Popular social media sites
Facebook and Twitter enable aggregation of related conversations. Example,
favorite television shows to sporting events to the latest news. One who wishes
to amass data on couch potatos can now do it effortlessly. For marketers,
destinations like Facebook and Twitter are gold mines with specific details -
how many people on Facebook or twitter talked about a particular subject, where
exactly is the buzz, popularity among males or females, and age groups – all available
in a jiffy.
I was privy to a quick but slightly
lengthy conversation about the best calling cards outside India. While several
of them narrated their ordeal after using a particular brand while traveling
abroad, some of them passed on suggestions of other brands adding their
wonderful experience having used it. For marketers, it will help if they keep
in mind that such conversations can be easily recalled these days by potential
customers who increasingly rely on user reviews. An airline’s alleged fascist approach
to some of its select passengers; ill-treatment of guests by a renowned hotel are
conversations that are unbridled in the social media. Can marketers intervene
and protect or promote their brand? Yes, of course. Having complained about a
new Nokia smartphone
that I had bought on social media, the company’s social media custodian quickly
reached out to me to resolve the issue. The immediate response put me to ease
and reinforced my trust in the brand.
According to Nielsen’s 2012 State of the Media
Report, 1 in 3 social media users now
prefer to contact brands using social media rather than the phone. In
this increasingly transparent world, businesses would do well if they lower
their center of gravity to the digital realm. And, embrace a culture that
encourages continuous engagement of customers and employees rather than a
one-way communication. Forward looking businesses have a top-down approach to
this. In an article that appeared in Forbes,
CEO of Weber Shandwick had this to
say. “To give you a sense of how valued a social CEO is, our global study found
that 76 percent of executives think that it is a good idea for their CEOs to be
social. Among their reasons for favoring their CEO’s social participation is
how it reflects internally – 52 percent feel inspired by their CEO’s
sociability. Looking externally, 69 percent say that it enhances the company’s
market credibility. And in general, social CEOs are much more likely to be seen
as good communicators than unsocial CEOs – 55 percent vs. 38 percent,
respectively.”
