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| The new social media paradigm |
| by Daniel Bingham * Social Media Consultant * USA |
Until now, many companies have ignored social media without suffering any obvious consequences, especially in industries that, in the past, have not included a high proportion of social media users. Social media participation was a choice. However this era of opt in social media is ending. We have entered the era of asymmetric social media. There isn’t a place on the Web where companies can escape or avoid it. Instead of customers needing to actively seek out social media content, social media will be pushed to them automatically everywhere they go on the Web. Online media coverage, advertising, search engine results and even a company’s own Web site are about to be overtaken by social media in a way that cannot be stopped, slowed down or controlled. In every place that a brand is on the Web, social media will be there as well, providing feedback, offering praise and criticism and seeking a response.
Brand survival in this new social media era will depend on how well a business builds a community of active online supporters who will support and defend the brand against negative attacks, and add credibility and authenticity to the brand on the Web.
Previously, social media platforms were confined because they cross-communicated manually. To see social media content, you had to participate in social media platforms. Even if some of your customers were talking about your company on social media platforms, brands could still choose to ignore it, or dabble in a few areas of social media with a piecemeal strategy.
However today, social media content is not created, shared, managed or stored the way it once was. There are three dynamics driving this new era.
Information is now communicated as easily across different social media platforms as it is within a platform. With one click, and often automatically, online news articles are shared across Facebook and Twitter, tweets are posted as comments on blogs and news articles and YouTube videos show up in Google searches as easily as corporate Web pages do.
Audiences do not need to be proactively participating in social media to be consuming social media content in the normal course of their online activities. They don’t even have to click on links to view social media content anymore. The social media content is brought to them within the “traditional” Web sites they frequent.
Today social media content related to a company that exists on various platforms can be aggregated without the company’s knowledge and permission. This collection of content can become a compelling destination for users who might not have scoured the Internet and pieced together disparate shreds of information but become very interested in digesting the information in a single location.
Perhaps most threatening to companies not engaged in social media are the new tools that allow uncontrolled communications to proliferate.
Take Google Sidewiki for instance. Sidewicki’s implications for corporate Web sites are enormous. Google has just made corporate Web sites social, whether management like it or not. For example disgruntled ex-customers or employees can create a running commentary on a company’s homepage that will be visible to anyone that has Google Sidewicki installed on their Web browser. Business cannot moderate these comments because they are not controlled by the corporate Web site; rather, they are hosted on individual users’ Web browsers.
So where to from here?
Today a company’s best strategy is to recruit an active community of supporters and to build up a reservoir of trust and goodwill that can be drawn upon when times get tough. These are the times when loyal stakeholders need to be armed with facts about the company, which must be used in the event of any misgivings.
In order to have these loyal brand ambassadors, corporate leaders need to
To make social media work for your company, you may like to look a these 5 tools services to simplify your social media world.
This integrated messaging hub combines “e-mail, Twitter, Facebook and the broader social Web into a unique, enjoyable experience that provides deep context on the people you are connected with.”
This online filing cabinet and organiser makes it easy to remember things big and small from your life using your computer, phone and the Web.
An online social media personal assistant takes copies of all your latest updates in your social network and e-mail accounts, and places them in a snapshot e-mail. It also allows you to attach e-newsletters to your social media sites.
Posterous “is the dead simple way to post everything. Just e-mail us.” It is a cross between Twitter and Blogger/Wordpress which allows you to post thoughts that require more than 140 characters but take fewer than 250 words as well as videos, photos, music etc.
“This free service is the “secret weapon” of top SEOs, online marketers and PR pros. It helps them instantly identify top priority buzz, remain focused and meet clients' expectations.” This tool ranks your Google alerts in order of importance based on the criteria you select and delivers it daily in an Excel spreadsheet summary.
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