Social Media

Social Media, Social Networks, Web 2.0, User Generated Content, ..  etc. The terms used for this recent phonomenon are many and varied.

My focus here is from the perspective of the entrepreneur, owner manager, SME, or Marketing and Sales professional, and to highlight ways that Social Media can be used to support marketing and sales activity.

Social Media has the potential to make a major contribution in the areas of brand building, lead generation, customer service and other business centric activities. However, traditional broadcast advertising does not sit comfortably in social media, so new techniques need to be devised, deployed and monitored.

It also provides a mechanism for customers to communicate on a peer to peer basis on a scale and reach that has not been possible up to now. Agrieved customers now have a much bigger soap box from which t make their views knows. However, delighted customers can also provide public feedback as well, if they are suitably motivated.

Prospects and customers can also congregate in new places, which creates new opportunities for organisations to 'go to where their customers are'. Whereas previously the media choices might have been TV, Press, Radio etc. the choices now also include YouTube, Facebook, ebay and so on. 

I would like to highlight three Social Media scenarios which create some differences. They have differences to the person to person social networks typified by Facebook and others.

1. Person to Person - I was tempted to say consumer to consumer but these networks are used primarily for social interactions. My teenage children typify the usage as they communicate endlessly with their peer group about the things that are of interest to them.

2. Business to Consumer - in the same way as a website allowed a small business to punch above it's weight, so social media also allows entrepreneurial and innovative smaller companies to execute creative campaigns at a very low cost. The Snacks Van proprietor who used Twitter to update people in the businesses he visited about his expected arrival time and 'specials' is one of many examples.

3. Business to Business - professional or business networks are expanding their reach, with ecademy, LinkedIn and others catering to and supporting the needs of the business community.

Without writing War and Peace, one concept that I feel is important is how a network or media blends people and commerce. Much of the Internet/web is free or very low cost to the individual. The value of data captured about peoples behaviour is perhaps the unseen aspect, that can be used for more effecive marketing. If a network becomes established for social purposes, Facebook for example, the introduction of business and commerce needs to be handled sensitively. If a network is established for commercial purposes, Amazon or ebay for example, it has the opportunity to add a social element to enhance the user experience while also serving its commercial aims.

At the end of the day all businesses, from the self-employed through to major corporations, need to make a judgement about whether it is beneficial to use, or (perhaps more accurately) to participate in, social media as part of their marketing activity.

This section of the Hosted Apps and Tools website provides information, ideas and resources around some of the applications and tools on the market that an entrepreneur, owner/manager or smaller company (SME) may find useful.