| The greatest impact and the lowest cost of
use. That's an ideal formula when it comes to marketing your business,
and social media delivers both at a time when every penny counts.
What Is Social Media?
Social media describes the interactive new ways people share information
on the Internet. Social media sites like Face- Book, Flickr, MySpace,
and a growing number of online community portals enable people to participate
in richer conversations about like interests than traditional, more static
web sites do.
Which social media tools to use and how to use them can be confusing
at first, but what's clear is that social media makes for an ideal marketing
tool.
Businesses today that remain uninvolved in social media are like companies
in the early 1900s that didn't use the telephone, or like businesses in
the ‘90s that didn't have web sites or allow their employees to access
e-mail. The sooner they join the ongoing conversation, the better.
Vendors Lead The Way
Cisco Systems is one vendor that has taken a very proactive role in leading
partners to utilize the various social media tools available to them.
"One of our strategies is to get our partners to embrace new technology,
and especially social media, in terms of marketing," says Luanne Tierney,
Cisco's vice president, worldwide channels marketing. "Cisco is committed
to helping our partners add Web 2.0 to their traditional marketing tools.
We act as their teacher and advisor in this new frontier."
Currently, Cisco offers four social media marketing tools to help partners
grow their business. These include online video, content syndication,
social media and blogs. Online video has been the most successful. "At
last year's partner summit, we invited 40 of our partners to tape CEO
message videos in a studio we set up. The partners hosted these videos
on their web sites and the feedback was fantastic. They had higher click-through
rates and discovered customers were staying longer on their web sites
and usually ended up contacting them for business," says Tierney.
Social media provides an additional source of revenue and increased customer
interaction for companies that know how to use it. A growing number of
corporations, including Dell, use social media to engage customers.
| HOT TIP |
| Often it's best to listen to what your customers
are saying without offering any online response at all. For example,
a Google search may help you to discover that a customer is complaining
on a blog or message board about a bad experience with your product
or your sales representative. Rather than posting a response, consider
resolving their complaint directly. Your customer will be happier
with a solution to their problem than with any rebuttal to their
post. |
Join The Conversation
People pay more attention to user comments online and less to traditional
marketing messages from the corporation. In fact, a recent Edelman Trust
Barometer report revealed that 60 percent of consumers place greater trust
in what people "just like me" say about an organization and its products.
The least credible source of information, according to the survey, was
corporate product advertising. Furthermore, 88 percent of decision makers
choose to buy from companies they trust. If trust drives sales, building
trust through social media marketing makes sense.
A conversation about your business could already be taking place in a
social media outlet, and your participation permits you to answer questions,
correct misunderstandings, and promote your services at the same time.
With the right amount of responsiveness and accessibility, it can also
create a surprising amount of customer delight.
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