Another brilliant observation from Chris Brogan:
Conn Fishburn from Yahoo gave me a great analogy for thinking about social media marketing when we spoke at IBM’s Research Headquarters in New York last year. He said, “Bring wine to the picnic.” In this case, Conn was talking about the idea that if you show up and try to market, people will be frustrated and will shut you out. Instead, if you bring something of value to people, they’ll be more likely to accept you…
Bring Wine to the Picnic
At this picnic called social media, what people seem to want the most is information they can use. The information might be entertaining, might help them with their job, might do something to give them a sense of value. Whatever the case, in the social space, people consider the sharing of information to be one form of ready relationship currency. Let’s talk about others.
10 Ways to Build Relationships Before You Ask for Anything
1. Comment on and reply to other people’s observations, posts, and ideas. (Sometimes, just retweeting someone’s status message in Twitter is a gesture that matters to people.)
2. Share good information freely, such as pointing to great blog posts or articles.
3. Make virtual introductions when you see obvious like-minded people who could do to know each other.
4. Create useful media like blog posts or ebooks or videos that help people.
5. Find mutual interest points and talk about them. (Bonus points to you if they’re off-topic from your business needs, like talking about the Red Sox or Barbecue.)
