Social Media has clearly turned one of the most critical marketing tools for advertisers world over. Tech-savvy companies irrespective of their size and domain are growingly keen to leverage different networking channels to create awareness of their core business and brand. In effect, they are curtailing the budgets allocated to traditional advertising channels for more dynamic and more focused new media avenues.
Social media is rapidly emerging as an efficient and engaging way of interactions – personal or community based – with a diverse set of users. Corporate entities are now channeling networks like Chatter and Lotus Connections to fine tune internal communication flow and help identify talented specialists within the set-up.
Whether you are an aspiring job seeker or an ambitious entrepreneur, professional networking sites such as LinkedIn and even Facebook are extremely handy. For example, a former investment banker now successfully runs a fast-growing nationwide chain of stores thanks to social media. This ambitious entrepreneur regularly checks his Facebook account with the enthusiasm of a tech-savvy college student. Mr. Nelson logs onto the popular social networking website via his Blackberry or laptop, up to nearly 30 times a day. For him, this indeed is serious business!
He and his wife are co-owners of a customer-friendly cupcake bakery. Their business venture Sprinkles relies heavily on social media channels in lieu of ‘slow-paced’ traditional advertising they’ve decided to exclude from their marketing plans. In fact, Mr. Nelson describes Facebook marketing absolutely essential. And is it why so?
According to him, users are out there mentioning about your brand day in and day out. It is imperative that you must be aware of such interactions and look forward to them. Such proactive approach allows users to employ an interactive outlet. They can come out in the open and interact directly with the business stakeholders. The latter can be equally innovative in their interactions.
As is the case with Sprinkles’s business, Facebook is used to give all customers a whiff of what is cooking there, literally! Every day the owners put up a password on the Facebook site. It can be redeemed by customers for availing of a free cupcake. In the last six months or so, its user base has sharply risen to over 75,000.
The Nelson couple has used its previous working experience as investment bankers in the thriving technology sector to perfection. The two are aware of the fact that even for a typically traditional business such as a bakery popular networking platforms are one of the most crucial ingredients. His advice based on his successful experiment and experience is: Make social media relevant to your customers, keep it updated and hold the user interest. Once you take care of this, success on social media is not far away.
