On balance I'm a solutions orientated guy, so I try to not just provide stories based on my bias but also to help stimulate the retail industry (and others) to consider ideas from other areas that might just get the revenue dial moving in the right direction.

As the pandemic hit the behaviour of all of us literally altered overnight. Staying and working from home became odd at first but for some it was also quite comforting as they got used to the reduced commute stress and increased quality family time.

As the 'work from home' mantra became the consistent message we along with millions of other people not only increased our online shopping behaviour it seems many people started to find their 'social media' voice. 

Some of them in desperate need of work, and some working to remain 'front of mind' by generating stories for others to learn from.

And at last we started to better understand that this 'social' medium is whole lot more than just a place to share the latest client or award win, and for some we started to recognise it wasn't just something that guy with the beard or the girl with tattoos in marketing did.

Today we see lots of companies still producing 'White Papers' in order to present themselves as an 'authority' in their sector and market.

Many of these 'corporate' papers require you and me to exchange our contact information in order to be able to 'download' the content contained therein, which quite frankly seems a very odd thing to me.

In the same way business set about entering into cyberspace with a website are we seeing a similar shift in behaviour from consumers and potential clients with the use of social platforms?

eCommerce comes in many flavours of 'platforms' with the end consumer not caring a jot about the tech that sits behind all of these as their focus is purely selfish and the only consideration is the experience your brand may or may not deliver. 

As publishers and B2B moved into the same space they all carried the same offline advertise and promote mentality.

The answer lies with socially savvy changing behaviours that you, me, your potential prospect, and probably your nearest competitor are doing. 

The analog days of 'push' marketing are over as digital and socially savvy professionals become more discerning and as marketers roll out more sophisticated content that’s aligned to personas and stages of the buyer’s journey. 

The competition have upped their game.

If I'm in the early stages of doing my due diligence on certain products and services the last place I'm going to right now is your website,and the more barriers you create to discourage me from learning more about you, your company, your employees and products its likely we aren't going to have any kind of commercial relationship. 

Social is about being, well social. So how about unbundling your 'gated' content and giving me access to your 'whitepaper' info if its that good?