Using Social Media Channels with Multiple Business Objectives

Social Media Marketing is the latest game in marketing. Whether you have a product or a service to market, you have no option but to be present in various social media channels for this is where your existing and prospective customers are. More importantly your customers are talking and sharing their ideas, experiences and information that includes reference to your products and services too.

Multi Media technology has fuelled the growth of Social Media channels including blogs, micro blogs, audio & video sharing and Podcasts etc. When it comes to advertising on the Social Media Channels, you will find the pop ups and banners etc to be the same as the traditional media advertising which is interruptive.

However from a marketing angle you need not look at Social Media channels only for advertising. There is a lot more that you can do on a larger scale by connecting with your customers, building your image, online reputation as well as benefitting from the interactions that you elicit from the audience regarding your product and services.

Leveraging on Collective Intelligence of the Community

In fact most of the technology businesses have found it extremely useful to blog and connect with the audience, wherein they are able to talk about their product innovations, technology platforms and gain useful insights and assistance from the community in developing as well as getting directions for building the products for the future.

Technology is changing very fast and lifecycle of products too is very short. In such situation, being able to feel the pulse of the actual users, interacting with and giving the audience a feel of the product, banking on collective intelligence of the community in solving product or technology related problems can prove highly beneficial for business.

No technocrat can ignore the fact that you are able to bank on not just limited brains of your team but of the best talent available in the community. Many times online discussions have paved way to solving major problems faced during product development.

It helps then, to recognize the fact that the concept of marketing and advertising using social media channels is different. You can have several goals while drawing up your strategy for using Social Media channels.

Advertising and connecting with your prospective customers is definitely one of the primary motives behind the entire exercise. In addition to doing so, you can also use the channels for very many other goals which may include qualitative as well as quantitative goals too.

From using the channels for internal purpose to connect with employees and support vendors, to informing the interested community regarding proposed product development as well as talking about the future course of growth for the Company and eliciting responses from the community on what they think, the Social Media channel can be used as a mirror that reflects your business, your reputation and your customer’s behavior, understanding, needs, opinions and feedback etc.

Use Multiple Channels with different Marketing Objectives

Depending upon your strategy and focus, you would need to choose appropriate channel that suits the purpose. Understanding the different platforms is essential to be able to decide on the mix and match of channels that you choose to be present in and participate.

Apart from Social Networks including Business and professional Networks and White Label communities, you will find it necessary to be present in the sphere of blogs and other multi-media channels including video sharing and podcasts too. Each of the channels suite a different purpose and give you a chance to connect with the customers on an interactive mode.

Realizing the fact that you are tapping into and interacting with your customers who are the audience on these channels makes you realize the vast amount of opportunities that open up to you to further your business interest. Compare this to just buying advertisement space on the channels where the audience has a choice to bypass and ignore your advertisement, you will realize that the Social Media channels are a gold mine and you couldn’t have asked for a better opportunity to be able to reach out and interact with your customers.

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