Marketing Revolution in the Social World — Open Designs

As we grow as a Company, it has become more and more important to explicitly define the core values from which we develop our culture, our brand and our business strategies. Identify these 10 core values:

1. Deliver WOW through service.
2. Embrace and drive change.
3. Create fun and a little weirdness.
4. Be adventurous, creative and open minded.
5. Pursue growth and learning.
6. Build open and honest relationships with communication.
7. Build a positive team and family spirit.
8. Do more with less.
9. Be passionate and determined.
10. Be humble.

“In the world of Social media relationships are the new currency”- Toby Bloomberg

It has been said many times that ‘It’s not what you know, it’s who you know’. Keep in mind that online social networking is a very relaxed and informal environment. We do business in a much more personal and friendly manner than we ever had in the past.

If you want to be an authority on a certain subject, then your best bet is to become a known blogger and a quality content curator. A curator is someone who shifts through volumes of other people’s content and cherry-picks the best to share with his or her audience. Being excellent at curation goes hand in hand with managing your reputation, since you are establishing yourself as a reliable source of information.

The great thing about thought leaders is that they express their thoughts in a way that creates more significant leadership status. People look at you and see you sharing information in a way that helps spur results in other’s lives and their businesses.

“We don’t have a choice on whether we do social media; the question is how well we do it.”- Erik Qualman, author of Socialnomics.

Given the fact that relationship marketing is one form or another has been around since the dawn of humans, it will continue to prevail- regardless of where technology goes. Online social media marketing has definitely made the world more connected; Face book in particular -as the largest online social network, allows us to create extraordinary results on all levels that affect the planet.

“ With social media comes great responsibility”- perhaps the biggest mistakes committed by businesses, personalities and brands in social media occur when people jump in to social networks blindly without establishing guidelines, a plan of action , a sense of why people communicate, an understanding of where people are congregating , how they will personify the brand online and the goals, objectives and metrics associated with participation.

Everything starts with education and the institution of policies to protect individuals and brands.

Defining the Rules of Engagement:

As the social web continues to emerge, establishing not only policies and guidelnes but also defining the rules of engagement will help shape proactive and reactive dialogues to benefit the business, brand, customer, peers and prospects.

• Participate where your presence is advantageous and mandatory; don’t just participate anywhere and everywhere.
• Concentrate participation where it will offer the greatest rewards for both sides.
• Observe the behavioral cultures within each network and adjust your outreach accordingly.
• Dig deeper to connect what transpires in the social web to your business objectives.
• Learn from each engagement.
• Act, don’t just listen and placate- do something.
• Earn connections through collaboration.
• Empower advocacy.
• Establish and nurture beneficial relationships online and in the real world as long as public perception and action is important to your business.
• Give back, reciprocate, acknowledge, add value and contribute where it makes sense.

Conclusion:

As a result of this blog post on embracing the principles, lessons and methodologies contained within, you have effectively pondered and assimilated the ethics of the new media movement that resonate with you today and will reverberate throughout your work tomorrow. We must strive for higher standards through innovation, accountability, purpose and the ongoing sharing of our knowledge to improve the foundation for new media literacy.

Originally published at https://www.opendesignsin.com on February 23, 2015.