The Ultimate Technology

Lots of folks in the tech space spend an awful lot of time on social media.  They think about it, design new products to enable it, figure out business plans to market using it, plot ways to make money off of it – it’s a big deal!  to a certain extent, I’m one of those folks, since a number of my clients are in the social space and even the ones that aren’t really invested in it want to know more.  That means that I think about it a lot as well and I want to share a thought I had about it that I think points everyone in the right direction.

Social media at its core is about relationships.  The people in the space talk about relationships, engagement, conversations – you’ve heard all the buzzwords.  Here’s the thing though.  Relationships don’t come from a landing page with perfect conversion scores (although that’s not a bad thing to have!) nor do they come from following 1,000 people on social sites hoping that a good percentage of them will follow you back so you can broadcast your messages to them.

Real relationships are started by looking people in the eyes.  Someone buys someone else a drink or a cup of coffee.  Do you really think that the 125,000 or so people who attended last week’s CES were all there to see the latest handsets?  Many were, but I’ll bet you all of them were really there to shake some hands, exchange some business cards and begin to establish or renew real relationships which can then continue virtually.  According to Exhibitor Magazine, trade show exhibitors spent over $260 on each person with whom they had a face to face conversation, which is $100 more per person than what it cost them for people who just entered their exhibits.  Maybe that’s a way to quantify the value of the personal interaction but I think that’s way too simple.  Almost every conference I’ve ever attended has “networking time” – a cocktail hour, a pre-lunch mingle time, call it what you will.  This is the ultimate technology because this is what fosters the relationships we maintain digitally.

I don’t know about you but most of the connections I have on LinkedIn and Facebook are people I met in person or over the telephone prior to connecting with them digitally.  In fact, I’m wary of connecting with anyone I haven’t met in real life.  Twitter, for some reason, is different, although lately I’ve noticed a ton of people following you, letting yo follow back, and then unfollowing you to build their own lists.  Speak to the value of the vetted relationship, I guess.

My mantra is don’t confuse the tools with the business.  Don’t confuse something that’s a fabulous way to maintain lots of relationships with the ultimate tech that builds them.  It’s not high-tech that does it – it’s high touch.