Social Media Marketing. “When being there is not enough”
Doing SMM does not mean inserting a couple of images and a post on your Facebook page to say “here we are!”. Build a presence on FB can be sometimes harmful.
Social media marketing aims to take care, structure, plan, follow and TRACK the brand’s presence on social media to make the platform more popular amongst its followers.
Attract, engage, make people to interact.
We should all know that Social Media Marketing differs from any other type of marketing because it allows the actors (companies / customers) to interact. Formally but mainly informally. This thing is much easier than you think.
Example: I would like to contact privately a famous fashion company, which produces shoes. And I would like to know where to buy that model I sow into the online catalog. AT the beginning of internet this could have be done by sending an email to the brand with the hope to get an answer within an acceptable timeframe. There might be a StoreLocator on the website, but today, with social media at your fingertips, the best practice of a company that cares about their customers is to provide quick answers posted on Social Media. There is no a unique reason, but the ability to publicly expose oneself with quick answers consolidates the corporate image, in addition to providing a quality service to the final user. This makes her/him feel closer to the brand.
The postulate that we propose to our customers, more or less mature to undertake an SMM path is to remember that the consumer is not anymore a spectator of television advertising.
The content alone is not enough, companies have to know how to interact with the audience.
The reactions of consumers to Social Media innovation in marketing is still being studied and constitutes a challenge with respect to more traditional ways of relationship, in which it was not possible for users to give comments, but only to ask questions.
In practice, the”image management” as it was called some time ago became a real “identity and reputation management“. And if we don’t handle SMM with cleverness we risk that the consumer will end up having the knife with the hand on her/his side!
Implementation of a Social media marketing scheme
Facebook is the social network that offers the most possibilities, where you can create real websites for internal navigation with almost all the functionalities of the websites through the creation of ad hoc applications.
Twitter allows the insertion of company logos and a personalized page, as well as brief and immediate answers between users, being famous or not.
Linkedin allows the publication of a page without graphic personalization with free presentation of the company along with products and services to be shown to contacts on the internal network, as well as links to the company website and various information through a predefined scheme.
YouTube allows the creation of a company video channel where everybody can upload company videos and insert a selected presentation with a personalized page and insert links to your website.
Flickr allows the publication of company presentations with photo books and links to the company website.
Viadeo allows the publication of the company logo along with a presentation, both with free text and according to a predefined scheme, insertion of links and search system are with keywords.
Delicious allows the insertion of a company presentation, both in free text and according to a predefined scheme, insertion of links and search system is with keywords.
SlideShare allows the insertion of company presentations or related projects starting from the upload of PPT (powerpoint format file), Keynote, Pdf or other formats. This allows online viewing (very interesting also the prezi.com project) which gives a touch of excellent vision of ‘set of presentations, giving the opportunity to create them directly online or with a proprietary editor to download on your terminal.
Because social is direct, precise, immediate. Your client writes and you reply. Also because if you don’t do it, she/he will write about you on the platform. And this can be harmful!
