Tuesday, February 7, 2012

Meeting Consumer Expectations With Social Media

Last week I discussed the importance of managing your organization's reputation when dealing with negative customer reviews (see The Virtual You all members). While this is clearly an important skill to have, dealing with customer preferences is far more productive for your organization when it is done before you have a problem. One of the most important ways to deal with this is to open up lines of communication with consumers, in the ways they prefer to be contacted (see Your Marketing Plan: Thinking Through Social Media Strategy premium members).

Traditional salesmanship may be no less important, but employing only the same old marketing techniques is no longer a viable method for aligning your "selling" with a customer's "buying." In today's world, to have an effective marketing and communications plan, you need to think strategically about social media. This includes mastering passive consumer communication (maintaining a website) and interactive consumer communication (social media).

When entire generations have never lived in a world without the internet, passively maintaining a website may seem pretty standard. But most organizations still haven't fully embraced the "back and forth", interactivity that social media allows. Web-based and mobile technologies that turn your communications into an interactive dialogue help satisfy your consumers' desires for convenience by putting your message into the channels they are already using to communicate.

For an in-depth look at the marketing opportunities social media can provide, here is a list of OPEN MINDS resources to advance your communications efforts:

1. Calculate Your Organization's Social Media IQ all members

2. Using Social Media to Your Advantage all members

3. Times Are Changing for Social Media's Role in Our Field all members

4. Is Your Social Media Policy Ready? Or Not? all members

5. Using Twitter to Build Customer Loyalty all members

6. Building Your Business With Friends on Facebook all members

7. Expanding Your Reach By Blogging all members

8. Get Marketing Leverage With Web Marketing & A Social Media Plan all members

9. Who Should You be Following on Twitter? all members

Need more? Join me in June in New Orleans for the OPEN MINDS Planning & Innovation Institute when I expand on the importance of interacting and engaging consumers in my session, "A New Way To Consider Marketing: How To Use 'Sticky Marketing' To Engage Consumers."

Sincerely,
Tim Snyder
Marketing Manager, OPEN MINDS

Back to top

For another free resource, see: No One's Going to Look for You in the Yellow Pages all members 

This is free for the next sixty days to all registered OPEN MINDS Circle members.

Back to top