Thumbs Up.

Everyone likes to be liked and everyone tries hard to be liked, but do you really need to like everyone you meet? It takes a while to like people, after you get to know them, share some common interests, catch up over a pizza and maybe exchange a Birthday card or two. Today it's all about liking everyone all the time, albeit at a distance with your trusty thumbs up icon, dishing out likes at every opportunity. Facebook has a lot to answer for when they instigated the ubiquitous thumbs up icon as a way to "give positive feedback and connect with things people care about", be they status updates, comments, photos, links posted by friends, along with advertising. By clicking the "Like" button at the bottom of content, 1 billion people have the opportunity to opt out of a conversations, connect invisibly and as far as businesses go, try and collect customers.

Nowadays everyone is looking to be liked without putting any more effort into the relationship than opening a Facebook page or a twitter account. My greengrocer, my butcher, the fish monger and even the dry cleaner guy wants me to like him. They beseech me to like them every time I drop off a shirt or buy a zucchini, they clamour for my thumbs up after buying a steak and they crave for recognition online regardless of the purchase amount. I get the strategy, I get the the enthusiasm for the online market place but regardless of how many times my dry cleaner is liked on Facebook or tweeted about, no one is travelling an extra 10 kilometres to drop off their suit and no amounts of likes will put him on my Christmas card list.

The best way for local retailers to work on future customers is to create conversations around their products, strike up a relationship with their customers and build up recognition, so every time you walk into their store, you feel like you are meeting a friend. Is it to the stage where organisations, companies and the corner store resort to stalking to be successful? The same way parents eventually disregard the tug at the hem for attention, people will disregard the incessant plea for likes and recognition. That desperate cry for recognition by a child is not a good look for businesses to emulate by asking for attention at every opportunity, regardless

Today, old fashion face to face business relationships built on credibility and doing what you say you will do, along with recognition built on excellent service seem anachronistic compared to the wall of social technology so many think are a replacement for the above. Many wonder what the world was like before the net, how businesses and their clients connected and stayed connected? Well the "butcher, the baker and the candle stick maker" all recognised their customers because they served them every day, had conversations every day and their customers liked that a lot, and when they gave a thumbs up, they meant it.