Social Guerilla Marketing Long Term Battle: Building a Community
On the other side of the fence, in the offline world, regular people are being bombarded by us Social Media Guerilleros, and they’re slowly waking up to a world where the phone is a secondary tool and relationships are created and sustained online.
It’s a matter of time until our Guerilla transforms telephones into antiques.
But for offline people whose Facebook account is the ultimate experience with social media, the idea of building a community online may be a bit too much to handle.
Recently, my offline Guerilla introduced me to an offline professional to whom the phone was a fundamental tool. He had learned of my services and invited me to talk about using the internet to generate leads so he could – guess – CALL THEM.
Of course, he’s built success around this strategy and now wants to join the online world (even if it is with a offline mentality), but as our conversation goes from attraction marketing to pay-per-click to blogs, he starts to grasp the softer, more maleable side of online marketing.
I introduced him to the idea of using his knowledge and expertise to attract people to him – the Social Media Guerilla strategy, right?
Okay, maybe I didn’t introduce that to him, but I showed him infinite ways he could make his knowledge available to others and how, given the right tools, it could not only go VIRAL, but receive feedback from thousands of people that he’d NEVER be able to reach over the phone.
As I went on about content syndication, and creating a real social network, he started to realize how his social guerilla efforts would eventually lead to him becoming a knowledge provider, and people seeking him for advice.
For a second there, I think I saw him look at the phone with a sad look 
We settled on creating a blog, with the right tools to manage and keep a community active – autoresponder, feedburner, and active social networking profiles.
Now, he’s excited to take some time away from the phone to start producing high-quality content, and has already given me enough data to produce his first eBook.
We Could Plan For Social Media Marketing Domination, But…
He needed to understand that despite the amazing immediate benefits of taking an active role in social marketing (in his case, we’re going to blow his customers away by giving them all this content for free), building a community is a long term project.
Connie Bensen, author of the community strategist blog, writes about building a web 2.0 community – a community 2.0:
Community is a new channel for business. It offers new strategies for customer acquisition, customer satisfaction, retention, product development & the list goes on… but it takes a human touch!
Of course, as he churns out articles, reviews, and lots of data, his online market share expands. But in the long run, he’ll be solidifying his presence online and feeding a monstrous business engine, made of his own community.
I can’t wait until more offline people wake up and join the Guerilla!
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