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We are at an incredibly important time in the evolution of \u201crelationship commerce\u201d (buying from people you know and trust).\u00a0 This is the time when our actions will decide if \u201crelationship commerce\u201d ends up as simply a phrase on a list of buzz words, or becomes an effective \u2013 and meaningful — way of doing business worldwide.<\/p>\n
The deciding factor will be whether or not enough brands and marketers are willing to go beyond just talking about relationships \u2026 to actually building and sustaining those relationships with consumers, peers, employees, and others in their social graph.<\/p>\n
How many of us believe in the business value of relationships enough to put in the effort required to turn a one-time contact into an ongoing meaningful interaction?\u00a0 How many of us even believe that \u201cbusiness value\u201d and \u201cauthentic relationships\u201d even belong in the same sentence??\u00a0 I do, because I have seen this play out time and time again.<\/p>\n
As CMO of e.l.f. Cosmetics<\/a> (EyesLipsFace.com) from 2008-2010, I pioneered a program to develop and utilize blogger relationships to exponentially increase and sustain the e.l.f. brand visibility, and because of the blogger energy, talent, and networks,\u00a0 the program provided the e.l.f. brand with a unique approach toward not just beauty, but also accessibility<\/em>, interactivity<\/em> and consumer engagement<\/em>.\u00a0\u00a0 At that time, the jury was still out on the business value of social media, but the success of this program confirmed for e.l.f. (and a few other previously skeptical businesses) that building relationships with consumers is absolutely of value to the company.<\/p>\n That e.l.f. experience is what formed my ROR (Return on Relationships)<\/a> philosophy, and with each conference I attend, each new interaction I have with bloggers, and all the stories I hear and see about the impact of social media in influencing purchases\u2026 I see confirmation that it really is all about relationships.\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 The key to continued success for any brand\/retailer\/etailer is building relationships and identifying with the customer.<\/p>\n So how do we create those relationships quickly so we can move on to other things?\u00a0 WE CAN\u2019T.\u00a0 And if we WANT to move on quickly away from a consumer relationship focus, we might as well not even make the effort.\u00a0 Relationships take time and effort to build (believe me, with over 60,000 Twitter followers and almost 3,000 Facebook friends, I know!)<\/em>, and we must have a real desire to commit our resources to building and sustaining those consumer relationships.\u00a0 That\u2019s the only way you will see a high ROR.<\/p>\n To build relationships online, you (as a brand or individual) have to offer value in return.\u00a0 How?\u00a0 Following are my top 3 focus areas for building relationships online:<\/strong><\/p>\n 1.\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 <\/strong>Relevance: <\/strong><\/strong><\/p>\n No matter how perfectly or brilliantly worded your message is, it will not make an impact if the content itself doesn\u2019t matter to (isn\u2019t relevant to)<\/em> your audience.\u00a0 <\/strong>First think about and first address what matters most to your audience<\/strong>.\u00a0 Give them a platform to show you what they need, want, are interested in, and expect.\u00a0 Whatever matters most to them<\/em> should become what matters most to you<\/em>!<\/p>\n 2.\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 <\/strong>Engagement: <\/strong><\/p>\n Start by asking (relevant) questions and proposing (relevant) ideas, and you can begin to engage<\/strong> your followers in such a way to give them the ability and reason to respond. Then when they do respond, interact<\/strong> with them to solidify your relationship, lest it fade away. Directly acknowledge their response, ask follow-up questions and share their insights with others. Follow me on Twitter (@tedrubin) and you\u2019ll see what I mean. The more responsive you are to your audience, the more responsive they\u2019ll be to you. That\u2019s the kind of engagement that builds and sustains relationships.<\/strong><\/p>\n 3.\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 <\/strong>Service: <\/strong><\/p>\n Ask your consumers \u201cHow can I serve you?\u201d \u2013 and mean it!\u00a0 They will recognize in a heartbeat if you are simply trying to get<\/em> something from them \u2013 and they will not stick around.\u00a0 I\u2019m not saying you aren\u2019t allowed to want anything from your consumers, simply that there must be a give<\/em> to go along with every take<\/em>.\u00a0\u00a0 If you truly want to make an impact, aim to always put more energy and attention in your \u201cgive\u201d column than in your \u201ctake\u201d column.\u00a0 It will<\/em> pay off. \u00a0It will give you a high Return on Relationship<\/p>\n Consider the impact brands and marketers can have on the global economy \u2026 and international relations \u2026 if we all commit to seeing each consumer as an opportunity for relationship rather than just an opportunity for a sale.\u00a0 The sale will be a natural outcome of many of the relationships, and in the process, true interconnections can be formed in a way that brings together great minds, great ideas, and great products.\u00a0 The possibilities for exponential Return on Relationship<\/a> is endless!<\/p>\n Don\u2019t let \u201crelationship currency\u201d fade into a buzzword list \u2013 commit your resources to building consumer relationships as you Think Holistic, Act Personal.<\/p>\n Ted Rubin<\/p>\n \u00a0<\/em><\/p>\n Originally posted at <\/em>Think Holistic Act Personal<\/em><\/a><\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" We are at an incredibly important time in the evolution of \u201crelationship commerce\u201d (buying from people you know and trust).\u00a0 This is the time when our actions will decide if \u201crelationship commerce\u201d ends up as simply a phrase on a list of buzz words, or becomes an effective \u2013 and meaningful — way of doing … Read more<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[137,7],"tags":[1370,1458,1521,1523,530,1522,480,479,566,3,1525,1524],"class_list":["post-3719","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-all-posts","category-tedrubin","tag-ronr","tag-tedrubin-2","tag-act-personal","tag-eyeslipsface","tag-relationship-commerce","tag-relationship-currency","tag-return-on-relationship","tag-ror","tag-social-marketing","tag-ted-rubin","tag-thap","tag-think-holistic-act-personal"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.thesocialcmo.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3719","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.thesocialcmo.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.thesocialcmo.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thesocialcmo.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thesocialcmo.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3719"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/www.thesocialcmo.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3719\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3722,"href":"https:\/\/www.thesocialcmo.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3719\/revisions\/3722"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.thesocialcmo.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3719"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thesocialcmo.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3719"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thesocialcmo.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3719"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}