The world of Web 2.0 and Social Media has been embraced by millions of people. Graphic Designers,Tech Geeks, Entreprenuers, Consultants, Marketing, Public Relations, and Business professionals and regular folks. But it still remains to be elusive and confusing to billions.
Facebook has 200 million users (would be considered the 5th largest country)
Twitter has 44.5 million users
Earth has 6.7 billion users
That is the paradox, the numbers. No matter how many people are on the internet. There are more people offline who are only learning about the internet. Why is that? The reason is the internet is still in the phase of early adopters.
You know the guy who always has the latest camera, iPhone or Blackberry, GPS enabled car, computer software program, gaming platform? We all know someone like that. He is an early adopter. He is keenly aware of the newest gadget coming out, and he must have it before everyone else. The internet is similar to a gadget. The internet is relatively young, therefore everyone who has been a regular user of the internet is considered an early adopter.
Email started with early adopters, and now it is a common occurrence in everyones life, even if you don’t have a computer. You at least have an email for your friends, family or work can reach you. The internet is moving into its middle age, where everyone must have contact with it for at least one use. Even your grandmother. Whether it is banking, or filing your income taxes.
But like email, the internet and social media are not a “fad” and it isn’t going anywhere. In fact, it is continually growing. For any business today this is the time of initiation, programming the pattern of your customers behavior that fosters a connection. Having your customers connected to you through the internet on a regular basis is loyalty.Loyalty is what community, networking and social media is built on.
That is what the millions of people, early adopters, are discovering. Being engaged on a daily basis with the products, services and communities they choose to be a part of. No longer are marketing efforts outbound, or pushed from the company. Rather the content is created, and loyalty built by the inbound customer, the connection is pulled back to the company.
As a marketer this is unheard of. The traditional marketing mix is predicated on pushing the message outbound to our customers. The process of creating a platform for social media that allows customers to interact, request, engage and ultimately share your information with their friends changes everything marketers have been taught.
You wonder why you need to be on the internet? Why should you create a Social Media strategy? Because your customers are there. Now what are you doing that allows them to reach out to you?
