Now is the time to innovate, not stick your head in the sand and wait for the storm to pass by.
That is the theme of my article on social media innovation in this quarter’s edition of Figaro Digital Magazine.
The takeaway thought from the article was that whilst budgets are being cut left, right and centre, that doesn’t mean that you should just bide your time and wait for the sales figures to look a little rosier before you start being creative again.
In fact, if you do that it will probably be too late. At least one of your competitors would have had the gumption to use this difficult time wisely by experimenting. As soon as the market picks up they will be able to break into a full stride whilst you’re still crouching to tie your laces.
You may be thinking that you can’t afford to experiment when your budgets are so low, but who said anything about spending big? You don’t even have to take big risks. You just need to do something different.
For instance, look at where you spend you budgets right now. Like the majority of marketers you’ve probably had to reduce budgets over this past year. What did you cut? Did you look at your activities and wonder what their return was? Did you keep some things because ‘we’ve always done that’?
It might be worth having a look again. It’s very easy to keep doing the same old things, but as the saying goes you can’t really expect a different outcome if you keep putting the same stuff in.
As noted in the article, you can do something very different for your company – and at little expense – if you can get involved in social media. It’s a wild frontier land at the moment, where the rules are fluid and the pitfalls and rewards are as diverse as the possibilities.
In essence, it’s an opportunity. You can shape, innovate or change. You can influence your company’s reputation, your can engage with a new breed of customer and you can discover incredible new ways to do business.
And you can do that without spending a penny.