To convert a prospect into a client is a special skill. Sometimes you get lucky and a company already has been contemplating the services you offer. Typically, however, a company hasn’t envisioned the various ways you can support it.
This is why the first thing we at the Jonathan Rick Group do when meeting a prospect is to contextualize our field. We begin not with who we are and what we do, but how to conceptualize Facebook and Twitter and LinkedIn and YouTube and so on. Instead of invoking lingo such as “content strategy,” “enterprise 2.0,” or “newsfeed optimization,” we present five simple slides on “how to think of social media” (see above).
For example, at this point everyone knows about Twitter. Yet rare is the company making genuinely strategic use of the channel—using its tweets, say, to generate leads, to showcase its services, to curate content. Once you put social media in these familiar contexts (sales, PR, branding), then the light bulb flashes on.
Indeed, only once someone understands what social media is can he appreciate its value—and yours.
Enjoy this post? There’s more where this came from on Twitter, where I write about social media all day long @jrick.
