Guest post
If I was asked to the give myself a score, out of ten, on my knowledge of online marketing and commerce, I would probably opt for five.
I am by no means an expert, and indeed, ‘experts’ in any field of endeavor generally pride themselves on their thirst for knowledge and openness to new ideas. I can also safely say I am not a rookie, either, so I will settle for an average mark, because there are some pretty smart people out there doing some amazing things online.
Something happened this week, however, that made me reevaluate that self-assessment, and it was all because of a casual tweet.
A very well known and highly successful businessman had just shared the link to one of his companies websites, so, out of idle curiosity, I took a look. Now, the site itself was a minor work of art, indeed it was a thing of beauty. But it had, to me at least, a major flaw, there was something missing.
As gorgeous as it was to behold, there was not one single element of social media attached to it. No icons requesting a ‘follow’, no reference to a facebook fanpage, nothing.
Deciding that what his company actually had online was a glossy brochure, rather than a modern, interactive website, I politely pointed out what I considered to be the flaws in this otherwise brilliant creation, not really expecting an answer.
To my surprise, however, he did answer. What was even more surprising is, he couldn’t see the problem, even when it was politely pointed put to him
He didn’t know what he didn’t know.
He is a highly successful old school businessman, up to date enough to have a personal twitter account, but not canny enough to transfer that method of social branding to his businesses. He is probably unaware how extraordinarily powerful a social media strategy can be, and how inexpensive it is when compared to traditional forms of marketing.
Of course he is, that’s not is business.
But it is your business, at least, it is if you consider yourself to be a student of internet marketing.
So, it’s your job to educate people like that in your neck of the woods. And the good news for you is, the vast majority of traditional businesses not only do not have a social media strategy, they don’t have the first idea how to get one.
You see, it is easy for those of us who spend an inordinate amount of time keeping up with the latest trends in internet marketing to be fooled into thinking that the population at large has similar grasp of things. Easy that is, until you casually mention your favorite to wordpress plugin to someone, and they have that look that say’s, ‘can you repeat that, this time in English?”
Now that sounds to be like too good an opportunity to be missed.
So even if you believe yourself to be an internet marketer of only ‘average’ ability, there is an awful lot you could teach the business community in your immediate area, and what is more, chances are they would pay you handsomely for that knowledge.
