Fighting Recession With Social Media – Part 1

Should StumbleUpon, LinkedIn, Twitter, or other social media applications going to be your only source of market research? Of course not, but social media offers an abundance of honest conversation from which business can gather a wide range of vital information.

As budgets are drying up entrepreneurs are turning, yet again, to technology, social media comes to the rescue. Words such as YouTube, Facebook, and LinkedIn would have been considered typos not too recently have become part of our corporate success dictionary. Social media offers companies inexpensive ways to improve their customer service, ramp up their customer service, learn more about their market, reduce their expenses, and more.

Improve your customer service

Having a conversation with your customers through social media is a new business skill. In an effort to improve its public image, Dell has made a conscious effort to connect with its customers through various social media channels such as blogs, forums, and various third-party websites. Dell had to appreciate that customers talked about their products online, and the company was forced to become part of the conversation. With a little help from their social media friend Dell managed to make improvements to its Latitude laptop. Note: It was a Dell laptop that exploded into flames at a conference in Japan.

Social media is the great equalizer as the story of Jeff Jarvis, an unhappy Dell customer, shows. Jarvis took on this giant of a company using his own blog. He managed to create awareness about customer concerns that had reached an international audience. Initially, Dell had ignored the blog voicing Jarvis’ concerns until his blog became the outlet for public conversation of customer issues. His blog, the BuzzMachine, has become the focus of Dell’s mistakes, poor customer service and flawed products.

The blogosphere doesn’t create the problems it simply brings them to light, and it makes it possible for business to address the issues at hand. Now, the CEOs of companies don’t have to take customer service managers word for it, they can learn about customer issues directly from the source. Some might argue that somehow this is a bad thing. On the contrary, with social media, companies and consumers can realize problems that need to be addressed. Customer engagement through social media could only hurt a company in the long run that is not interested in positive change. Instead of creating a problem social media brings a new level of efficiency to the corporate world.

Do more research

Market research is no longer a luxury only large companies can afford. Social media is the market research alternative for small and mid-size businesses that don’t have money to burn. Especially in a recession, market research is an essential part of a winning corporate strategy. Using social media, companies can carry out their own market research, and the best part is that it’s free.

Search for the topic of your choice on StumbleUpon and learn what people say. One of the greatest aspects of StumbleUpon is that marketers can easily find websites related to their market that they would never find on their own. Businesses can use this website to get instant feedback. The community is continually engaged providing constant opinion that result in a better product. A company might be developing new packaging for a product and get instant criticism from the online community. Something that might have taken weeks and months using traditional methods can be done in a matter of days or even hours. This method is not only fast, but it is also free.

LinkedIn, the social media outlet for grownups, is a rich and dynamic database, which can be searched, mined, and yield insightful and useful information to you and your business. Through its “Answers” feature LinkedIn serves as a valuable market research tool because it enables users to ask questions on virtually any topic, and expect to get answers quickly from the community. Executives can ask questions about products, services, trends, or any topic that might be useful to gain a better insight into their market. You can use the search feature to find people by industry, job title, company, or geographical location. The search results include vital corporate information.

Twitter, a micro blogging service, with its millions of users, offers a world of market intelligence for your business. Twitter is the killer app for marketers that are dying to become the fly on the wall as they are given the opportunity to listen in on public conversations about their market, social issues, products, services, or industry trends. Twitter provides near-real time intelligence on virtually any market.

Should StumbleUpon, LinkedIn, Twitter, or other social media applications going to be your only source of market research? Of course not, but social media offers an abundance of honest conversation from which business can gather a wide range of vital information.

Fighting Recession With Social Media – Part 2

Are more companies turning to social media in this economy? They should if they want to improve their marketing efficiencies, enhance their customer service experience, or develop their research techniques. Social media allows companies to engage with the customers instead of shouting about their own wonderfulness.

Ramp up your marketing

Companies ranging small and large are increasingly turning to outside blogs, viral videos and websites such as Facebook, Twitter, FriendFeed and Digg — and their tens of millions of users — to reach consumers. Instead of cringing at the idea of relinquishing control to social media outlets, smart executives realize that there is more benefit in joining the conversation than fighting it. Instead of controlling information about your brand, your social media strategy should be about engagement.

Advertising as we know it is expensive; social media is cheap. For this reason, the recession is bad news for traditional marketers, while the same environment is full of opportunities for social media marketers. Setting up a company blog or a Facebook page is significantly less expensive than traditional marketing. Even creating your own community web site can be significantly cheaper than traditional advertising campaigns.

Social media marketing is not without risk. While every company wants to generate buzz, online backlash can be vicious. Recently a Motrin commercial aimed at moms created quite a stir. You can view the ad on YouTube as did another 210,000 people. The ad makes the apparently condescending claim that carrying babies in a sling is a painful experience for moms. According to moms, the ad was wrong and they made it loud and clear through social media applications such as Twitter. Some moms found the Motrin ad outright offensive, and they were quite vocal about it. You can catch them on YouTube. Of course, the disaster doesn’t end there. It continues on a myriad of blogs, and carries on in a Facebook page dedicated to boycotting Motrin. The backlash ad on YouTube can be viewed.

What to do when your target rejects your ad? Turn to social media. Instead of rejecting the market reaction Johnson & Johnson could have used social media applications to learn about their market prior to creating and publishing the controversial ad. There could have been a Facebook page created to learn about young moms and pain. There could have been a blog inviting moms to provide video testimonials on YouTube. The lesson learned in this case is to use social media to learn about your market, or be prepared to be taught very quickly and painfully.

Reduce your expenses

Save time and money on travel and use LinkedIn to network. Instead of driving to the other end of town fighting your way through traffic use the largest business social network to build new connections and to nurture existing ones. Only attend your most valuable networking events, and transfer as much of your networking as you can to the web. LinkedIn, Plaxo, and Facebook are some of the best social networking applications.

Reduce your legal fees through a fairly new social media site called Docstoc. It is a place to find and share professional documents such as contracts, confidentiality agreements, intellectual property documents and more. Docstoc is a social community resource that enables anyone to find and share professional documents. The site provides an opportunity for individuals and organizations to share their professional documents. Documents available on Docstoc can be easily searched, previewed and downloaded for free.

Decrease your recruiting costs as you hire your employees though Craigslist, which has quietly become one of the most visited websites in cyberspace. It offers a much cheaper way to recruit online, and your company can expect excellent response rates for your job posts.

Putting it all together

Are more companies turning to social media in this economy? They should if they want to improve their marketing efficiencies, enhance their customer service experience, or develop their research techniques. Social media allows companies to engage with the customers instead of shouting about their own wonderfulness. It offers ways to business to partner with the community in an effort to develop a better product. In the end everybody wins because both the company and the consumer end up with a better product.

Virtually all companies can benefit from using social media not just to create awareness, but also to become part of the conversation. Managing your corporate reputation is impossible without social media, and ignoring it can be outright devastating. Instead if fighting against it, embrace it as it rockets your business forward as it deepens your relationship with the only reason you are in business for, your customer.