
• 81% of marketers surveyed say that their social media spending will meet or exceed their traditional advertising spending within the next five years. (TWI Surveys/Society for New Communications Research, November 2007)
• By 2020, 84% of marketers agree that building customer trust will become marketing’s primary objective, and 82% agree that collaboration with customers will prevail over marketing. (1to1 Media survey of the 1to1 Xchange panel, April 2008)

Despite all this change, it is important to keep this in mind: the only thing that has really changed is proximity.  Proximity has expanded exponentially.  You no longer need to live in the same zip code as your prospects, Partners, and clients in order to operate in the same community.

Whether your company is large or small, whether your audiences are far-flung or local, being earliest to the sale depends upon your investment in your communities.

Social media can aptly be described as many communities of many humans.  And like any group of humans, certain attitudes and behaviors will gain you acceptance, and some will get you ostracized.  Being smart socially, will differentiate the effective communicators from the rest on social media.

Studies suggest there are three basic requirements when communicating online or otherwise:

1)      Authenticity

2)      Transparency

3)      Emotional Intelligence

Authenticity is just being who you say you are and staying consistent.  It’s all about strengthening your brand by the lasting memory you create and the promise you deliver.

Transparency is full disclosure.  There is no reason to fool your audiences online.  It won’t work; they’ll smell trickery a mile away.

Emotional intelligence (or EQ) has always been the secret ingredient in “how to win friends and influence people.”  It’s just as important in social media, where your brand personality is open to the scrutiny of hundreds or thousands or millions of viewers.  EQ is your self-awareness plus social awareness.

In his book, “A Whole New Mind”, Daniel H. Pink discusses the correlation between “right-brained thinking” and EQ, and postulates that having a high EQ is the primary differentiator for companies facing off-shore competition.  “We must think and master aptitudes that are high concept and high touch,” he writes, “that overseas knowledge workers can’t do cheaper …”  Not only does our emotional intelligence determine our acceptance into communities, but it may be the difference between survival and extinction of our companies.

To understand the concept of self-aware versus socially aware, imagine your company as one of the characters from “The Wizard of Oz”.  Which one should it be?

• Scarecrow – is socially aware but not self-aware.  He’s a strawman, a fringe character.  He’s close to the action but not paying much attention to what his use of social media might reveal about him.  As a result, he is an extreme “life streamer” – posting too often about too little.  “Crows are evil!” for example, or “Bored with my field.”  If he only had a brain!

• Cowardly Lion – he’s very self-aware and very much interested in his own self-interest but is not socially aware.  He doesn’t understand the value of the “social” in social media.  He’s so deep in his fear and afraid of his own shadow, he can’t focus on anything else around him.

• Tinman – let’s say the Tinman is not self-aware or socially aware.  (Sorry, Tinman, you’re the bad guy in this analogy.)  He just doesn’t get what makes himself, or other people, tick.  So he gets a little oiled up and starts chopping randomly in social settings – potentially inflicting great harm to the company’s image.

• Wizard of Oz – the great and powerful Oz gets it!  He knows you can’t get on social media without a strategy.  He knows how to listen, participate, and engage in a way that fully respects the laws of human behavior.  The Wizard, front and center of all the action, makes an excellent community manager – and proves that the company is transparent by coming out from behind the curtain in the end.

So the question is… which one are you?

Are you missing your goals?

Are you having trouble managing your sales team?

Do you need more sales leads?

Then I have a few more questions for you:

• How many times have you heard your clients say they can’t live without you?

• How many times have you gotten a referral without even asking?

If these aren’t common occurrences, then maybe it’s not a sales issue. Maybe you need to define a clear and consistent client experience…

Check out page 7 of the fall addition of  The Partner Channel Magazine.

Give your clients YOUR best!