If businesses believe that their strategy for corporate social media can simply be their previous style of marketing strategy shifted over to the new kinds of media, then that’s the first thing they’re going to have to unlearn. The nature of this media is that it creates a two-way conversation between equals. Previous to this, businesses have been used to being in control of the company-customer relationship, often just giving lip service to “listening to the customer.” This simply isn’t going to be the case anymore. So their social media marketing plans have to reflect this.

Everyone has heard the saying on some business help line: “Your call is important to us.” And most of us recognize this is simply a business ploy to prevent us from getting infuriated as we hang around waiting to speak to somebody who plainly has little interest in how an item isn’t working as it should, and who gives little tangible help. It may not seem like it right now, but that approach is on its way out, as the new social media marketing steadily moves in.

This notion truly terrifies some companies, while it makes others incensed. Why adopt social media rules, they reason, when they have tried and true promotional strategies that have been effective for many years? They are used to putting ads and specs out there to tell the buyer what they believe he or she should be aware of, and this consumer has previously been a somewhat passive recipient of the word from above. Now the client expects to talk back and also make judgments on the organization’s products and approach to doing business. However, rather than embracing this social media strategy, some organizations look at this modern method of doing business as crazy.

But it may surprise the corporate doubters to learn that adopting the strategy of two-way social media marketing may draw customers in and make them more loyal to brands than they’ve been before. Think about it. If a product user feels they’ve had some input into how the company produced the product, or if groups of users know that their input has helped change the product and the company’s policies for the better, then they’re going to talk about it in their own social networks. Social media optimization of this sort can serve both the company and the customers very well.

On the other hand, the customers’ same social networks can be used to spread the news if they feel taken advantage of. Social media marketing cannot be done cynically, with companies pretending to engage and then stabbing the customers in the back in some way. The conversation must be a genuinely two-way process if this new type of business marketing is to benefit anyone.

Social media is the preferred method of getting in contact with someone or making new connections. Social media tools are invaluable for business these days in order to reach a greater client base. Learn more at the Social Media Resources site.

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This entry was posted on Tuesday, March 2nd, 2010 at 6:03 am and is filed under Social Marketing. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can skip to the end and leave a response. Pinging is currently not allowed.