Social Media has changed the world, pretty much everybody in the western world is now on social media and probably active on social media.

I can guarantee that Bombardier's customers are on social media and so are the people that would influence a Bombardier decision.

Now you may be thinking that, a Bombardier plane is a considered purchase, nobody is going to tweet and sell a plane.

(By the way, Gary Vee told me that Boeing sold a plane over Twitter.)

No, maybe not, but if the Bombardier sales person is in your network and they are sharing insightful and educational content (not adverts or corporate spam) then what is the most likely outcome?  You trust the guy and Bombardier will be your first choice, or at least on the short list.

(The the sale is down to execution).

The converse to that, is that you see content from a competitor and Bombardier is not on the shortlist.

In the Boeing example above, the client decided to use that channel to buy.  If the channel looks "corporate" the the assumption is it's a robot and not a person running the account.  Of course, people buy from people and not robots or corporations. 

Being relevant today is not about advertising spend, it's not about how many emails you send, it's not about attending conferences, it's not about cold calling.  In fact all of those things make you look irrelevant. 

Social is about showing you are an expert, it's about having a strong network, and an interlaced network with multiple employees, (sales, sales support, customer experience, maintenance) it's about sharing educating and insightful content.

If I'm going to buy a considered purchase, we will look at the options on-line, we will research on-line, we will look at the people we are interacting with on-line (and jump to conclusions) .... We want relationships, we want support, we want to be told things we don't know.

That will make you relevant today!