What is the main point of social media?… To create a two-way conversation. Whether you are using; Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn or any other social media tool it is important to remember you are always working at creating a two-way conversation.
PR and marketing have come a long way from shouting a message at consumers, and that is the first step at being successful at using social media. Meghan Overby, Jan Burch and I were lucky enough to have the opportunity to share our observations and ideas about marketing in general and social media in particular yesterday morning with a wonderful group of people at the Green California Summit and Expo in Sacramento. There are so many markets niches out there looking to jump into social media and Green is one of them.
It is important to understand the basics of social media and know that it is only one tool to reaching your audience. Also each social media tool is used differently and can achieve different results. We spent a few hours running over the basics and used this Powerpoint (4mb PDF). Some of the key points we covered included:
- Make sure EVERYTHING is routed to and from your web site.
- Treat social media as a two-way conversation; be sure to be a good listener!
- Social Media is only ONE tool, it is not the one answer to everything.
We wrote a Social Media White Paper, too. If you want it, then just click here!
This hits home to a vast majority of the population these days. Social media sites have taken over a large portion of our lives, but I think that the younger generation often takes advantage of such a useful tool by overusing it or ignoring the importance of some of the things that are out there. However, social media sites such as FaceBook and Twitter generate a great deal of conversation even just around campus. It is fascinating to see how quickly news can travel and to hear the latest buzz. Groundswell also speaks about the use of social media sites in his book. They have definitely revolutionized the way in which we use the media and have also become an imperative tool within the world of Public Relations.
I feel like there is a lot of talk about social media these days and if it a positive or a negative to our society. As Brittney said, it is a large part of many peoples’ lives today. We twitter everything we do and talk to everyone on facebook and find our employees on linkedin. Social media has become a main entry for marketing these days because just about everyone has a facebook, twitter, and even a linkedin account. It has become easier to target people this way and easier to expose your company or product to them. For PR it is guaranteed that word will spread quickly through the internet wires and become someones facebook status and then become the small talk before class starts. Social media has grown a lot in the past couple years and it will only get bigger allowing more opportunities for marketing as well as PR.
What stuck out to me the most about what you said is that social media is “a two-way conversation.” I just finished reading “Groundswell” by Charlene Li and Josh Bernoff. They talked about it as a relationship a lot and how it is important to concentrate on relationships when using social media for PR. They, also, talked about one of the points you mentioned above about how important it is to listen to your customers when using the social network. The authors stated, “You need to show that feedback online, good or bad, where people can see that you are ready to act on it, that you are committed to improving things” (194). Social media can be a powerful PR tool, but the business has to be prepared to dedicate time to use it properly and to their advantage.
I feel that it is important to listen AND take action. Responding to your readers lets them know that you are listening and that their opinion does matter. Nothing is more frustrating when you give your input and receive nothing in return. It is all about that two-way conversation. If that connection is lost, so can be your audience and customers. They like to be heard.
Social media usage is important in today’s day and age. I don’t know how to emphasize how important it has become to businesses. To think that Facebook and MySpace would one day be a tool for anchoring a business or a cause, was unthinkable. It’s not just a site to chat with friends anymore. And just how you said, we have to make sure that social media is only one tool. You want to know that you are using it effectively and to your advantage, depending on what it is you are trying to achieve. Also, people have to understand that different social media tools have different purposes. For example MySpace would be more geared to the artists, and the music industry, because you can create a page with songs and different features than lets say Facebook and Twitter. These SNS’s are used differently and can be targeted to different people. So for a business who wants to use social media, they have to see what is useful to them and who they are targeting.