Many Australian businesses have woken to find themselves amidst the thick mist that is social media. Brands and their tool kits have changed forever as social media has secured a 'penned-in' position within our digital strategy-tool kit.
The closer we get to cracking the code that is social network engagement, the faster the landscape and the portals within it seem to change around us and so we must evolve inline with the landscape itself, if we are going to remain abreast of social media.
We can't just build something and hope that our target market of consumers will come, nor should we use social media as a stage for message promotion purely from a branding perspective, if we are not around to listen to feedback and to reply to consumers in a timely manner with appropriate responses.
The winners in this space will be those who understand that this is a game of listening, online community membership and two-way communication. It's all well and good to jump into social media, guns-a-blazing, however please do take time to write a social media strategy before you throw your toes into the water. A social media strategy should be mapped out from point 'o to go'. Would you run a marketing campaign without having completed a marketing strategy? Same same, but same.
Social media is about engagement sure, but I note that the winners in this landscape will be the businesses and brands that respect that engagement is a privilege and not one to be taken lightly. This means that those of us who are prepared to listen and show a human side to business, whilst promoting transparency via truth, will be our leaders in this space.
The volume of campaigns that I have seen flow into the social media space, without a retention strategy has shocked me. This shows a lack of understanding of what social media means for business and consumers akin. Honestly, is there a point of positive difference that I am missing, by rolling out a campaign through any social media portal without a retention strategy? By doing this, we not only frustrate consumers who want to experience further engagement with us (who we have encouraged to interact to do so already as part of our promotion), but we limit our further opportunity outlook, inline with new client acquisition, current user retention, and word of mouth potential via this medium.
We need to embrace social media as a new universe based-marketing medium and this means respecting the communities within, and consumer desires in line with what, how and when in terms of engagement and appropriateness of contact.
Social media can mean so much more for businesses, the core of which is a strong foundation for mutually beneficial relationships, within a captive social media-based target audience, or community. A well thought out social media strategy can help us to get a ticket to the inner circle of trust - the winners take the prize.
PS: Please respect our social media communities - do not disrespect them by SPAM-ing them with irrelevant messages, and if you create a social media presence - please be prepared to provide responses that are timely, useful, correct and representative of your organisation's code of conduct and authentic mission. Thank you.
Heidi von Creytz
© Copyright Cheddar Marketing 2009
