Social media is today impacting almost all areas of our life and almost every marketer wants to effectively make use of this medium. This is no surprise as more than two billion people around the world have access to sites like Facebook, Twitter and LinkedIn. The difficulty with social media today is that companies have to engage with audience on multiple networks in order to create a strong brand personality online. This can be very difficult and complex task, especially if you are not a media or digital expert. But this does not mean that you should ignore the immense opportunity that social media provides to your organization.
Try these 4 simple ways to start exploring the limitless opportunity in the field of social media for your business –
1. Emphasis more on connections and engagement instead of just trying to sell your product/service – Customer relationships with brands and organizations are continuously changing and evolving. This means that it is crucial that brands use social media to engage and connect with customers. The most successful and popular brand on the social media circuit are those that believe in engaging their audience and allow their customers a better chance to understand the nature and character of their company in a much better manner. The result of such engagement is that people are more willing to do business with a company whose value and ideology are the same as theirs.
2. Understand the power of social media in brand building – The social media is a very powerful medium and can make or break a brand in an instant. With the immense popularity of social media sites like Facebook and Twitter, each company now has their own broadcasting medium. But this brings with it, a whole new set of problems. So while good publicity travels fast, negative publicity would also travel that fast. That is why it is important to pay attention to the smallest issues of the customers and try to resolve them at the earliest by personally taking an interest in their problems. This can help build your brand loyalty and image, which is integral to the growth of your brand.
3. Forge a personal connect with not just your customers but your employees as well online – Yes, every brand/ organization need to have some sort of formal regulations and policies. But providing your employee’s freedom in the online arena can help them become more creative and expressive. The goal must be not to create a very formal and out of reach kind of organization but to allow employees to create an image that is approachable and interested. Your employees can turn out to be the best brand ambassadors for your company online! This puts the customers/users more at ease and enables them to connect with the organization through its employees.
4. Regular use of social media can make your online strategy more effective – Social media can be time consuming and cumbersome. But it is still important to invest some time to it on a daily basis. While you not want to flood your customers with too many updates and posting, it is important to show that your brand is active every day and are available to customers who want to reach out to you. Something interesting about your product/ service, client feedback, interesting quotes is a sure way to ensure that your customer is aware your brand at all times.
In conclusion, social media is really changing the way we conduct business but it has so much more potential. In around 4-5 years from now, social media will not even be a question for any kind of organization, much in same way as we do not think twice before using the internet to search for goods and services. Therefore, business that do not adapt to the changing time will be at increasing disadvantage as customers are looking for brands with whom they can forge personal relationships and connections. Today, it not the size of your budget that matter but the quality of your connections and interactions and social media can help you achieve this in a much better and comprehensive manner than ever before.