I'm in a breakout session talking about blogger relations. The panel in this session have all successfully reached out into the blogger community to use the power of the blogger and his or her audience to spread their message.
The key takeaway I have from this session so far is, in my opinion, crucial: Each of these successful practicioners says they would rather reach out to a very small audience of people who are really interested and who are active with others who are interested, than to reach out to large audiences via bloggers with huge, but somewhat casual, followings.
Since we do insurance, not blogging. What's the connection?
Well, I'm listening right now to a very wise statement: He's talking about the organic development of social media practices. Neither individuals nor companies jump successfully jump into social media head first, full-immersion, no-holds-barred. They put their toes in first, testing the water and learning about the medium. As their knowledge grew, they waded in a bit further, trying not to get in over their heads but still heading for the deep end. Maybe, when we think about using social media in our internal or external efforts, whether for training, broker/admin communications and relationships, employee community building, or some purpose not yet identified, we're scared off by the deep water. If we go to the other end of the pool and start slow, we'll have time to learn as we go.
The sure thing is...if we don't get in the water somewhere, we'll be stuck on land forever.
What do you think?
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I feel like I am there, Linda. Thanks for the overview. Do you see me, like a squirrel stretched out trying to steal bird seed from a bird feeder, hanging above the ground, bird feeder swaying with my effort, while holding on by one tiny toenail? That holding on is my fear of the cost to implement social media (effort, resources) versus benefit. If I can wade slowly, I will likely get used to it!
ReplyDeleteWell, now there's a visual, Teresa.
ReplyDeleteInteresting presentation...we (Unum) have an opportunity to break some ground in the uncharted territory of social networking, but we need to move with a fair amount of, not caution and tentativeness, but thoughtfulness -to fit the medium with the message, and also to fit the medium to the audience.