Thoughts

Is social media (net) working for you?

The business case for social media

Social media isn't about leaping on board the latest technical bandwagon - it's part of a wider trend in communication. What matters is knowing how your business can benefit.

As a business, engaging with social media is about much more than just having a blog or a corporate Twitter stream. Businesses must learn to embrace social media as part of a much broader communication trend whose distinctive qualities are immediacy and extreme responsiveness.

Learn to listen

Social media enables people and organisations to rapidly and easily interact, participate, comment and share information with each other, about their brands, products and services.

To interact effectively, businesses must learn something new: how to listen, respond and react to a multiplicity of views, information and related content, all managed in an open, highly dynamic and totally user-driven environment.

Embrace, don't manage

This user-driven character means that attempts to "manage" social media are doomed to fail. Instead, companies should see themselves as embracing the social media mindset. This transformation goes to the heart of how you interact with the individuals and groups who define what your brand stands for. 

Specific technologies and platform providers will come and go. After all, as people's enthusiasm for Linden dollars wanes, how many companies are still persisting with their excursions into Second Life?

But social media is an attitude, not a logo. What won't be going away any time soon is its impact on traditional business models and media techniques.

Paid-for advertising and sponsorship will continue to decline as consumers see more value in the trust and transparency of the social model. Referrals, recommendations and community consensus will continue to exert more influence than one-way, top-down marketing messages. 

How social media will evolve

As social networks mature, the quality and credibility of relationships will come to matter more than the accumulation of sheer numbers of (frequently unmanageable) contacts, which is usually the defining priority during the adoption phase of a new social tool.

The role of the expert will be recast too, as people are defined more by their individual interactions rather than by the role they hold or the company they work for.

How you develop and broadcast content will change radically. Content needs to be repurposed for multiple platforms, formats, interactions and audiences.

To keep ahead of the curve, companies need to adapt their communications strategy to reflect the social model of decentralised, informal, groups of people or organisations. Responding fast and being seen to take part are increasingly significant.

Monetising social media

Learning as a business to listen, engage, discuss and respond in this new world is all very well, but where's the ROI?

• R&D - social media is a great way to involve people in product feedback, prototype testing and sampling.

• Sales - social networks naturally generate referrals, and facilitate vouchering and offer distribution.

• Brand building and customer relations - your creativity and ability to respond are the only limitations here.

• Marketing and proposition development - ask people what they'd find valuable and useful: can you respond with a new product or service?

The criteria for success

Surviving and thriving in a market driven by social networks depends on your organisation's ability to:

• Understand your different audiences and how they want to interact

• Engage honestly and openly with what people are (really) saying about you, your brand, your products and services

• Build relationships with people and get them actively engaged in supporting your goals

Start the conversation about how you could profit from social media email us at wyndham.lewis@tmg.co.uk.

Published on: Oct 20, 2009 by tmgTeam