Every organization under the sun is jumping on the social media boat nowadays. Before entering the social media arena you should have a good grasp on who you are as a brand, why you exist, and who your customers are. You may have an informal knowledge of this, but if you feel unsure about those areas then now is a good time to contact us and let us help you nail those things down.
Let’s look at a few scenarios to learn some steps you should take:
Scenario #1. You have no clue what social media is or how to use it or you think it’s just Twitter or just Facebook or just (fill in the blank of the one social media site/tool you know about). If this is you, you’re next step is to do some serious research or contact us right now so that we can start the conversation and walk you through some things, because social media is surely no fad.
Scenario #2: Your target market is not connected to that form of media. If you’re selling awnings for RVs or denture cream, chances are is that you’re target market isn’t using social media (my super hip Granny is the exception, not the rule). In this case, you have a choice to make. Maybe you don’t need to get involved in social media. However you should keep in mind that social media is a big river with many outlets. Know your audience and know them well. You might have a segment of your audience involved with social media in a certain arena. You’ll have to weight the pros and cons of engaging that segment via that arena.
Scenario #3: Your main customer base is involved in social media and you’re not. This is not a bad thing. Let me give you an example. A brand that models this scenario well for me is Publix. Now I’m speaking about this brand in the context of my city because not all of the following is true for every Publix everywhere. So, what’s so great about Publix in Chattanooga, TN?
• Extremely clean stores that are brightly lit
• Their store ads are well designed with lots of white space so that it’s not crammed or overwhelming.
• Extremely nice and helpful workers
• Free cookie club for the kids
• They will take your groceries to your car and tell you not to tip them. That is a service they offer to you free of charge.
• They make it easy for you to save money. One glance at their prices and you may doubt that, but with the combination of great sales and the limitless coupon opportunities (double coupons, stacking store and manufacturer coupons, accepting competitor coupons), my family spends WAY less there than we would at Walmart. The cashiers/workers are actually excited to see how much you save with coupons as opposed to them looking like they’d rather die than have to deal with your coupons.
I am an evangelizer for Publix if you can’t tell already. I’m not the only one either. We tweet and write status updates about how much we save. We post it on blogs. If there’s a problem we have with Publix, we have fairly easy access to the people we need to go to just through the physical store and email. Social media for many companies has become the customer service phone line of the day. They don’t use it to engage their customers, but solely to fix problems.
It’s hard for me to say whether or not Publix (in my city) needs to be involved in the social media arenas of their customers. On one hand, their absence combined with the little things they do like escort you out to your car gives me a nostalgic feeling of how things once were. They don’t feel like a huge chain that just wants my money. On the other hand, their missing an opportunity to engage with their customers through social media. That’s one thing a competing grocery store in our city (Bi-Lo) is taking full advantage of. They use Twitter to address problems and also rejoice in their customers’ success of saving money.
Do you fit in to one of these scenarios or are you successfully socializing? Let us know how you are engaging or could be engaging your customers?
