Pro social media marketing

Your customers are online, you have to be too.

Ah, the good old days, when marketing was something mysterious carried out by those blokes with the snazzy suits in the marketing department. These days, we're all in marketing, it's just a matter of whether we've admitted it or not.

For better or worse, many of us now are expected to include an online presence as part of our working life, to take part in social media marketing. Even if you manage to avoid the need for an online presence, the chances are someone in your company will be sitting chewing the end of their imaginary pencil, trying to think of what to put in their blog today.

The reasons for the popularity are clear - people respond well to social media marketing, whether that be blogs, Twitter tweets Facebook updates or any of the many other options. It makes companies seem more human, more approachable, and the messages that are put out seem more believable.

Done well, a good online campaign gives your company the sort of publicity it just couldn’t pay for. Of course, for every good example you read, there are lots of mediocre or downright poor efforts.

The key word here is effort. Keeping your online presence lively and informative is hard work and time consuming. However, it’s worth it when you succeed.

One reason why it works so well is that most of the people who experience your social media marketing choose to see it. It isn’t a matter of seeing an advertisement when they turn a magazine page or read a website; instead, they’ve signed up to your Facebook page or your Twitter feed; they’ve chosen to read your technical manager’s blog. One person who chooses to read your information is worth a lot who just happen to see it in passing on their way to something they want to read.

Of course, this means you need a different style of marketing. You can’t get away with marketing guff; your readers are choosing to interact with you because you’re providing something worth reading.

While it may seem obvious, the most successful social marketing by companies relies on people with an active and informative online presence, where the personality of the poster shows through. When your customers feel they’re actually in contact with someone technical or in a senior position, they value those interactions, and companies that looked remote and very ‘corporate’ can be shown to be human - at least in some areas.

A good personality online, one that admits to mistakes and doesn’t just talk the company line, brings huge rewards. Once someone seems trustworthy, they can do more to shift sales than any magazine or Internet ad. If you doubt me, think about Frydown. This is the term used to describe the effect of Twitter maestro Stephen Fry recommending a site on Twitter. Fry sends a standard letter to websites before recommending them on Twitter, so they are prepared for the sudden peak in traffic - a recommended site gets something like 1000 hits a second for two hours once the post appears. It’s unlikely your tweets will have the same effect, but they can make your brand the one customers choose.

Of course, social media marketing is a bit of a two-edged sword; if you really annoy a customer, and don’t do anything to put it right, the full power of social media can be turned against you. This expensive lesson was typified by the United Breaks Guitars story. A US musician, Dave Carroll, travelled on United Airlines and said his guitar was broken while it was being transferred as luggage. He filed a claim but United said it was filed too late. In frustration, Carroll wrote a song called “United Breaks Guitars” and posted it on YouTube. In the ten days after the song’s release, it had 3.2 million views and 14,000 comments. According to a report in The Times, United’s share price dropped by 10 percent four days after the song was released, lowering the company value by $180 million.

One thing this story highlights is the fact that complaints have to be acknowledged, treated as feedback, and handled correctly; deal with a disgruntled customer well, and you turn a problem into a benefit.

Social media marketing is a great opportunity, but getting it right is harder than creating a ‘standard’ advert or marketing campaign. If your only aim is to sell your products and to put out marketing spiel, your audience will see through you and walk away. You need something more, whether that means online material that is genuinely funny, stunningly beautiful or actually tells the customer something.

Is social media marketing really that great? Read the alternative view to get a less rosy picture.