Today if a customer is dissatisfied with your product or service, they have many ways to vent their frustrations. The old adage that a satisfied customer will tell one person and a dissatisfied one will tell ten, needs to be revised in the age of Yelp and City Search. Today a dissatisfied customer will tell hundreds if not thousands of people about poor service at the click of mouse or a swipe on an iPhone.
If you want your brand to be successful in social media, think about starting a conversation. When you Google the term “social media audit” you will get over three million hits. If you take the time to drill into the recommendations of the top 10 results, you will see the same blather being proffered by various so-called social media experts and agencies.
So you have a blog, a Facebook fan page and a customized corporate Twitter page. You even have a few videos posted to YouTube. So where is the ROI? The answer lies in the type of engagement you are fostering. If customers are not posting comments on your blog and they are not embedding links to your videos in their Facebook wall and they are not even tagging your content with Facebook LIKES (thumbs up), the answer is:
If you are interested in social media strategy, this video from Brian Solis is required viewing. Brian does a deep dive into the true meaning of social capital. Brian Solis content is always worthwile.
According to an eVoc Insights study, 48 percent of consumers need to consult reviews before making an online purchase. Today, many consumers are turning to YouTube and other social media channels to find reviews.
You can learn a lot about how to use social media for your company by studying a company’s use of social media during a crisis.
The current PR crisis that BP is experiencing is a great example of both how to use social media and how not to use it. While there are numerous blog articles on the PR gaffes of BP and their clumsy use of social media, few drill into the details of what you need to do to avoid becoming another BP.
Today if you flip on the TV or have kids, you can’t avoid being bombarded by messages about social media. You’ll see anchors on CNN plugging their Twitter pages and ads for Tempur-Pedic mattresses pushing their Facebook page. Just about every night CNN anchor Anderson Cooper mentions you can follow him on Twitter, news stories break about Sara Palin’s latest Facebook post or Lady Gaga’s latest outlandish publicity stunt.