“The exponenTial growTh of social media, from blogs, Facebook and Twitter to LinkedIn and YouTube, offers organizations the chance to join a conversation with millions of customers around the globe every day. This promise is why nearly two-thirds of the 2,100 companies who participated in a recent survey by Harvard Business Review Analytic Services said they are either currently using social media channels or have social media plans in the works. But many still say social media is an experiment, as they try to understand how to best use the different channels, gauge their effectiveness, and integrate social media into their strategy. Despite the vast potential social media brings, many companies seem focused on social media activity primarily as a one-way promotional channel, and have yet to capitalize on the ability to not only listen to, but analyze, consumer conversations and turn the information into insights that impact the bottom line.”
I have caught a little buzz regarding businesses persisting to think they do not need social media. It’s actually annoying. Why? It shows how narrow-minded a company can be. How can a company grow with people having this mind set. So thank you Harvard for calling attention to this problem. I read over the 18 page review and took out excerpts I liked.
Like I mentioned in my previous post, Ugh, old people are so annoying, I don’t have patience for the older generation who was late on this adaptation (media marketing). Sorry, you should of listened to us earlier when we said this makes things easier, technology is taking over, and you’re going to be left with no other choice. Avinash Kaushik, Google’s Analytics Evangelist, has similar thoughts on this generation gap when he tells us, “too many companies have not evolved from what I call ‘shout marketing’ – think TV, newspapers, magazine ads – to influence by initiating and participating in conversations with consumers- there needs to be a generational shift.”
He has a point. In my post, Social Media: The Everything Good, I touch upon this ‘shout marketing’ Kaushik speaks of. Print, radio, commercial – all on your facebook. Take your billboard image and post it to your page. Record your radio snippet and upload to your page. Take your commercial from YouTube and post it on your page. The facebook platform is a media haven. A FREE media haven. “A company can’t make money with social media” is getting old.
Below are excerpts and to read the whole review for yourself you can click HERE.
Three-quarters (75%) of the companies in the survey said they did not know where their most valuable customers were talking about them.
Nearly one-third (31%) do not measure effectiveness of social media.
Less than one-quarter (23%) are using social media analytic tools.
A fraction (7%) of participating companies are able to integrate social media into their marketing activities
The average amount of time spent on social networking sites increased 82% last year. And it is not just a phenomenon among the young: according to Forrester research, a third of adults post at least once a week to social networking sites such as Facebook
and Twitter, and about 70% read blogs and tweets, and watch YouTube.
Never before have companies had the opportunity to talk to millions of customers, send out messages, get fast feedback, and experiment with offers at relatively low costs. And never before have millions of consumers had the ability to talk to each other, criticizing or recommending products — without the knowledge or input from a company. “Conventional marketing wisdom long held that a dissatisfied
customer tells ten people. But…in the new age of social media, he or she has the tools to tell ten million.” says Paul Gillin, author of The New Influencers.
“Without monitoring conversations on the Web, you won’t know who’s talking about your brand and your products or services, and what the positive and negative sentiments are about them,” says Davenport. “You won’t know how influential a particular praising or criticizing customer is. You won’t be able to compare different brand messages, commercial videos, etc. and see what the quick reaction is to them.
In short, you’re missing a lot of marketing opportunity.”
Yet without good metrics and tangible evidence of impact, the majority of the executives in the survey said their organizations cannot take social media efforts seriously. And that poses a challenge for companies, says Avinash Kaushik, Google’s Analytics Evangelist and author of Web Analytics 2.0, because social media can build up a great deal of data, but not necessarily generate great insights that translate into action and then more customers and sales.Counting clicks and tweets and postings is nice, he says, but, “our bosses care about something far more simple — what has the Web done for me today?
A major publishing and training company uses social media for recruitment by posting interviews of employees on YouTube: “It gets a lot of attention and it is an easy, inexpensive way of getting the message out about the kind of company we are,” says the director of communications. The company also uses Twitter and Facebook for marketing and generating PR about new books and other products,
and has launched internal blogs to keep employees connected to each other.
A large U.S.–based industrial production management company launched a blog to gain more visibility for its experts who install and optimize products in plants. The program has now expanded to include LinkedIn, Facebook, and Twitter. Email exchanges between experts and customers with problems are regularly posted in the social media channels. “Right now there is a lot of expertise trapped in
mail boxes and folders and it’s not visible,” says the chief blogger. “Marketing brochures are not the language customers use. Social media lets the experts escape the prim and proper marketing talk.”
A European company, with supermarkets as well as food and beverage manufacturing operations, focuses social media efforts around Facebook. Some pages focus on the company; others, built by customers, discuss specific products. The company is building a site where consumers receive information about new products and vote pro or con on the product ideas. A moderating system also is used to screen blogs. “Sometimes, you find little jewels of insight. It can also be a warning system if anything is growing into an uproar,” says the vice president of corporate development. “Speed is important too. Social media tells you whether people like a TV commercial without waiting for their buying behaviors to show you.
