We've been tracking articles and posts related to social media marketing for corporate marketers for some time now, and Inc Magazine just released the results of a new study (available here) which validates that many middle-market and large-entreprise corporations are actively pursuing opportunities to extend their brand awareness and customer engagement into the social and interactive media channel online. Very interesting reading and information here!
Good news for BuzzLogic, BuzzMetrics, Visible Technologies, and others building robust technology software and web services solutions for this express purpose. This channel is so large, so diverse, and so voluminous in terms of content generation that effective monitoring, tracking, monitoring, and engagement really requires technology in order to be done effectively for most large brands / businesses, in our view.
And good news for our under-development-but-soon-to-launch "Social Media Management" service line at Spring Creek Group, we hope. Our approach is to leverage both commercially-available technology + custom developed "Topic Monitoring" software to ensure that we are able to canvas the largest possible area of online conversation related to topics and brands of interest to our clients. In addition, our team has developed a detailed and specific methodology for "Social Media Management" tailored to the needs, risks, and opportunities present in the social media channel for innovative corporate marketers. We believe that the combination of an experienced team, a solid methodology, and powerful technology tools creates a unique, new kind of agency service offering to the marketplace that can unlock new brand and reach opportunities for our clients. [We will be sharing more information and details soon through this blog and our "official" company website soon on the topic...]
We agree with the conclusions reached by the author of this article: namely, that taking a pro-active and reactive broad-based approach to increasing brand awareness among target audiences in the social media realm can yield significant benefits in terms of both brand equity and increased site traffic and business growth, when managed carefully through a strategic program based upon core principles of transparency, ethics, and valuable contributions. It's hard work - certainly harder than simply bidding for sponsored link placement of a text ad in search results - but the incredible growth in interest and usage of large social networking sites and other forms of social media such as blogs, forums, and micro-communities means that large marketers are rapidly taking note. Of course, as we advocate with our clients, it's of foremost importance that corporate marketers understand and respect the underlying goals of these sites for their users. Savvy marketers don't - and won't - treat these sites as just another opportunity to "push" standard marketing messaging, promotions, and offers out there. And the ugly phenomenon of the "splog" is clearly on the wane. This cautionary tale is just one example - but clearly not the only one - of how horribly these activities can backfire for marketers and their proxies when they aren't managed with the highest ethical standards.
Instead, the approach that we believe works best for marketer engagement with the social media channel is to listen, learn, and demonstrate that the company and it's representatives (clearly identified as such - nothing emerges so painfully for a company in the long run as an "anonymous" or "veiled identity" post with clear vested interests) are paying attention when a conversation is actually relevant to their products or services.
Interesting new opportunities are emerging every day for marketers. The key is to approach them wisely in order to minimize the brand risks and maximize the long term opportunity to connect with more potential customers and create new sources of information and value for them online. The most jaded among us might say to this, "Come on, these sites and communities should be left 'pure', unencumbered by the presence of any corporate participation or influence!" We're sympathetic to this perspective - who among us hasn't been annoyed by the seeming incongruity of video ads on the pre-roll in movie theaters when we paid good money for our tickets, or by the constant barrage of audio ads interspersed between the "programming" on any Clear Channel radio station. But the reality of the world we live in today is that most media channels are partially or largely financed through the advertising support of corporate sponsors. And - more importantly as it relates to this topic - a huge amount of consumer identity and chit-chat is generated by the brands with which we associate ourselves. We live in a consumer economy (just ask this guy), and a lot of the time what we talk about when we talk about ourselves is what we're buying... and why. So the companies and the brands and the products are interwoven through many of our conversations anyway -- because we want them to be, because in the world we live in today we often signal to the world who we are through what we wear, eat, drive, read, watch, hear, and talk about around the water cooler.
So given that this is the world we live in, the question is: Would you rather know that your gripe about a product is actually being heard and given credence by an actual human being within the company that makes that product, or are you content with your gripe just sitting out there disregarded forever? The flipside of this question is: Would you rather find out first about a great deal on that perfect pair of shoes you've been looking at, before you buy them rather than after? Not everyone is going to answer these questions in the affirmative (we probably wouldn't either, all the time)... but if you think that you would answer "yes" to these questions some of the time, then there would appear to be a role for respectful, valuable, logical, ethical marketing of the appropriate sort in the social media realm (just as there is today in/on your search results, your email, your content portals, your blogs, your mainstream news sites, your radio programs, your viral videos, your mobile phones, etc.).
As with any other channel, if a company's "official presence" around and inside the community and its content can share useful information and create "real value" for the community's members, then consumers will generally respond with heightened likelihood to make a purchase decision down the line in favor of that company. If a company and its representatives are actually helping their customers - rather than annoying them - without excessive bias or obvious cash-register goals, then it's going to be good for all parties in the long run. And this is true online, offline, or wherever it's happening.
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