In my role as Social Media and Knowledge Management consultant for KANA I often get asked “What’s the point of social media?”

How is it people are able to build such strong relationships and trust when they often can’t see or even ever meet the people they interact with? Why is social media such a powerful wave in our culture, driving everything from social groupings, to consumer buying decisions, to product development plans?

Basically, it’s about TRUST.

Because of the virtual nature of social media/networking, building trust is vital. You can’t look someone in the eye whilst giving them a firm handshake nor can you see their smile so you have to find other ways to build trust.

But, before you are trusted, you must trust others. You have to trust first. It’s the way of being social. Social media experts like Jeremiah Owyang and Guy Kawasaki openly share much of what they know via social media because they know that everyone benefits from being open and trusting. We can learn a lot from them. eBay is a social media site that exists entirely on trust; I trust you to send me what I’ve bid for, you trust me to pay. We trust each other to leave positive feedback!

People trust people and word of mouth is the best recommendation anyone can have. Let me explain it like I’d do to a young child.

Child: “What’s social media?”

Me: “It’s a way of meeting people you don’t know or finding out things and sharing with other people or chatting to your friends who aren’t here with you.”

Child: “Why does that matter?”

Me: “Well, when you’ve done something special, like riding a horse for the first time, you like to share it with your friends. So if you can share that special thing with lots of people who also ride horses they can share with you things about riding that you might not know yet. You can become friendly with other people who like the same things as you.”

Child: “What will happen if I don’t?”

Me: “Nothing but by sharing we all get the chance to learn from each other. Lots of people around the world are already doing this so you’ll be joining in with them.

Imagine that you go on holiday and find lots of fun things to do. With social media you can tell other people what’s good or bad about these things so that they can decide if they want to go to. Because you’ve really been there it means that they believe you more than they might believe the holiday place people who just tell you that the place it nice. It’s called trust. People trust you because you actually went there and told them what it was really like.  We can do the same for lots of things before we try them or buy them. The internet and social media makes it easy for us to do this.”

Child: “Can’t I just ask my friends or my Dad?”

Me: “Of course, but with social media we can also ask people we don’t know yet because we’ve found something that we both like (or have in common). It connects us to people all over the world in a good way.”

In a presentation I created recently, ‘The Social Customer’, I explain how the social customer operates and how to get started in social media. I recommend you begin by listening if you’ve not gone ‘social’ yet. Use search engines to find content you are interested in. Don’t just use Google or Bing. Try searching YouTube or Slideshare where you’ll find people have posted lots of interesting content. Did you know that YouTube search is 2nd only to Google?

When you get the hang of things through listening and learning, start to share something. If you are interested in cycling for example, try searching for this on Twitter or YouTube or facebook. You’ll be surprised how many others have similar interests. If you follow a link that leads you to something you value, try sharing it with your friends and followers, remembering to credit the person who led you to it. On Twitter this is known as ‘retweeting’. If you have an opinion about a product or an article, try adding a review or a comment to share with others.

Understanding the value of social media is important to businesses. B2C and B2B companies need to know what’s being said about them and actively listen and engage. With billions of pieces of content being created every day this is becoming quite a challenge. Communities and forums can make or break a brand.

At KANA we understand this need and have invested, through our acquisition of Overtone, in a powerful tool to help businesses measure and track meaningful insight and sentiment from customer feedback and social media. Our Service Experience Management (SEM) platform enables customers to listen to feedback from agents as well as customers so that the agile Design, Orchestrate, Listen cycle can continue to keep the company’s processes and content fresh and accessible. By understanding the customer at every touch point, these tools can truly transform a business.

To find out more about KANA please visit us at www.kana.com. We’re listening.

Related posts:

1. Is Your Social Media Strategy Growing Up?