Social networking and community engagement technology made easy

There are many paths an organisation can take while pursuing its goals. There is medium upon medium to advertise, to exclaim, to write, broadcast from in the attempt to get a message across. For decades, ways of communicating have been constantly evolving. We went from gatherings in churches and town halls to mass printing, radio to television, direct mail to telephone, Internet, email and social media. All were shifts in marketing. All required new ways of thinking and doing.

As Hugh McLeod says (and draws) on his  Gaping Void gallery:

“One of the most amazing things about 21st Century life is how fast things change. Not that long ago, it took a generation to build a business, and unless you screwed it up, things just puttered along.

These days, The NYSE can move 1,000 points in an hour. Multi Billion dollar industries are created and destroyed in a matter of a few years. Change is perhaps your greatest competitive advantage.

Keep your eyes open; Embrace it; Love it and success it yours.”

Yes, business is change. Marketing is change. We are change.  As a country, we are proof of this change. Australians engage in social media more than any other country. We consume more information online as a whole and according to the research we undertook with Nielsen, social media use for business marketing will reach 71 percent in 2010.

Clearly, much social media marketing is happening on third-party sites such as Facebook, Twitter and YouTube however, 46 percent of business’ tell us they feel it’s risky to have client and customer relationships managed via a third party platform.  77 percent feel it’s important to own the information they capture.

Here’s why:

• Any interaction that takes place on a third party site is not owned by your organisation. There are also a growing number of companies willing to buy information that is gathered from these third party sites in order to solicit new prospects. I wrote about this back in April. Owning your social media platform gives sole proprietary rights.
• When organisations have their own social network, as it ebbs, flows and grows over the years, it gives better insight to almost everything: consumer behavior, dislikes, impact, interests, and relationships. This information is a strategic asset. It can help you plan for your future, especially because your consumers are the ones who are helping give the feedback. It also creates a community, which fosters better relationships between customers and shareholders.

That said, whilst creating your own proprietary social network presents a golden opportunity to establish a long term strategic business asset, it is still very important to integrate your social space with the external social networks like Facebook in order to leverage the network of networks effect.

posted by Piers Hogarth-Scott in the category Reserach & Statistics Social Media Social networking
Tags: gaping void, hugh mcleod, neilsen-community engine 2010 social media business benchmarking study