Day 6: Social Marketing: Ten Reasons to be Transparent
Written by Jaren Green | 22 April 2010
As we help our 10-Day Makeover clients experiment with Social Marketing, we emphasize two things: Trust is rare and Social Marketing builds trust.
As part of our Social Marketing Topic Center, we offer the following definition:
Social Marketing is the activity of building person-to-person relationships to grease the wheels of business. Social Marketing includes: (1) Networking and community participation to influence awareness and recommendations. And, (2) Personal interatcions for the purpose of building awareness, interest, trust, and transactions.
Social Marketing is all about transparency. Linkedin and Facebook are tools that help you to expose your history, your style, your likes, and other information to the world (or at least to your followers). In a world where it is difficult to trust others, Social Marketing helps you build that trust through transparency.
Ten Reasons to be Transparent
- Transparency decreases buyer or relationship anxiety
- It makes you more approachable
- It helps you to explain your complex offer
- People relate well to "the story" of your company
- Transparency allows people to lower their guard
- Transparency keeps you honest
- Your willingness to be trasparent will be reciprocated
- It helps you avoid surprising people later
- It provides details that people find interesting
- Transparency makes your company more human, more trustworthy
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