Some of the less-than-wild late nights I had in college were spent in all-night study sessions the night before a big exam, drinking coffee by the pot and furiously trying to memorize everything I should have learned in the semester prior in one last-ditch attempt.
While the tactics were questionable, the results were mixed. I probably got better grades than I deserved on some exams, and bombed others. But, most of us cramming in those late night sessions did reasonably well.
Unfortunately, most challenges in business don’t come in the form of a written test. They come in the form of an ongoing series of pop-quizzes that count on your permanent brand record. And that’s exactly how it is with audience development online. You can’t solve it all in one night. You can’t cram community development.
Why is this important? Here are some scenarios where this might have an impact on your organization:
When bad press rears it’s ugly head and you’ve got to respond
… but you don’t have a legitimate content platform and active social engagement on which to respond. So you have to start from scratch and hope the conversation is quiet enough that you can find your voice and others don’t upstage you.
When something needs to be announced
… that genius product you developed in your last meeting is really going to put your organization on the map! But you’re totally off the radar without an active social presence where you can tell your biggest fans first and use connections with industry voices to get the word out about something new.
It’s one thing to show up unannounced (like everyone does when they first get started), but it’s an entirely different thing to show up unannounced with an announcement.
When your customer relationship is purely transactional
… if people only seek out your organization when they need something: a new printer, a home loan, or a medical diagnosis, for example, then you’ve probably got a lot of dead air time with your customers where you run the risk of fading to irrelevance.
In all cases, businesses need to start early and engage often to earn traction in search engines, in email inboxes, in social media, and in the minds of prospects and customers.
You’ve got to make a down payment on community before you can take out a loan.
[Image: Nazareth College]
