Many more companies are starting to get on the social media band wagon. It is a subtle way to sell things on a social media site. It is not your typical sales style that these companies are used to. Every company want to be advertising in these social media sites. It is really word of mouth marketing in the end. Someone is usually spreading the word about the company at all times of the day and in all the contries that your brand has a presence in.
Multinational corporations, such as Ford Motor Co. and Coca-Cola Co., are beginning to use social media to increase positive sentiment, build customer rapport and correct misinformation, says Adam Brown, Coca-Cola’s Atlanta-based director of social media.
“Having the world’s most-recognized brand, we feel like there’s an obligation or a responsibility when people are talking about us; we have a duty to respond,” Mr. Brown says.
Best Buy Co. Inc. riled up the social-media world earlier this summer with a job posting for a senior manager of emerging media marketing. One of the job requirements, as originally posted, called for applicants to have more than 250 followers on Twitter. (When that caused an online backlash, the electronics retailer opened the process of crafting a job description to the public.)
The larger companies are starting to catch on to this free advertising source. Why wouldn’t a company use social media? Social media is so important and moves at such a rapid pace that it can become overwhelming for one person to handle. Most of the complaints that people post on Twitter or Facebook want a fast response. So it is not just word of mouth marketing it is also part customer service.
The lightning-fast pace of social media, and Twitter in particular, has forced businesses to act in a whole new way, says Mr. Brown of Coca-Cola.
“If you don’t respond within three or four hours, you might as well not respond at all,” he says.
For example, a man on Twitter recently expressed annoyance at his difficulty in claiming an all-expenses-paid trip he’d won through the My Coke Rewards program. He Tweeted, “Coca-Cola, bring down your drawbridge,” Mr. Brown recalls. Within half an hour, Mr. Brown had engaged the customer on Twitter, got on the phone with him and resolved the problem.
Not long after, the man changed his Twitter avatar to a can of Coke Zero.
It is so important to have a one-to –one conversation with your followers even if the post is positive. Keep your followers engaged in the conversation public square that we call social media.
-John Botch
www.Laserburnmedia.com
john@laserburnmedia.com
