1. Interruption no longer works (the 6% who remembered your ad before are less likely to even see your ad now)
2. Buyers have more power and choice than ever before and focused on their needs
3. The barrier of entry for entry is seemingly non-existent when it comes to the internet

So what’s key here? Marketers have been adjusting and pushing out great strategies; highly targeted content, engagement, listening, etc. The common theme with the organizations who are winning and crushing it? They’re reaching out.

I remember listening to a speaker when I was younger who stood in front of the audience and asked, “Who wants $20?” Hands everywhere shot up. People shouted, hollered, jumped, and stood on their chairs, but one kid in front ran up to the stage and asked for it. He got the $20.But what happens when the same kid has ten people standing in front of him with $20 bills and he can only choose one? That’s where we’re at today.

“The Web is the biggest haystack in the history of mankind, and you’re just a tiny little needle. You might be sharp and you might be shiny, but without help, no one will ever see your Web page, listen to your podcast, or watch your video.” – Seth Godin

It’s more than simply getting involved in the new web tools and sitting around. Reach out and give people a reason to talk about you and with you. Take the time to find them. Seek the people out that don’t know you exist, but are dying to interact with you. Build relationships and convert people into Trust Agents. It’s a buyer’s market and consumers have tons of power, but with a human push and word of mouth, so do you.

There’s been a huge growth in Twitter over the past couple of months and with that there’s been an influx of social media marketers, gurus, and consultants touting Twitter as a panacea for customer service issues, an easy way to boost traffic, and a simple pathway into possessing a strong web-presence. While I agree that Twitter is great, I don’t think it cuts it.

Symsomos & Hubspot just put out some Twitter data and here are some statistics that really stood out to me:

• 55.50% of users aren’t following anyone
• 54.88% have never tweets
• 5% of users account for 75% of activity
• 93.6% of users have less than 100 followers, while 92.4% follow less than 100 people

These numbers show that this grand marketing solution experts have been focusing on still only reaches a small population. I’m not saying this population isn’t important or can’t have an impact (the Twitter community is comprised of many thought leaders and influencers whom I respect), but nonetheless the numbers show that for most brands a central focus on Twitter is an extremely myopic approach.

Just for fun and out of my own curiosity I walked around downtown Portland the other day and did an extremely non-scientific survey to catch the pulse of the general public. I stopped 25 people and asked them a few questions about Twitter. Here’s what I came up with:

• 4/25 (16%) currently had a Twitter account
• 3/25 (12%) had some kind of interest in Twitter
• 7/25 (28%) responded in some sort of disgust (“Oh God, not Twitter again.”)
• 11/25 (44%) didn’t really care

I think this may be representative of many different areas as well. I’m not saying that Twitter isn’t great for engagement, virality, and a lot of other things, but I’m trying to show that Twitter simply doesn’t cut it. I have no doubt that if I did a similar survey regarding Facebook, 85% or more would’ve had a Facebook account or heard of it.

The principles of customer service haven’t changed. It’s always been about adding value and meeting customer needs. There’s no short-cutting that. The kicker is that through the evolution of word of mouth and social media great customer service is now great marketing too. The best marketing has always been about building relationships, connecting with people, and drawing them in. There’s no short-cutting that!

My advice? Have a presence on Twitter, it’s wonderful, but don’t stop there. My friend and mentor Brad J Ward has some great advice when it comes to choosing which technologies to focus on when crafting a strategy. “Think AND not OR.” There are people out there in a multitude of other outlets wanting to engage that may not know you’re there or know you’re listening. Reach out to them and make it easier. Continue to listen. Don’t respond to @replies in 10 seconds and let e-mails linger for days. Find out where the people you’re targeting are congregating and meet them there. Your community will thank you for it.

So I started to dig into the problem to understand why. I talked to students and looked at different trends and numbers for our campus and Springfield in general. I found a few good nuggets. I learned that students here don’t want to use Facebook or Twitter for information, they want to limit it to social networking. Students also don’t care for blogs. Most didn’t know what a RSS feed was. Further, out of all of our students (both undergraduate and graduate level) less than 1% are using Twitter. In the entire Springfield community? Less than .01%. Those numbers are staggering and factor into the big picture, but still doesn’t address the level of engagement. Low usage simply isn’t a sufficient excuse.

I’m noticing the voluntary nature of social media leads to a level of interaction that is unpredictable. Think about it. I could post this and you could forward it to some friends, retweet it on Twitter, comment, or do nothing. I may have an idea how something may go over and predict possibilities to a certain extent, but never completely know what will happen. So what does this mean for social media strategies? A cornerstone of any strategy should include periods of evaluation that include three stages: the Research stage, Adjust stage, and Build stage. It is my belief that if you’re not doing these things, you’re not creating the best strategy possible.

Research

We’ve all been told to listen, but here’s the thing, listening isn’t enough. It’s just one piece of an entire puzzle. What other points of data are you analyzing? Are you considering and learning about the target’s environment? How are you actively getting to know the people you’re targeting?

This is also a time where your organization analyzes internally. How is our progress looking? Are we still adding value and helping solve problems? Do our objectives align with our mission?

The marketing world revolves around the buzzword of influence. A major problem I have seen with marketers is incredible rigidity. Instead of reevaluating, time is wasted attempting to influence people to adopt a failing system. This research portion is the first step in meeting people where they’re at; focusing on relationship, trust, and collaboration, not simply influence. We need to focus on relationship and trust because we should come from a short-term and long-term perspective and this heavily influences positive word of mouth.

Adjust

After doing research it’s now time to set a plan of action. That’s why it’s important to have an overarching mission, flexible goals, and solid objectives so that plans can be perfected as you learn more. You need to do something with your research. Your strategy should never stay the same because people always change. As needs, desires, and be interaction shift, you should be right there moving with them. Don’t forget to consider long-term goals as well. Social media isn’t actively used on our campus now, but it will be in the future. That’s why I am focusing so much on building a sustainable system that can function well even when I’m not around.

Build

Now it’s time to implement your objectives and build on your foundation. Remember to think big and build small. Every small victory leads to more accuracy, more reach, and better content.

One thing I’m also working on that is important to remember is patience. I’m heavily engrossed in social media so it affects the rate at which I expect things to happen, i.e., immediately. Not everybody works on 140 characters and real-time communication.

Think of crafting your social media strategy as art. In photography there are rules that help you compose good photos, but ultimately rules can be broken and one photo can have forty different interpretations. Photography also requires trial an error to see which shots work. Building a masterful strategy can be arduous, but as you test the waters, evaluate, and learn, you’ll be creating an amazing community of engagement and effectively reaching your niche.

My thoughts on this question. Please comment up and let me know what you think!

Links Mentioned:

Kami Huyse – @kamichat - http://overtonecomm.blogspot.com
Chris Brogan – @chrisbrogan – http://chrisbrogan.com
Gary Vaynerchuk – @garyvee – http://garyvaynerchuk.com (http://tv.winelibrary.com)

*A Kodak family favorite:

Todd Sanders – @tsand – http://utodd.com (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PA69dFMAfPY)

(*Note: I just used family stuff to help illustrate “sharing life” along with content. Other stuff is awesome too! Anything to help us get to know you.)