Valeria Maltoni
www.ConversationAgent.com
SOCIAL MEDIA IMPERATIVES IN 2009 (cont’d) best chance a company has at building high levels of WOM rests not on new tools, but in age-old marketing practices. In other words, marketers will gain the most ground, and favorable WOM, through a shrewd focus on the fundamentals. So the imperative here is for marketers is to excel at their core duties of: (1) developing and maintaining unique brands that are high in value (so as to delight and encourage positive WOM) + (2) devising clever ways to spread awareness about brands (so that more people can learn, try and recommend those products to others) + (3) monitoring market response to their offerings--and the offerings that compete with them for market share--so as to improve offerings, or create entirely new ones (or both). ▪ Thinking programs over tools. With so many tools—including blogs, Wikis, microblogs, podcasts, online videos and more—it’s hard not to get caught up in the infrastructure (or “technology”) of social media. But that’s exactly what marketers should not do. As with all marketing efforts, programs are a byproduct of strategy, value and differentiation. It’s only after qualifying on these counts that a particular tool (or set of tools) should be identified. Said another way, companies aren’t “creating blogs” they’re opening new avenues of conversations with customers. Marketers aren’t implementing a “blog-
20
MARKETING IN 2009
ger outreach program,” they’re directly engaging with their most outspoken and visible customers. And they’re not “using twitter to send daily updates” but providing content that gives value to a target audience that competitors are not. For example, while some marketers may use Twitter as an extension of customer service like cable companies have done, others may use the tool to poll viewers for opinions on breaking stories as in the case of some broadcast news corporations. But in both of these examples, the marketing strategy of improving customer service or engaging viewers guides the use and rationale for using the tool. The imperative then, is to develop programs that are unique to your company and customers, and then identify the tool (or tools) that will enable meeting your goals. ▪ Creating seamless campaigns by integrating efforts. Companies rely on a mix of internal staff, external agencies and third-party consultants to implement and manage their various marketing initiatives. This makes sense due to a range of domain expertise needed to implement customer-facing programs across different media. What doesn’t make sense, however, is when the efforts aren’t integrated—because customers don’t distinguish between a company’s broadcast TV campaign and their online presence… yet you’d be amazed how many companies fail to upload their
NEXT »