By Banele Rewo
If you believe that social media enables brands to build relationships with consumers you are dead wrong.
The technology merely provides a platform to connect the two parties then everything else goes back to basic psychology, group dynamics and social science.
What do I mean?
Brands along with every service supplier in the marketing chain contribute extraordinary efforts and research into communication, advertising and marketing campaigns. Social media deserves the same meticulous attention.
The trusty reinforcement and other one-way approaches worked well enough to survive the ice age by telling the consumer what to want.
But then the world became smaller, choice exploded and competition grew fierce. Needless to say this is no time to gamble a multi-million campaign with a 140-character PR blunder.
Unfortunately; that’s the risk unwitting brands pay for; a person to “manage” their social media accounts with the simple instruction to keep its account up-to-date. Up to date with what? Nonsensical updates such, as “Good morning, how is your Monday?”, “Please RT and you may win surprise hamper”? Where is the involvement?
To do list
. Engage with consumers and talk with them, not to them.
. Listen to the conversation rather than just monitoring.
. Value your fans, friends and followers then add value for them.
. Provide exciting content that will make the consumer think you are a reliable friend.
. Stop asking for a “like” or “retweet,” that is abuse.
. Speak with a tone representative of the brand not the writer.
. It is unacceptable for a social media manager to fail in projecting the brand’s personality, whether in-house or not.
If the brand chooses to have a social media manager internally or externally, there should be a service level agreement that will provide progress reports on the activity of the page. The tasked person or company should also know each and every aspect of the brands product if not at hand then on speed dial. – Bizcommunity
