Part Three of a series detailing my impressions of Blog Indiana 2011.

There is no B2B or B2C. It’s P2P

Randy Clark‘s presentation at Blog Indiana 2011 was described as how his company (TKO Graphix) won a nearly $2M contract due to a vehicle wrap photo on flickr. But more importantly, the photo was only the first step in the relationship. Randy describes how the relationship developed in this video.

Click for video transcript

Randy is a champion of using social media to build relationships. He says, “You have to be a human being talking to another human being.” Truly a poster child for – There is no B2B or B2C. It’s all Person 2 Person.

Mark Schaefer outlines the value of P2P in his book, Tao of Twitter.  It’s the key to Mark’s three Taos (principles):  Attracting Targeted Followers, Providing Meaningful Content and Offering Authentic Helpfulness. I don’t think Randy and Mark know each other. They should because they live these principles.

How has relationship building through social media helped you?

I look forward to hearing from you.

– Don Kincaid

September’s Social Media Breakfast Fort Wayne centered on diving into the best of Blog Indiana 2011. Amber Recker, Lisa Wylie, Samantha Sawyer  and I were led by Kevin Mullett  to discover the key takeaways.

Video Transcript

Randy Clark: First, you engage with people, I guess first you get out there and get on the social networks,
but you engage with people, and then you just have conversations and you talk with people.
And if we’re talking about Twitter, you know, it’s not all about promotion; it’s attraction, not promotion.
For example, the social media works TKO that we used at BIN started out as a Flickr photo
that was posted, and a fellow who does similar work as
TKO out of St. Louis saw it, liked it, started a conversation with Josh Humble.
And they conversed on social networks, back and forth, to the point where our representative that covers that area said
“Hey, you know, I’d like to meet the guy, too.
Even though we’re in the same business, you never know”.
and went over on the next trip to St. Louis, and took him to lunch.
An advertising agency approached our friend Jeff in St. Louis, excuse me,
on social networks, and just conversed.
and had a job that was bigger than he could handle,
They needed someone with the installation staff who could travel the country,
with the logistics behind deidentifying 200,
or 4,000 vehicles, 221 locations, and, and installing.
We could do that.
He set up the meetings, we had several meetings with them.  It ended up being an almost two-million dollar contract that we had, across the country.
But it started out with a Flickr photo, you know, but it didn’t end there.
See, I think some people miss a couple of things:
Part of that story is; yes, you had to be out there,
then you had to engage, and then you had to converse,
and, you just had to be a human being talking to another human being,
because then you made a friend.
We’re  B2B, and I think a lot of times in B2B,
as you were talking earlier, Don, people think you’re connecting with this business, or that business.
Stop and think!  When you have connected, it was probably because you knew somebody,
or were introduced to somebody.
You got your foot in the door because Bob knew Joe and introduced you.
Isn’t that what happened?
It wasn’t that you went to ABC whatever company,
and knocked in another cold call, and that can happen.
So you met somebody, became a friend, were introduced.  And he introduced his friends.
So, the first point was, you gotta engage,
the second point is that it’s meeting people, talking to people,
human beings, and, again, it’s Don (who) said earlier,
It’s not B2B, but P2P: people to people.
And the third point I want to make is, when we do share these stories,
and we all have had–, excuse me, any of us that work in any social media
have had non-believers and detractors.
“Why are you doing that?”, “Where’s the ROI?”, “It doesn’t work”
As much as we want to talk about how it helps with SEO,
and how it’s making more of an impact on your website,
and we need these stories to be able to share with people.
So, when you have these social media successes, the third point I want to make to everybody is
Put it out there, let people know about it.
Let Don know that here is somebody who had this success dealing with HR people looking for new positions.