Hey look, it’s me! And a fully stocked bar! (Thanks to Jim O’Donnell for the awesome photo.) More photos from Richard Peck here and here. Awesome.
So… A quick recap: This presentation took place at Greenville, SC’s 2nd monthly Social Media Club meeting early Monday morning. About 150 people from the Greenville-Anderson-Spartanburg area showed up to enjoy a great breakfast provided by our host (Soby’s Restaurant/Table 301) and hear me talk a little bit about what social media is and isn’t. (Probably more the breakfast, but that’s okay.)
I will be posting the presentation soon, but for now, here are some of the main takeways fom my little show:
It is easy to get bogged down with tools and platforms and technologies when it comes to Social Media. Relax and take a big step back: All we are really talking about here is people talking with people. Remember that.
If we dig a little deeper, we don’t have to go far to see that people are using Social Media to (re)connect with one another, create communities on their own terms, and share what they are passionate about.
Social Media as we define them today may be new, but people have been connecting, creating communities and sharing their interests for thousands of years. We are deeply social creatures. We love to share experiences – food, entertainment, art, stories, etc.
But the complexity of our lives have forced us to disconnect from one another. Greater distances separate us. Our busy schedules make it difficult for us to connect with each other regularly through traditional means.
But we NEED human interactions. We crave them.
Social media help us reconnect in spite of our busy lives.
The relationships people want are meaningful. They are based on affection and trust, from parents at an early age to friends and extended family as we grow into adulthood, and eventually outward still to our community.
Compare these meaningful relationships with the relationship you have with an outsourced cstomer service rep or a disengaged salesperson. Sharp contrast, right? Question: Can meaningful relationships be created through outsourced labor?
Question: If – as a business – you understand the importance/value of creating meaningful relationships with your customers, why shove your customers away to call centers and disengaged employees? How does that work?
What if you could turn angry customers into your greatest advocates? What if you made it your mission?
What if you invited these customers to call you back regularly to let you know how things are going? (Start a conversation with them. Engage with them. Foster a relationship. Twitter is good for that.)
As a company, ask yourself what role you play in your customers’ lives today:Are you their partner in crime (in a good way) or are you just selling them stuff?
Communities: Knowing where we belong is as important as knowing how we belong.
Individuals are hard to hear. Communities are much louder.
People want their opinions to matter. They want to be heard. When companies refuse to listen, they build walls between themselves and the communities around them.
Not listening (to your customers) is expensive. It makes you ignorant and isolated.
How can you know what people are saying about you outside your walls if you aren’t out there listening?
How are you monitoring you reputation?
Listening makes you relevant.
Listening makes you part of a community. (So listen!)
Not Listening = Disconnected. Listening = feedback, insight and metrics (use tools like Radian6).
As people grow increasingly connected (via social media), companies are losing their ability to influence behaviors via traditional means and media channels.
The era of the monologue is dead.
In the US alone, people are exposed to 500-3000 commercial messages per day. PER DAY!!!
And the ROI of the most obvious advertising channel (TV) is estimated to be 1-4%. (Not exactly stellar.)
Meanwhile, recommendations by family members, loved ones and peers are extremely sticky. People turn to people they trust to help them discover products and make purchasing decisions. In other words:
People are increasingly tuning companies out, and tuning in to each other instead.
Traditional Media alone increasingly expensive and less and less effective. Social media can complement traditional media: Add relevance, authenticity and stickiness.
Q: What is the most important thing a business can do for itself? A: Create happy, loyal customers.
Engagement is not a campaign.
This conversation is not about Social Media adoption. It is about transforming the way you think about your business: You are not a B2B or a B2C company. You are a P2P company (people to people).
You must create ways to enhance or improve your customers’ experience in a way that matters. One way to put this into action is to ask yourself how do I get my customers to want to recommend us to their mother or child or best friend?
Ask yourself: How would you do business if your CEO suddenly decided that you could no longer advertise? What would you do? How would you engage with your customers?
More notes from the presentation tomorrow. 
You can also follow some of the Twitter threads at #smcgville and #smcgreenville.
Thanks again to SMC Greenville for having asked me to speak at their event this month. It was truly an honor.
I want to send out a very special thanks to Richard Peck, Table 301 and the awesome staff of Soby’s restaurant for being such gracious hosts.
Kind thanks also to Business Black Box for covering the event with their video crew.
And most of all, HUGE THANKS to everyone who got up at the crack of way too early on a Monday to come listen to me speak. I was truly overwhelmed by the interest, kindness and enthusiasm you all brought with you. Pretty unreal. I’m glad to have met even more incredible folks this week, as well as seeing so many familiar faces. Orange Coat’s Bear Gautsch was there (did I also see Jimmy C?), Brains on Fire’s Robbin Phillips, Geno Church and Spike Jones were there along with Bounce’s John McDermott… Bobby Rettew, Doug Cone, Jon Evans, Amy Wood, Trey Pennington of course… And I hear that someone even drove all the way from Columbia! (Whomever you are, shoot me a note. I definitely want to meet you next time you’re in Greenville.) The list is waaaaaaaaaaaaay too long for me to go on, so I’ll stop here. Thanks for coming, everyone. 
What a great way to start the week!
photo by Doug Cone (@nullvariable)
Wow, great crowd Olivier. And nice preso. I especially love this point – Not listening (to your customers) is expensive. So true, not listening to a customer generally eventually leads to a loss of a customer because at some point expectations and what’s delivered will go out of sync.
And thanks for the Radian6 shout out as well. Much appreciated.
Cheers.
David
Oliver – wow. Great showing, and excellent content delivered. Kudos.
It was a good presentation Olivier- worth waking up a little early for.
Thanks for the kind words. Good first run. Now I can tweak it and make it a lot better.
Fantastic crowd. Thanks to everyone who came or followed the stream on Twitter.
[...] (aka The Brand Builder) talked with us about what social media is and is not. He graciously provided his notes on his blog which I recommend you take a moment to read through. However, here are some of my [...]
“It is easy to get bogged down with tools and platforms and technologies when it comes to Social Media. Relax and take a big step back: All we are really talking about here is people talking with people. Remember that.”
Love it. That should be the phrase every skeptical managers first hears when beginning a discussion (internally or with a consultancy) about whether and how to use social media.
It is for me.