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03.19.09 Generating Lasting Loyalty And Strong Relationships  By Gabriel GoldenbergAha! I finally realized why measuring relationships is the best way to measure social media results! Two words: Opportunity Cost. The opportunity cost answer doesn’t come from sales, nor from marketing! It’s those sneaky HR people who had the answer up their sleeve all along.Them, and Dan Ariely, in his book, Predictably Irrational. Ariely’s book highlights that behaviour is often motivated by one of two contexts - the social context or the market context. The social context is where people do each other favours because they like one another and want/have/are building a relationship. It’s your mother in law’s Thanksgiving meal, for which she obviously doesn’t expect compensation and would be insulted if it were offered. The market context is where people pay each other for products or services. The behaviour is motivated by this exchange of value, not some warm feelings towards the other party. Ariely goes on to point out that companies have a difficult time trying to get into the social context, yet that the loyalty and latitude afforded such companies can be very valuable. Think of the employee who does unpaid overtime because his boss gave him 2 months paid vacation, without a second thought, when the employee’s wife was sick after giving birth. (That’s actually a true story I read in a book called Sales Superstars, about someone in the courier industry.)
Well, generating that kind of loyalty and strong relationships exist between an employer and its employees is exactly what human resources is devoted to. Consider Sodexo’s excellent, succinct summary as to why companies offer benefits.
The aim of every successful company is to attract the best employees and to maintain their loyalty, satisfaction and motivation at and outside work.
A good chosen system of remuneration added by a good working system of benefits will increase your competitiveness by recruiting employees, will balance the steadily growing price of manpower in a flexible way and will help to motivate and stabilize the key company workers. Similarly, my friend Tony Adam writes of the relationships he has built, The people that I have established relationships with have led to great career opportunities, partnerships, knowledge, and most importantly, long lasting friendships. And this is not just the way warm-and-fuzzy HR or social media people see things. Consider the responses to McKinsey’s survey of US executives. The vast majority of US executives say that employee benefits help their companies attract and retain talent and that benefits are important to competitiveness, a new Quarterly survey finds. This is as valuable as knowing your competitors’ keywords! Heck, it’s even more valuable because the best people will find you the best keywords and other seo strategies before the competition figures them out! Let them play catch-up! Ironically, I should have known this myself, since I’ve been an advocate of building relationships for the longest time, as a direct driver of SEO success. But what I think is novel about this post and the reason I wrote what might otherwise be dismissed as another “benefits of building relationships” piece, is the human resources angle. Continue reading this article. About the Author: Gab Goldenberg writes on SEO at his SEO blog. Check out his services if you're in the market for something professional. |
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