The National Football League is in the middle of a lot of turmoil with a lockout, and looming uncertainty over whether it will even have a season this fall.
In the midst of the turmoil, we’ve heard from the likes of Adrian Peterson who related his experiences in the National Football League to modern day slavery. He’s not the first professional athlete to say something so out of touch. There was the NBA basketball player a few years back just trying to feed his family. I’m sure there are more examples as well.
Most of us don’t have the job security of having 20,000 plus people come to watch us work. We need to stay in touch with our customer base and make sure that we are identifying with those around us.
There is a great social media and marketing lesson in all of this. It’s essential to think like your customers. Your business and marketing efforts should be in perfect stride with your customer base. In a day and age where people are cutting back on their personal expenses, you don’t want to come across like a rich millionaire complaining about being poor. If you do come across this way, your customers may not relate. If they don’t relate, they probably won’t do business with you.
It’s up to you as the business owner to be able to relate to your customers. Find out what their interests are outside of your product and industry, and engage with them through social media. Talk about sports, or music, or a hobby that you may have in common. Even if they don’t need your product now, they will remember you in a few months when they do need your product or service.
Try to anticipate their questions. Find a question that a lot of people ask on discussion boards, and answer the question in a blog. Then provide links to the blog. This will help establish you as the expert in the field.
Picture yourself at a networking event every time you log into Facebook, Twitter, Linked In, or any of your other professional accounts. You need to be cultivating and developing relationships online, like you would offline.
When you develop these relationships, work hard to stay relevant and in touch with people, and your business should benefit.
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