If you have read some of my other posts you will know that I like that we all have a voice on social media. In the buyer decision-making process, I like that consumers have power because of their collective social voice. There, I said it. I like that the consumer has power.
Our challenge is to work with the power shift to create valuable brands, products and services. Social media is a powerful tool. However we can't control the consumer but we can work together to better our offerings and build loyalty.
The key buzzword of social media has been engagement. Engagement is good because we converse with our markets, humanise brands and build relationships. Branded social spaces, as I call them, evolved to facilitate this need to engage. The pro-active strategy.
We praise the pro-active strategy. We see case studies, awards and industry recognition. I recently read some research on social media strategies. I quite liked it at first, but it's all about the pro-active strategy. It was proposed that there are eight social media strategies covering four social dynamics:
Social Media Campaigns | User Generated Content |
Loyalty Campaigns | |
Social Games | |
Blog | Conversations |
Advocacy Programme | |
Social Apps | Connections |
Crowdsourced Content | Community |
Forums |
What do you do with the engagement content? What do you do with relevant content on unbranded social spaces? What is your re-active strategy?
When I was conducting research on the adventure tourism industry I noted that many brands had a presence on Facebook. They would ask engagement questions but never offered any information themselves or responded to their fans' posts. Hello?!
Then there are reviews, the blogs, photos, videos... The list goes on. How do we react and use this content?
Community managers exist, but maybe the content was not on a branded social space. That content is still relevant and searchable. Maybe even more powerful. I believe in telling your own story, but the best stories are often told by your customers, fans and followers. Are we placing enough importance on community managers?
How many people advise not to broadcast? A lot. Yet we still lack progress on using re-active strategies to enhance our social presence and brand equity. Reacting to unobvious content may be a more powerful strategy than 'engaging' but not actually engaging on branded social spaces.
We often hear about "monitoring"software. I like to think of this as filtering. Filtering suggests you are going to do something with the relevant content you find. You should be doing something with this content...
Here are some re-active Strategies for Business Success:
- Respond to direct content. If you use pro-active strategies be prepared to have some input yourself. Answer individual content directed at you.
- Filter the wider web for relevant content and mentions. Not everyone will speak about you or your industry on branded social spaces, but that doesn't make that content any less powerful or useful; use it to your advantage.
- Use customer, fan and followers' stories. Consumer content is powerful, it tells a story - don't be afraid to use it.
- Link to independent review sites. This ads transparency, another big social media buzz word. If you are responding and handling wider social content, then you have nothing to hide.
- Welcome criticism. If you don't know what you're good or bad at you can never make it better. Co-creation is the new wave. If feedback is negative, do like the service industry and recover that failure.
There are brands using both pro-active and re-active strategies, but when I read about strategy development I only see pro-active, as within the example above. Nor do we hear much about brands winning awards for re-active strategies. Do you have any other re-active strategies?