The term ‘expert’ in social media is anomalous. Unless you have founded something like Facebook, confine yourself to being a master. However, Digital PR professionals increasingly need to become digitally literate. Ideas and content are still king but you need digital skillsets to maximise their effectiveness.
There’s no point to your online presence if no-one can engage with you. And there’s no point getting customer feedback if you don’t respond, quickly. Don’t be afraid of negative comments – they’re an opportunity to react, respond and turn a negative into a positive.
Someone recently asked the question “All these million searches for things….where did we used to go to get these answers?” When did you last pop into the library to do some research rather than Googling it? BG - before Google
Should companies and brands establish their own community networks or develop an area in an established social network like Facebook or LinkedIn?
Think about the purpose of an email and always have a call-to-action: make it obvious what you want a satisfied reader to do and make it easy for them with a single click.
Just another occasion on which the information was fun and contextual and brought a smile to my face. Great branding.
We meet a few in-house marketing teams who get the importance of using Web technology to understand and link with the customer but their lives are still difficult: the world is still set up for the old way of doing things.
There are risks in opening your business to social media. But there is probably a greater risk that, if you don’t, you will be sidelined and overtaken by more nifty competitors.
Try it and see if you come up on the first couple of pages for your own company name. Every company should really be on the first page of their natural listings search….there is no reason not to be. Then the generic terms for the business you are in.
No-one is sure how conventional marketing planning is going to adapt to a medium where communication has to be adapted to thousands of dialogues all over the Internet. Social media just doesn’t plug straight into the marketing mix, though some large companies just see it as another element.