Though it may seem like a trend, social media has been around almost as long as the internet, and perhaps before it. Prior to the World Wide Web, people chatted on Bulletin Boards and CompuServe Forums, posted funny stories or day-to-day trivia, and engaged in the same type of discussions you see today. In 1999, Livejournal was started as a blogging tool to keep friends up to date on each other’s activities (sound familiar?), post pictures, and share everything from favorite bands and political opinions to “too much information” about various activities.
The main difference between these social media channels and sites like MySpace, Facebook, and Twitter is accessibility. Instead of logging into a BBS (Bulletin Board System) with a Commodore 64, a modem, and a terminal program, you can update Twitter and Facebook entries from a PDA or Smartphone. You may have noticed friends, relatives, or acquaintances updating their status from a Blackberry even though they are among a crowd of people. Essentially, the social media crowd in cyberspace has replaced actual social interactions with virtual ones. CNN.com even has a story about annoying trends among people who use Facebook, but somehow skipped over people who prefer the binary world to present company.
While Facebook and Twitter are still working on figuring out how to monetize social media, many small and large businesses have already mastered it. Savvy businesses can get a message sent out through heavily followed channels on Twitter and Facebook, creating “buzz” about new products and services, as well as virtual endorsements. Some people actually take payments to “Tweet” about a new movie, album, consumer item, or political happening, and suddenly several thousand followers will get an instant message or a link to follow. If you’re and advertising agency looking to send a message to a demographic that skews into specific layers, this can be money well spent.
For businesses, social media also lets you learn more about your customer base than you ever thought possible. Several tools let you monitor Twitter and Facebook postings, so you can get an alert any time your company is mentioned. This is a great way to head off a public relations nightmare, since you can address issues before you become the pariah of the social media world. You can also get unvarnished opinions about how your company is serving its customers, which gives you an opportunity to make changes in real time without having to hire focus groups or polling consultants. If you are a marketing and PR firm, the use of Twitter and Facebook is going to set you apart from the survey people in shopping malls who carry around clipboards, because you can use tools that encourage people to rate products, videos, and the like while you aggregate the results.
If you’re a small business, adding Facebook or Twitter functionality to your website is a great way to add trust and show that you’re up with the times. If you give your customers another way to communicate with you, you can address concerns and also build a sales channel. Any time you have a new product or sales initiative, you can Tweet your customer base and let them know about sales, discounts, or product demonstrations in your area. Secondarily, a connected base of Twitter users in the same field can often pose a technical question to a group and get a response from someone who knows the answer. In this way, you can also increase efficiency and knowledge flow without having to call around.
It has been said that 40% of all social media postings are pointless, but this should be good news to anyone in the marketing field, where a 1% response rate can indicate a highly profitable campaign. There is a broad spectrum of social media sites, including names like Digg, YouTube, Flickr, Yahoo Answers, Delicious.com, and Technorati. They all have facets that can be exploited in the world of sales and marketing, and they can also improve the customer experience. Aside from making more sales, extending your lifetime customer value is one of the best ways to keep a business running, and with social media you can keep your clients while simultaneously building a brand. Whether you are running a DIY social media campaign or hiring an agency to do it for you, the field of social media definitely isn’t going away, so a small investment today may result in big dividends down the road.
Posted By Patrick Hare