I remember presenting to a large corporate client not 6 months ago and part of my recommendation was that they should include a managed ePR strategy, including Twitter obviously, although the feeling in the room at the time was that there was no way this side of the next ice age that they would ever adopt something so ridiculous and childish.

Fast forward 3 or 4 months and that client now has multiple Twitter addresses, all merrily tweeting away with great authority on each of their specific topics! But, many little blue birds doth not a CRM strategy make and for me that’s only a small part of the bigger and as yet unappreciated issue – the move to Relationship Marketing.

For the first time in the history of the human race, individuals without any real power or title or wealth or special privilege can make their voices heard and their opinions known and, increasingly, those opinions are going to count as they help inform the tribes – influencing behaviour, determining choices, making a difference to what we all do, or are aware of, or prefer, or buy, or consume. That’s the power of the network, the wisdom of the crowd.

The single most important piece of advice that I could give ANY organisation is this – don’t keep trying to get people to do your thing by shouting at them through advertising! No, find out who they are, have a conversation with them and find out what they want from you and then go and do it to the best of your ability. Therein lies the path to mutual fruitfulness!

That’s Relationship Marketing and, having been part of the text books for years, the thing is now a real possibility because of the web and social networking. It’s what Twitter, and Facebook, and LinkedIn and all of those different networks are for – they’re just methods of having those conversations, each one like a different instrument in the orchestra playing a specific part of the overall tune to a different part of the audience, a part in the overall harmony of the piece, without which the music isn’t whole. You can’t form relationships with people unless you’re talking to them, all of them, using every instrument at your disposal.

So, to cut a long mixed metaphor short, Twitter is like a trumpet and you’re the conductor. So play your trumpet loud and often and let the audience hear your tune.

And then the tricky bit….!

The audience are going to say something back, you’ve got to listen to that too and maybe change what you’re saying or playing or making or doing accordingly. It’s that dialogue, that conversation – the speaking AND the listening – that make a relationship and it’s those relationships that should be the very core of everything you do.