I think we’re missing the mark, though.  It’s not really about Twitter.  It’s not about Facebook.  It’s not about whatever the next buzzword is.

It’s about friends.

It’s about building real relationships that inspire people to act on your behalf.  That’s the skill we should focus on building. Whether it’s Twitter or Digg or Facebook or LinkedIn, it’s about those relationships.

We have to teach ourselves to operate that way again.

We commonly use phrases like “Facebook Strategy” or “Mobile Strategy,” but we’d never talking about building a house in terms of “Hammer Strategy.”   The technologies are just tools and our language is tricking us.

When we’re wowed by case-studies showing off the power and effectiveness of these tools, we’re really being impressed the underlying strategy, a powerful one that we can all take advantage of.

It’s easy to forget that it has always been one of the best business and marketing strategies to make friends. We do that by focusing on others, on listening to them and meeting their needs. How will your business be making friends and thriving in 2009?

What to do? Paper Christmas cards seem eco-unfriendly. Ecards just seem unfriendly. Thoughts/alternatives?

Looking for the best way to connect during the holidays? Me too.

At one time, I mailed cards each December as part of maintaining important relationships personal and professional. But I’d fallen out of the habit.

Wanting to restart or create a new habit in line with my values, I turned to the collective wisdom of Twitter (and Facebook) to ask “What to do? Paper Christmas cards seem eco-unfriendly. Ecards just seem unfriendly. Thoughts/alternatives?”

I was surprised by the instant response with so many wonderful ideas to share! Read on for the best so far, and add your ideas to the comments.

Holiday cards are a lot of work
As a CEO of a software and book publishing company in the Nineties, much of our business and promotion was online. Still, holiday greetings meant snail mail, and were a major project:

• Custom designed and printed cards ordered months in advance.
• Database work to update lists and print envelopes.
• A quick handwritten note and signature on each one.
• Postage for each of the countries we did business in. (We’d literally shipped software and books to every continent including Antarctica, and won the occasional argument with the local postmaster on customs declarations and other postal regulations.)

Worth the effort?

I loved sending Mele Kalikimaka cards the year I lived in Hawaii. These from Etsy look nice.

While it was expensive in time and money, it was well worth it. Relationships matter in business as much as elsewhere, and staying in touch, letting someone know you’re thinking of them, just brightens people’s days. Of course, we shouldn’t just do that during the holidays, but having one more excuse each year is great.

Plus, it was a point of pride that we sent something beautiful. An opportunity to further our brand and message as well as to maintain important relationships.  I sent company cards also to friends and family, adding personal letters so they would know what was happening with me as well as my company.

Wasteful?
But perhaps it was also wasteful. As much as we’d pioneered minimizing our software packaging and printing our books with non-toxic inks on recycled papers, we splurged on the fancy cards (and delivering them around the world).

Stopped sending them… and lost contact
For that and other reasons, in the years since, I’d stopped sending cards altogether, and never found a replacement besides the holiday calls made to my closest contacts. I’ve felt the resulting loss of connection. I want it back.

Answers

So, what came back from my query?  As I’d expect from Twitter (and Facebook, since my Twitter automatically updates my Status there, too), I quickly got several humorous replies (themselves a way to maintain contact and relationship) as well as serious ideas and hints. Thanks for all the responses!

The rest of this post is the Best Twitter and Facebook responses so far (with my thoughts on each).

I’ve mixed a couple Facebook responses in with the Twitter replies. Can you add your own ideas in the comments on this blog post?

Personalized Video Email

Great answer. In fact, I’d just done the same thing with a video birthday greeting to a friend.  I’d started to send a note, realized Facebook would be an easy way to do it, then saw the video option as well as text. I think it took less time for me to use my laptop’s built in camera than what it would have taken to compose a decent email.

David Spark has a couple of great posts with more details and instructions on doing this. I highly recommend: Sending personal holiday cards this year and  I just sent 325 personal video holiday greetings-How I did it.

Facebook Apps Overdone?

