It’s never been easier – or more difficult – to reach your clients and prospects.
Remember the days before email? Texting? Facebook (come on, it’s only been eight years)? Twitter?
When you’re in the digital saucepan, it’s easy to forget that the water’s getting hotter. Bit by bit, the temperature changes, but so gradually, that we frogs slowly boil, blissfully unaware of the bigger picture.
We’ve never had so many channels to stay in touch – with friends, family and customers/prospects. But staying in touch in the virtual world often means high frequency and low commitment.
And that works both ways.
Just because one-to-many communication is now so easy doesn’t mean that each one of the many recipients pays any attention. Remember, the same channels are open to your competition, so your customers and prospects are under marketing fire from all sides.
It’s a problem that was constantly turning around in my mind as I watched Sherry Turkle’s 2012 TED talk Connected But Alone.
Her first talk, way back in 1996, was bubbling over with excitement about the possibilities of the digital age.
But reality, as ever, has got in the way of the dream, and she’s realised that it’s not all a one-way street of good news. In case you don’t have time to watch it, here are the highlights (for me, at least):
The comms revolution is taking us places we don’t necessarily want to go.
Connected devices change who we are and how we behave.
Email, texts and Facebook allow us to get closer to people, but to hide at the same time.
People can’t get enough of each other – at a distance.
Conversations have become scary: you can’t rewrite, edit, or filter your comments, emotions and reactions. Digital lets you do all these things.
People get the sense that no-one is listening to them.
Connection often, ironically, leads to isolation.
It’s time to revisit how we use technology, and to redefine how we connect with others in the real world.
It isn’t specifically aimed at business communication, but all of the lessons are equally applicable. As she spoke, here are some of the questions I was asking myself, and which you might ask yourself:
How do you really reach out to clients/prospects?
Can you create a real connection in a virtual world?
What can you do to make your tone more personal?
How can you engage in a more real way? Invite people to call? Include video clips or talking heads (yours, preferably) on your site?
How can you stop hiding behind the digital sofa and show yourself to your audience?
How can you simplify your language so people can see there’s a human behind the marketing message?
How easy is it for your clients and prospects to speak to a real live person?
How available are you when they have a problem?
How special and individual can you make them feel in a mass-communication age?
Do you listen as much as you should? As much as they’d like?
Connected But Alone is a fascinating talk, and as with all TED presentations, it’s less than 20 minutes (19:48 to be precise). If you’ve got the time, sit back, grab a virtual latte, and enjoy.
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