The word 'social' and the word 'business' seem to many, words that should never be put together. The words seem polar opposites, the words seem to reflect two different environments…one which is about informality and fun….the other about professional and formal.
Nowadays just even writing those words as distinct opposites seems strange as why on earth can't be fun? Why on earth does professional have to mean formal?
But still a perception out there is that being social means socialising and socialising is nice but it doesn't pay the bills….
True but there is a reason – or even reasons – why people like myself don't talk about socialising, instead talk about being social…here are my main reasons
- Social in this context means human not unprofessional.
- Social here means reaching out and connecting with an aim to provide value…not socialising without a reason.
- Social here means seeing the customer-business relationship as a two way value exchange not a one way transaction.
- Being social needs focus. It needs you to go to communities and 'being you', it needs you to actively focus on what value you can bring, it needs you to focus on creating the conversation and not just socialising for the sake of it.
So being social has that professional approach……it has focus, it has value…and most of all it adds the human touch to the very business process!<style="text-align:justify;/p>