Is Social Media the New Grail?

“New Grail? No. I see the new medias as a higher octave marketing tool; very fluid, living, and real-time. It provides a fabulous tool for the marketer to get in depth information on prospects, clients and competitors. It reduces (if not totally eliminates) the distance that previously existed between a company and its market, and enhances the opportunity to create truly targeted marketing and gather real-time client knowledge FAST. For illustration, think about how we developed relationships in the 70, 80's and 90's.

In my case, we had what was called a "Customer Visit Program". This was a sales tool for both prospects and customers. If an Account Executive wanted to have a prospect or client visit corporate, they had to show detailed reason why this visit was needed - the purpose of the visit and their level of knowledge concerning this prospect or customer's needs. It was my job to pull together all of the internal talent, i.e. product development and engineering, customer support and the executives in the corner offices.

No two visits were the same. The CVP was a valued investment on the part of the company and treated respectfully. In advance of the visit - in addition to providing backgrounds on the company, the key individuals who were coming in, their specific areas of responsibility and expertise, the history with us or our competitors, what our objective was, what our competitors were doing, what sites could we bring them to demonstrate - real time - our products and capabilities - we met with each of the corporate participants. If it was an international organization or government ministry - we learned about the culture, the protocols and differentiators.

We provided Executive Briefings - and the corporate representatives understood what was expected of them and the significance of their presence and credibility at the table.

The new medias make this type of knowledge gather-and-share painless - literally abbreviating the process and has increased the volume on knowing your market, prospect, client or competition. It further enhances a company to speak in the vernacular of their audience - and leaves little wiggle room for not knowing your market and the perception of you and your product. This is a good thing.”