This blog is aimed at retail leaders and how the same 'Butterfly Effect' concept using free to use, free to access social media might just help you and your business come through this crisis.
If you're reading this blog there's a high probability you will be doing it from home on one social platform or other - just like millions of others around the world.
"The 'Butterfly Effect' is based on the idea that small things can have a non-linear impact on a complex system. The concept being that a butterfly flapping its wings can cause a typhoon, which isn't really true but a great metaphor for what's going on today".
As retail and countless other sectors have now felt the full and brutal brunt of this butterfly winged global pandemic we're seeing those with already weak balance sheets on the precipice of disaster.
Sadly it's taking with them the human element of employees, associated families and suppliers.
This is a retail landscape never seen before - not even during WW2!
This shit is real, and for millions around the world extremely scary. It's impacting every single person on the planet along with businesses that once thought they had time to adjust and assumed they were impenetrable.
The time for leaders to reset the way we think about doing business is most definitely a a major immediate business imperative.
With repeated headlines around household name retailers in distress we don't seem to be hearing that much from the leaders of these companies.
Other than telling us that they're closing, they seem to be particularly absent on the 'free to use' social platforms everyone (including their employees and suppliers) around the world are now accessing at a much greater rate than ever before
Prior to this pandemic I heard many excuses from leadership teams as to why they don't have a strong social footprint, but none of them seem to stack up.
They still think that social media is something the guy with the beard, or the girl with the tattoo in marketing do - so it's no wonder you rarely see a CMO or others in the leadership team produce regular blogs, which for me is further evidence to support the view that they don't have a clue about social media and what a 'content led' strategy really is.
There are 3 key pillars associated with a really strong social media presence in the business world so if your leadership team aren't 'leading' it's no surprise the social proof is missing from the rest of the organisation;
- A relatable personal profile - based on 'who' you are, not what you do.
- The ability to build relationships - grow your network in a social way with a business objective and most important;
- The ability to be able to share what you know - consistent creation, production and sharing of knowledge about the subject matter you have experience with.
Every company I benchmark against all 3 of these fall way short, personal profiles on LinkedIn are still way off the mark, people still don't publish a good photo (or make it visible), they are yet to truly understand the potency of the platform for personal growth, development and branding.
And very few of the CMO's I talk to rarely produce a personal blog. So, very much definitely a case of not 'walking the social talk'.
As CEO's and CFO's look to establish even tighter fiscal control it will come as no surprise that marketing are not going to see the budgets they enjoyed pre-covid, which obviously is good for the bean counters and business survival but at what cost to the business revenues? This is certainly a double edged sword for leadership teams that are looking to kick start revenues with less in the tank so to speak - creativity from your CFO has never been needed greater than today!.
https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/4-low-cost-ideas-get-consumers-back-high-street-stephen-sumner/
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