Are We Asking the Right Questions?

2010 has been a whirlwind year of social media topics, strategies, engagement etc.  I have had numerous conversations with all kinds of businesses and the simplest question that always comes into play is how does this all work? That may be such a short simple question but it really needs to be one of many we start working through.

When we reflect on major decisions in our life are we not reminded of the number of questions we ask ourselves?  Whether it's choosing a soul mate, purchasing a home or selecting a career choice we work through a series of questions within ourselves in order to validate our decision or decisions we are making.  How is that some of us have seemed to stop doing that for our businesses?  Why are we looking at business as just mere transactions and statistical data? Are those really the only questions we need to be looking at?

With the launch of social media marketing, networking, and customer service, I have not come across too many companies that are really asking themselves the serious questions in relation to their business model and overall brand identity.  One of the topics that come up very often at our team meetings is our overall image.  We ask ourselves: How does our network perceive us? Does our overall brand identity truly define what we do? In using social media tools has it allowed us to have a better relationship with our customers? Has the level of interaction precipitated offline conversations that have drawn new customers to us? Are we participating in some level of social media outreach because we think it is working or can we correlate interactions with positive experiences?

Notice how all of these questions were not necessarily wrapped around analyzing data. Don't get me wrong we do analyze data but not at the expense of forgetting that we deal with people, emotions, changes, decisions all of which cannot be calculated on a spreadsheet.  Many times our answers to certain situations are I don't know. How humbling is that?  When you can honestly voice that what does it lead to?  Hopefully, it will lead to asking the right questions.

I would love to hear your thoughts on this topic.  What paths do you take in order to ask the right questions and understand what really makes your business tick?

Written by Jonathan Saar