Welcome to the second essay in the series "How can businesses use Social Media". Today we discuss some of the statistics and strategies related to social media.

The first strategic dilemma that companies face is “most of the guys on the social media are young, but my customers are not only young but from all age groups”.

Here’s a statistic that shows the distribution. The young definitely come in huge numbers but they definitely do not crowd it.

So here it is! You can plan your social media campaign accordingly. The second question an apprehensive marketing manager asks is fine!,which websites, or social media portals should we target on? That’s the perfect next step in strategising your social media campaign. The answer lies below 

You got it; if your strategy is catch them young! Bebo would work for you. A teenage deodorant, or a shampoo, or even a relevant mobile handset...the products are unlimited and so are opportunities.

Similarly LinkedIn is perfect if you are targeting 35-55,the family products! Anything from a detergent to a home theatre! Being more official in nature Linked is suitable for office and allied products...an internet service provider say...

The next obvious step is to decide what content to put and the communication strategy. Most companies settingup a social media campaign err in either neglecting it (no resources to keep it up to date and interesting), or spending all their time posting a brazen sales post one after another, and disappointed at their shrinking fan base, closing the campaign in frustration.

Like in a real life situation, you can't talk about yourself all the time. Sooner or later you find your potential prospects excuse themselves,similarly in a social media domain they un-follow you. Instead, you need to engage people by asking them about themselves and intelligently ask their experiences about your brand and products, patiently give an ear to what they have to say,offer your company's opinions and share advice/experience. Through this"give and take" philosophy, you can then start slipping in posts promoting your products or special offers. Remember, social media is online conversations with an ear and heart and no places for unintelligent and impatient sale speeches.

In our next essay we would delve into the specifics of each of the social media sites. Let’s start with Twitter the next time !!

Tags: strategies in Social media marketin | Strategies for Social media | strategies in social networking

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Sometime last week, ET’s Brand Equity featured a couple of people trying to look cool, referring to them as Indian advertising’s future top guns.

Well, I was drawn to one part of the feature(apart from the general coolness all around). All the featured folks were asked “What is more important – industry recognition or client recognition?” All answers mentioned one or the other.

Now, I found that curious. No ‘customer recognition’? Who are you writing the ad for anyway? If you’re worried about ‘industry’ and ‘clients’, and haven’t spared a thought for your customers, is it any wonder why there’s tons of bad advertising around today?

Another question in that feature was “What’s wrong with advertising today?”. Well, the answer to that perhaps lay on the same page.

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Welcome to the first of a series of blogs on"How can businesses use Social Media" . We start with an Introductionto the social media in this essay.

Social media can be called as a democraticapproach to knowledge generation and content validation. Moving away fromtraditional media in a big way, Social media is two- way traffic between theconsumers and marketers. 

Simply put, Social Media ispeople using the internet to have discussions. A fairly simple concept, but itssimplicity does in no way underestimate its power. While generally topics as banalas what one had for breakfast are discussed, they also drown into more insightfultopics, such as politics, religion, world events and even your brand.

Social Media therefore is…

A social instrument of communication

A website that asks for your opinion

A website where the information is partially by the author andpartially by those who have interacted with it

As Wendy Schollum says

“The opportunity social mediapresents for your business is the ability to listen, participate and influencethese online conversations”.

Think of it like being able toposition your best sales person at the first worldwide networking event.Instead of being able to influence a room of perspective customers, your salespeople can "work" the nation, or even the world. How useful would itbe for your business to get direct access to your target market and ask them whatthey want? The return and impact on your internal systems, product/servicedevelopment and marketing would be immeasurable.

But, it is important to know howto stimulate this type of conversation. After all, simply setting up a Facebookpage or Twitter account isn't enough to get people chatting about yourbusiness. You need to have a clear social media strategy in place that outlinesyour goals, guidelines, tactics and even a crisis plan.

Keep an eye on the next essay on some of the statistics andstrategies for Social media marketing.

Tags: Social Media | Social Media Marketing | Power of Social Media | Social Media for Businesses | Social Media for small business | Social Media Greenlemon

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