One of the early statements about social business was “It’s not about you”.  This was in light of the fact that business that made the move to social media often did it in the same way they approached any marketing tool – advertorial, boring and trumpeting their own successes. The inevitable result of this was small communities and no social success.

While the social business arena is maturing and more and more brands are starting to get it right it is, in truth, still new and we’re all finding our way. But the title of this article remains sacrosanct.  It is not about you.

Anyone who really takes the time to think about that statement will realise the massive implication those 5 words will have on business. In the past 100 years of business any foray into the public domain has always been about you: This is who we are! This is why we are great!  This is why you will love us! Look how clever/generous/brilliant we are! Shout it loud, shout it in lights!

Social business now requires the undoing of 100 years of thinking.  That doesn’t come overnight.  Yet overcome it business must.

What does “it’s not about you” mean? Thinking of any personal conversation. It goes well when you are interested in what the other person has to say, you value their opinion, you ask for their input and you acknowledge what they say.  When you speak you encourage, you validate, you offer assistance. Whether on Twitter, Facebook, blogs – highlight the successes of your customers, inform them and respond to their interaction with you.

How does this work practically? Like and interact with other brand pages, re-tweet your customers or affiliated brands where appropriate, answer questions, highlight comments that are insightful.

In short. Be Smart. Be Engaged. Be Human.

In the Shawshank Redemption starring Morgan Freeman and Tim Robbins there is a fabulous voice over done only as Morgan can where he talks about the escape of Tim’s character.  Referring to Geology he says “…it’s a study of time and pressure. That’s all it takes really, time and pressure”.

This has become something of a mantra for me in reference to social business.  Granted the time we are talking about now is more like months rather that the millenia required to carve out canyons.  But the principle remains.  If you are going to build a social business that works, that engages and has a loyal, contributing community it will take two things: Time and patience.

We’ve all seen campaigns that are “viral”.  Going back to the geology analogy, these are earthquakes – sudden, violent and unpredictable. And rare.  While we all hope to “go viral” our efforts, long term, will benefit from time and patience.

It is vital to take the time to understand who your audience is and plan your interaction.  Then take the time to understand the platforms you will be using (Facebook, Twitter, Pinterest, etc.).  When you do this you will know that your content and means of engagement are right, that you are doing something that will appeal to your intended audience.

Once you done all of that, now it’s time to be patient.

Social success is built through influence and credibility.  These valuable commodities are built through patience.  Having the patience to consistently and transparently engage.  As you do this, so your network, your community begins to trust you and rely on you.  And so it grows. Once you’re credible your message begins to be organically shared and you will attract a wider audience.  If you’re lucky somewhere along the line an earthquake will strike and viral sharing will explode your growth.  However it may never happen but the same results will be obtained by your consistent voice over a longer period of time.

If you’re in business and intend to succeed you will have the long term view.  The rewards of social community built through time and patience carries ample reward.

Time and patience.

Two quick cool things I discovered this week, one on Twitter and the other on Facebook.

The first I discovered courtesy of a tweet from Ogilvy who had a social media masterclass last week, hosted by Melissa Attree.  After the event they sent out a “TweetDoc”.  This is a very cool service, which I discovered has been around for 3 years already! Essentially it’s a way to document all the tweets for an event.

We had our first public @ogilvydma Masterclass of the year on Friday. Here’s a handy tweetdoc on what went down #ODMASM ow.ly/8KFeA

— Ogilvy Johannesburg (@OgilvyJoburg) January 30, 2012

Go to TweetDoc.com, enter a hashtag and it will produce a PDF document of all the tweets during the event.  A very cool addition for an event, giving an overview of the trending words during the event and all those who participated in the tweetfest.

Here’s the first TweetDoc I made for the Unique Speaker Bureau speaker showcase events I presented at on Monday and Tuesday.

The second bit of coolness I read about in a Mashable article.  Called Timeline Movie maker you can make a one minute movie of your life as gleaned from your Facebook timeline.  You can choose from a few pre-selected music clips and you can take out any images you don’t want shown and then, of course, you can share it to Facebook.

So have a little fun and unleash the short movie maker in you. Make your movie here

If you’ve discovered any cool social media tools/gadgets/apps please be sure to let me know!