Why Businesses Get Taken Advantage Of By Online ‘Professionals’
Jim Connolly of Jim’s Marketing Blog and I had a great conversation a short time ago about the vulnerability of businesses and people in general. We’d both agreed that, while many of these people are great at protecting themselves in the real world, they seem to forget about protecting themselves online.
I have a theory about why this happens…
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Think Of Web Professionals Like Babysitters…Sorta
You see, I look at the online world and the real one as being the same. The only difference is that the Internet has put real life on demand and under a magnifying glass. Mistakes and the true characteristics of human nature are far more noticeable, but when it gets down to it, you’re dealing with the same types of people, who have the same goals and methods as those we pass on the street every day.
Think of the Internet like hiring a babysitter. Even if you hardly know this person, you leave her in charge while you’re gone because you feel she’s trustworthy and will keep your kids safe. I mean, if you didn’t, you’d never leave her there by herself, and certainly not with the children!
Plumbers and electricians are similar. They could be one of the gangbangers on the corner at night, but once they don their ‘day clothes’, you let them into your home without a single thought about your safety. You have some level of trust in them.
The Internet is similar, in my opinion. Once we allow it into our home, we still feel secure and trust it as we would a good friend. We get so caught up in all the benefits and how much *better* it makes our lives, we often forget about the bad. We simply don’t give the dangers the same weight in the virtual world that we do in real life. Why? It doesn’t look dangerous.
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We Lack the Visual Incentives That Trigger Self-Preservation
When walking down the street, it’s not unusual for people to clutch their purses and bring their kids closer as they pass a gang of kids in a parking lot. It’s not odd for some to cross the street when passing a homeless person. They look undesirable, and maybe even frightening.
Getting back to the babysitter thing, most parents would never consider hiring a homeless person and putting them in charge of the kids. That’d just be dangerous! At least they look trustworthy enough to make us feel safe, right? Well, in some instances, the homeless person might be the better choice.
On the Internet, we can’t differentiate between the ‘good’ and ‘bad’ people just by looking at them. Almost everyone ’seems’ nice. Well…what I mean is the creepy ones are kind of obvious, but it’s the dangerous ones who appear ‘nice’ that people need to be most wary of.
Things Sound Different In Text
The other issue professionals and businesses have is that even the most innocent of things can sound terrible when they’re typed and out of context (i.e. in a tweet or email). Sometimes, even the simplest of sentences can seem snarky, angry, or perverse. The same goes for someone who ’sounds’ trustworthy. Since we can’t read a person’s body language or hear their tone when they speak, a lot of our perception is based on previous interactions with that person and pure assumptions.
So where am I going with all this? Simple.
Don’t just hand money over to someone you’ve never met without checking things out first. If you don’t feel confident with a particular company or provider, or if there are any serious doubts about their reliability, move on.
Be diligent, for Google’s sake! If you don’t know enough about the process to be able to identify the scammers, get recommendations from someone you trust or speak with someone who does know about the process. Both the provider and the client can tell when the other doesn’t know as much about a particular subject as they should. Trust me!
The other point I’m making with this whole thing is that both online professionals and clients need to protect themselves. While things like deposits might be annoying and make both sides uncomfortable, they’re there to protect everyone involved. There are times when a full upfront payment is necessary, and times when it’s simply not needed.
Don’t believe everything you hear, either. This world is full of miscommunications and complications that might seem one way at the start, but is actually something completely different when you get down to it. I’m not saying you should disregard good and bad reviews, for example, but use each of the puzzle pieces you find while doing research to determine what the entire picture will look like.
In short, use your street sense!
Business | 2 comments
5 Things All Businesses Should Know Before Getting Started With Social Media
After speaking with a client recently, I discovered that businesses are in a unique position when it comes to dealing with social media. They know it’s a force to be reckoned with, they know it can be a highly effective marketing medium, but getting started and using it can be a complete mystery. How do you go from a Facebook account to a full-blown marketing campaign? How do you get people to convert?
To answer these questions, businesses often seek help from a social media consultant. However, not all of them have a positive experience. This isn’t because the consultant has done a poor job. Sometimes, it’s simply because businesses don’t fully understand what they’re getting into. So, if you’re considering the leap into Social Media Marketing (SMM), here are five things you need to know long before you hire someone or get started:
Social Media Is a ‘Hands On’, Ongoing Process
Unlike setting up a series of newspaper advertisements, or using banner ads, social media is not something you can ’set and forget’. You can’t just have a Facebook page set up, and expect it to magically attract people and make profits.
SMM requires direct and constant interaction with your target audience. You’ll have to start by getting people interested in what you have to say. Then, you need to convince them to interact with you in order to develop the level of trust needed for them to convert into buyers.
Social Media Marketing Requires a Specific Plan
Contrary to popular belief, you can’t just sign up to a bunch of sites and expect it to go somewhere. This is like trying to drive in a foreign country without a map. You need a customized strategy.
You need to know:
- Where you’re starting (what do you have that you can use to your advantage now?)
- Who you’re targeting (define an ideal client/customer)
- Where these people are (which sites do your ideal clients use most)
- How to grab and hold their attention (contests, informative content, discussions, etc.)What the ultimate goal is (leads, sales, sign ups, etc.)
- What the milestones will be (make them measurable and reasonable)
- What you do best (video, contests, content, etc)
- How to put it all together
- Who’s going to run it (hire out, in house, run everything yourself…)
There’s a lot of questions here, but they’re absolutely vital; without doing the homework, no one will know what’s going on.
Learn Your Way Around Before You Start
Don’t start promoting a social media account or profile until you know what you’re going to do with it and how it works. Why? You are guaranteed to bumble around and make a ton of mistakes while setting everything up and learning how it all works. This looks unprofessional and people can easily be annoyed, particularly if they get a series of tweets or emails while you’re hooking everything up.
Social Media Marketing Means Being Connected
You can’t just start a Facebook page or a blog, and expect it to thrive on its own. Just like people, social networks need friends, and most importantly, need to be fed and watered by other networks and locations.
This takes time!
First, you need to ensure your website, blog, Twitter account, Facebook pages, and all of your other profiles are interlinked and promoting each other to promote good traffic flow.
Secondly, you need to consider how you’ll convince people to follow more than one account. So, for example, getting website visitors to subscribe to your RSS and follow your Twitter account. This will give you the maximum amount of opportunities to convert that client and build loyalty.
Know What You’re Paying For
If you hire someone to run your social media campaign or build your profiles, make sure you know what that includes and doesn’t include BEFORE you sign or pay for anything. Seriously. This sounds very basic, but not everyone does this. And, do you know what happens when you don’t do this? A nightmare. A nightmare happens.
You’ll end up with something other than what you thought you were paying for, and even though the person you hired did exactly what they said, it doesn’t work for you.
In short, assumptions are killers.
This is a lot of work to do before you even think of hiring someone, or getting started, but it’s absolutely necessary to achieve success. After all, if you’ve put this much passion and dedication into your business, why would you short change it by rushing into everything?
Social Media | No comments
