Nate Riggs: Social Business Strategies; communication, social web strategies, & passion in Columbus, Ohio.

Twitter is an amazing tool.  It allows you to meet and develop relationships with people you wouldn’t normally know from Adam.  That’s how I met Bryan, and then Dave.  By now, you may have heard our announcement that is hopefully spreading around your social circles.  If not, click on that link you just passed so I can share it with you too.

OK.  Now that you know, here’s more about what we’re doing.

Tactical  Methodology
Wired Magazine’s Patron Saint of Media, Marshall Mcluhan taught us long ago that The Medium is the Message and that we are living in a global village.  That was nearly 50 years ago during the rise of TV and Radio.

Marshall was a smart guy. He realized that how and from where we receive messages is just as important as, if not more important than the message itself.  Bryan and I share this belief, which is why we’ve taken the traditional approach and flipped it upside down, paying attention first to the media that will be used to connect with your communities of receivers.  The message will be translated differently, depending on the functionality, culture and nuances surrounding the technology.

Upside Down
One of the key points that stood out to me in Barry Nalebuff & Ian Ayers‘s book, Why Not? How to Use Everyday Ingenuity to Solve Problems Big and Small, was the concept of taking a methodology and approaching it from the opposite direction. The traditional ‘strategic’ approach to marketing communications has always been to focus on developing the message strategy first, and then how you will get that message out the audience.  Nothing wrong with that.  The message is important and that approach been working for years.

But today, the times have changed. Our media tools have changed. People are marketing channels with practically no limits as to how far they can reach and who they can influence.  If you think you can get the people who make up the social web to abide by your company brand standards and voice, well…good luck with that.

Your consumers own your brand and your message. All you can do is hope to influence them in such a way that they can’t wait to plug your brand – and message – to their trusted circles of friends.  What you can control however, is the set of tools that your business gives them to make the communication process easy, relevant, apparent, functional and exciting.

Total Internet Presence (TIP)
We own this.  TIP is defined as the combination of Internet-focused strategy, design, analytics, marketing and technology that protects and enhances your brand, makes it transparent, and grows your business.  Your customers are out there.  They are searching for your TIP and want to experience it.  It is your messages and delivery on those promises, as well as the technology tools you use, that will determine how well you will engage your audience and how they will reciprocate and engage others about your brand.

How do we get there you ask?  In three steps:

Huber + Co + SBS
This is why Bryan, Dave and I have come together.  We have a vision. We want to make something new, based on a yet unwritten set of rules.  This is what we all believe, but I guess the proof will be in the pudding.  For now it feels good so we’re going with it – full speed ahead.

Please.  Keep watching and listening.  Please communicate with us.  We are listening too.