Social media is the new ball game for big companies as this is definitely the next big thing that will have huge exposure. But will the companies ever know the meaning behind social media?
One-way or Two-way communication?
This word “media” has always been used as a one-way communication where anybody who has deep pockets will be able to leverage on it for a big exposure to the mass out there. The word “social” is a two-way communication where consumers can have the same level of exposure when they reply to the companies’ message.
Internal issue when exploring social media
It is kind of a double-edged sword for many companies who are already used to a one-way communication. Exploring the social media probably means that one of the employees have to be able to communicate effectively with the consumers. Most of the bigger companies have already established customer service department who is specialized in answering the questions of the public. However, the department who has been exploring the social media is definitely more specialized only with the message being communicated out. Hence, there is a very big problem here if the company wishes to have an effective social media involvement. They probably have to engage social media specialists, or they have to bring in agencies (which is not recommended for long term plan) to help them with the communication.
Engaging social media specialists
Companies are starting to have social media specialists who are focusing on the two-way marketing communications. It may be quite daunting for most of the companies as they are focusing a lot on just one way marketing communication. And for those IT-related companies, it is probably more pressurizing to do something related to social media. This is where the Y-Generation is coming to the rescue because of their natural experience with their personal blogs, facebook, myspace, twitter, flickr, delicious, stumbleupon, digg and so on.
One piece of advice I have for all companies out there who are exploring social media for your new channel of communication.
I understand that companies are very concerned about their ROI whenever they work on any campaigns. However, social media is very different from traditional media. Here’s my advice:
“Do what you can give to the social media, and not what the social media can give you in terms of monetary gains or whatever.”
Set your KPI only on the web traffic and subscribers that you can accumulate. If your subscribers ever want to know more about you, they will definitely visit your website for more details.
