Comments on: Social Media Foot in the Door

By: Ben

Ben — Fri, 18 Sep 2009 15:56:52 +0000

Hello!

Speaking of Social Media, we saw your post regarding Cheeseburger in Paradise on Twitter. We were wondering if you wouldn’t mind sharing your ideas with us on how to make CIP better for everybody! Please email me at bendessing@cheeseburgerinparadise.com

Thanks for your Time.

Warm Regards,
Cheeseburger in Paradise

By: rantersparadise

rantersparadise — Wed, 02 Sep 2009 20:27:47 +0000

Social Media Foot in the Door from @freshpeel http://bit.ly/y4dko

This comment was originally posted on Twitter

By: Mandy_Vavrinak

Mandy_Vavrinak — Sat, 01 Aug 2009 05:18:23 +0000

Social Media Foot in the Door http://tinyurl.com/mozpaz

This comment was originally posted on Twitter

By: John Phillips

John Phillips — Fri, 24 Jul 2009 15:56:40 +0000

I would say another opportunity for brands is using Twitter Search. It costs nothing but time, no signup involved, and is a great way to listen. One mistake that I’ve seen companies (both big and small) make with social media is jumping right into the conversation before listening to what’s being said first. Twitter Search is a good way to listen first.

To address what Tiffany mentioned in getting through the noise, 1.) be relevant to your consumers, and 2.) have a good product. If you lack those, you won’t be successful anywhere. The best social media strategy can’t help a poor product. If you provide value and relevance to your consumers, you will get through the noise one way or another.

By: Chris Wilson

Chris Wilson — Fri, 24 Jul 2009 14:55:32 +0000

Tiffany,

I think you’ve pointed out a fundamental difference between the the foot-in-the-door of the door-to-door salesman and a social media foot-in-the-door. In social media there is a lot of noise. Providing consumers opportunities to connect with a brand in a small and easy way is half of it. Then it is up to the brand to provide value to consumers, something that cuts through the noise, and ultimately something that leads them closer to taking a desired action somewhere in the future.

Your comments also made me think about how foot-in-the-door of the past was heavy, in your face, push marketing. But a foot-in-the-door in social media is a core part of a pull marketing strategy. Instead of hitting people in the face with a sales pitch day one, a foot-in-the-door provides consumers a way to become more familiar with a brand and maybe even develop some sense of trust with the brand, greasing the tracks for bigger buy-in down the road.

You’ve really gotten my wheels turning now. Another value that a foot-in-the-door can provides is a word of mouth trigger. Not everyone is who says yes, will become a customer, but that doesn’t mean that someone who becomes a Facebook Fan, for instance, doesn’t have value to the brand. This person could very well be the bridge introducing the brand to another hub of people in a different circle. Even loose connections have value.

As always, thanks for your comments!

By: Tiffany Monhollon

Tiffany Monhollon — Fri, 24 Jul 2009 13:37:48 +0000

Great concept, and I agree that it ties in really well with social media. The big issue to me is that there is a very low commitment level to loose connections in social media, because there is no real “cost” involved, other than perhaps, in the case of Twitter (and perhaps Facebook, FriendFeed), an incremental time/opportunity cost of having to filter more information the more connections you have. In some ways, this does parallel over to the salesman in your living room, the problem is, in social media, there might be a thousand salesmen in my living room at any given moment, so that means each of them has less impact on me…

So the real question to me is, in applying this concept, how do you make your foot-in-the-door efforts in social media really and truly in that consumer or client’s living room? Or maybe, if everyone else is in the living room, how do you get to the heart of the home? I’d call this meaningful connections, perhaps.

I think that is really important, especially as more organizations and voices begin to add to the mix. As a consumer myself, filtering is becoming really important to me, so that’s my reflection on this concept. I also think content matters a lot. I am going to pay most attention to the salesman in my living room who is solving a problem I have.

What do you think?