Using social media tools can allow a business to connect and create conversations with their clients. Savvy companies have picked up on the opportunities and are already engaged. Throughout the customer life cycle a company can educate, support, pitch, introduce and more.
Social media is about conntecting people. Integratration of social media into your marketing strategy is no longer a question if whether if you should, but how you plan to do so. The possibilities are numerous, and your customers will show their appreciation through shorter sales cyles and increased business.
Usually customers are using social media tools before the companies are, so its important to participate, but also understand that you’re not in charge. Simply put, either let go or lose control.
Where does one start? Does your company have a blog? Depending on the nature of your business, you might have several experts within your company and want to have multiple blogs. If you have more than one division or product line you might be a candidate for multiple blogs. Maybe your engineers are working on different aspects of the business that justify multiple blogs? An example of a company with multiple blogs is GMblogs which discusses everything from new products to events. This approach caters to specific interests and makes the blogs more interesting to read than lumping all related aut content into one blog.
Dell is another example, with 10 internal blogs and over 20 Twitter accounts, they’re maintaining relations and communication with consumers on a few levels. If your business can be segmented, without becoming overly fragmented, multiple blogs might be an option for you too.
In other cases, it can make sense to run forums. This is more of a direct conversation with your audience and can require a higher degree of maintenance. As would creating your own social network. But the return on a successfully create forum or social network provides a direction line of communication with your customer. Be forewarned that creating and maintaining a forum or social network is a demanding endeavour.
By personalizing the customer experience through interaction you involve your customers and give your company a face at the same time. And advantage of having multiple blogs is, when applicable, you’re delivering a more targeted message to the readers. It’s important to keep in mind not to be overly commercial in your conversation, yet still mention informative news. Being informative and resourceful is going to add stickiness and interest to your message, as opposed to using it as an advertising channel.
Studies now show that as much as 60% of consumers find advertising unappealing or irrelevant. We’re no longer living in a society where media can push messages at consumers. They’ll find what they want, when they want. Your brand can be part of that.
Another great example is when P&G developed beinggirl.com to put themselves at the center of the conversation. While its cheaper to sponsor a site than create and support one, the control and equity built are incomparable. The community P&G built surrounds issues of the target market and hold their attention. Building a community isn’t for everyone, it can depend on your audience and topic. In the case of beinggirl the consumer is higher to participate and join in the conversation, and they would be at the beginning of the sales cycle. Determining their lifetime value it made sense to create the community. This chart from BusinessWeek illustrates contributors by age.
Examples cited might be Fortune 1000, the message is still the same. Brand awareness is more than advertising. Maintaining that top of mind awareness is no longer about repetition. We know that hasn’t worked for some time and consumers are tuning us out the message. Products and services of value are about making life easier, so it stands to reason the message ought to be following the same format. Provide value in your communications and consumers will notice, preach to them and you risk losing them.
Although mentioned previously, it’s worth restating; you can either be part of the conversation or watch the opportunities to speak with your customers pass you by.
