Ten Tips For Surviving in this New Digital World
Here are the top ten tips that came out of last night’s “Get Digital” event…1) Get on Twitter. This fairly new “micro-blogging” service can seem a little strange at first, but it’s a very powerful platform. To get an idea, go to http://www.twitter.com/newwest.
2) Experiment, try stuff, and see what works. There are very few secret keys to the puzzle; most successful online companies, including Vanns.com, got there through lots of trial and error over at least a few years.
3) Create a simple incentive for people to interact with you online. Once you have gotten people even a little engaged, you can build on that.
4) Look for market dislocations in the downturn - when people are forced to change, they look for new things. The economy may be scary right now but many great businesses were built in bad economic times. Change, for better or worse, means opportunity.
5) Be personal (not corporate) in your online interactions, and make sure you understand the tone and style of a blog or online discussion or Facebook group before you jump in.
6) Think in terms of “platforms”, i.e. Facebook, or Google, or Twitter, or the i{Phone, and look at how they can be extended with your own applications. The idea of a platform is to enable others - like you - to do creative things with it.
7) Think broadly about the question of “what business are you in,” make sure understand your business objectives (growth, profits, social purpose etc.) and know who your customer is. Sometimes the person who will actually pay for your product or service is not the one you think it’s designed for.
8) Ask the dumb questions! Almost everyone is confused at some level about how to make their way in the digital marketing world.
9) Be creative in finding the manpower needed for social networking - students can be a great resource - but be sure you have the resources one way or another. You have to make a commitment to get results, and that means ongoing updates, prompt replies, and not hit-and-run contributions.
10) Set up alerts (on Google and elsewhere) to keep you apprised of how what people are saying about you and your company online.
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