Eran makes a good point. “This calls for a viral facebook app! I see Elves instead of zombies and Santa’s little armies at war over who’s more annoying!” It can be all to easy to use e-cards and newer social media in ways that are more likely to annoy your friends than to make them feel Holiday joy.  At the same time, different strokes for different folks. You might consider reaching out in different ways to different parts of your address book according to what you know about their preferences. (Thanks for permission to make your protected update public.)

I already tried the telepathic approach

Thanks, Timmmii, for one of the funnier responses. “Send your holiday greetings telepathically. saves money, time and commitment. ”

Besides reaching out by telephone to my closest contacts during the holiday, I do make an effort to try to stay in touch throughout the year.  If I did a good enough job of that all the time, I might just ignore the holiday hype and go back to the telepathic approach.

Cupcakes and Art Cards

Given how cupcakes have become the latest craze and internet meme, that’s not a bad idea. Bake a little love and give a consumable card.

Or, at the opposite end of the spectrum, give a card they’d want to keep forever, one that makes great art and preferably suits their taste. While sending it as a postcard risks damage, it saves the waste of an envelope.

Cards can be Eco-Friendly

Of course, I could go back to cards, but make an effort to minimize their impact, including reducing and recycling. As Leslie says, “make cards on waste paper, paper bags, etc.”

As Alex points out, delivering by hand is an alternative to save on delivery expense and waste, especially since we might presume that a good visit is a great addition to a card anyway. Leslie’s link to http://www.directcreative.com/postal-experiments.html is pretty amusing, too!

(Thanks to Leslie and Alex for permission to include your Facebook comments here.)

E-cards great if you put some thought into customizing image and message

Technopatra’s tweet made me realize that ecards really can be one of the best options.

Like any other method of communication, when you’re on the receiving end of an indiscriminate broadcast which isn’t well thought out, it can feel like being spammed more than being loved.

When thought is put into it, though, especially if they include something really personal from the sender and customized to each recipient, this is much like the video option (and, of course, you could combine both). I’ve also seen mobile holiday cards (sent as an SMS link) that make sense for those in that business.

With just a little thought and for very little effort and cost, you can make and impact and let the people in your life feel touched during the holidays.

Thanks for reading, and happy holidays to you!

I sent each of you this because we’ve talked recently about marketing yourself or your business. Most of you are thinking about blogging, or have a blog and other online marketing that you could get better results from.

Sales without selling? Selling by giving away? Here’s a good article I just read this morning after Jim twittered about it overnight. (He is a small business marketing expert based in the UK, so it wasn’t actually overnight for him.)

It doesn’t say anything new. Lots of people have tried to explain this. It says the same stuff I keep trying to tell folks about marketing online, only more clearly and without so much yelling:

http://jimsmarketingblog.com/2008/10/26/blog-marketing-newsletter-marketing/

“I have not used any form of paid marketing for my business for years.

That’s right – 100% of my non-referred business comes from either my newsletter, my website or this blog!

All I have to do is make sure I give away as much valuable marketing information as possible, to as many small businesses as possible. Then, when these small businesses want someone to help them market their products or services, they give me a call. When they want their blog or website transformed into a goldmine, they already know my work and that I get results – so they get in touch!“ [Emphasis his.]

Jim is selling (marketing advice) by giving away as much fantastic free marketing advice as possible. The advice he’s giving applies whatever your field, it will work for any kind of consultant, coach, trainer, health practitioner, lawyer, accountant, IT or other professional service. It really applies to any business.

Stop working on selling anyone. Look for ways to help them and provide a service.

Stop worrying that you’ll give away too much and your services won’t be needed because you’ve written it all down. You’re valuable as a person, and people will pay more for that value when you give of it freely.

Stop worrying that your competition will catch on to what you’re doing and somehow take advantage of you. Instead, you might just end up in public conversation online, come off looking good by making each other appear both smart and friendly, get more sales calls, learn from each other and succeed through those and other forms of coopetition.

Get online, give away as much as you can, and the sales will come to you on their own!

Cheers!
-Dale

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