Hopefully Social Media hasn’t hurt your business lately as in the case of the recent Groupon fiasco. These days in an instant, one incident, one commercial, one ad, can create a bad publicity runaway train nightmare. As Paul Gillin author of The New Influencers said in the Harvard Business Study, “Conventional marketing wisdom long held that a dissatisfied customer tells ten people. But…in the new age of social media, he or she has the tools to tell ten million.”

 While focusing on getting a return on a social media campaign, we must be fully aware of the potential downfall it can have if not well thought out and made with the consumers needs in mind. The study reveals that while 87% of the companies found the following true, “Promote your brand, products, and/or services via social media”, only 33% “Use social media to monitor trends among your customers” and only 25% “Research new product ideas via social networking/social media”. Social media channels are being used but we still have haven’t made the transition to this new way of communicating and more importantly, listening to the customer.

Also from the Harvard study, “We know that people are out in social media channels seeking information and researching. We need to use social media to influence their buying behavior.”

Going from a one-way conversation to a two-way communication marketing model.

To better use all the information out there, in addition to listening, we must also interact with the consumer and create a community of sharing information. We don’t have to convince anyone out there that they are “empowered”, it’s a known fact, we just have to acknowledge it and use it to better understand consumer demands.

Next in Part 3: Making sense of the noise.

What has Social Media Done for Your Business Lately? - Part 3