Insightful webinar provided by the AMA and Autonomy entitled, “Capitalizing on the Rich Information from Social Networking Sites: How to Effectively Monitor, Understand and Optimize What’s Being Said About Your Brand.”
Social media is everywhere and is blurring the lines between business and social interactions as well as personal and professional business interactions.
I’m learning this as I write blog posts and tweet about wastewater treatment, water reuse and odor and VOC control for my employer while I write my own blog post on integrated marketing and consumer insights.
I wholeheartedly agree with how the presenters began their presentation — you need a strategy, not tactics, to integrate social media into your integrated marketing efforts.
You want to engage with customers and prospects rather than react to them.
You want to create and maintain a dialogue rather than having a one-way conversation.
Here are five strategies for doing so:
- Know where your customers are talking. There are so many social media channels, it’s critical to know where your customers, and prospects, are engaged.
- Understand the meaning of the conversations that are taking place. It’s very easy to take bits of information and fail to understand the context. Customers no longer communicate in a single, consistent manner. It’s important for you to follow, and transparently, engage in the conversation.
- Forecast risk and opportunity before it’s a trend. Focus less on the frequency and more on the relevance of a topic or trend. Failing to do so will mean you’ll miss the opportunity to leverage a positive trend or address a negative topic.
- Be ready to act on the most important topics. Remember when companies had P.R. firms that specialized in crisis communications? You need to be ready to accelerate a positive topic or address and decelerate a negative topic at the drop of a hat. You must respect the breadth and the speed of social media and be ready to take advantage of fleeting opportunities.
- Optimize customer, and prospect, engagement through social media. All of these media channels are providing the ultimate focus group with unbiased and unfiltered insights. By knowing where your customers are engaged in social media, you can monitor and engage with them. Social media channels are also a great place to streamline acquisition, conversion and customer relationship management.
How are you leveraging social media to drive your business?
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