Social Media – Community-Commerce.com

Your customers, thanks to the Internet, have access to more information than at anytime in the past. Your customers, empowered by this wealth of information, changed the way they make purchase decisions – they now expect to be able to learn about your firm, products and services by accessing transparent, authentic and credible information. Social Media is a powerful way to provide for these customer expectations.

First, a few thoughts on social media:

Your customers use social media; it is likely your business should too
Your competitors use social media; it is likely your business should too
Social media is a business tactic that should support your business goals, objectives & strategies (not the other way around)
Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, Blogs, Pinterest, You Tube, etc. are examples of tools to use for your social media activities. Using these tools are business tactics, not business goals.
Social media tools are communication platforms used to interact with an audience

Therefore, any discussion about your firm’s social media should start with:

What are your business objectives and how does interacting with your audience through social media help achieve those objectives?

Below is a list to kick-start such a discussion – what are your measurable business goals for each topic?

Building relationships with customers to enable two-way communication
Building relationships with prospective customers to enable two-way communication
Building relationships with others (media, investors, suppliers, employees, prospective employees, product/service enthusiasts etc) to enable two-way communication
Enhancing your brand/PR message and reach to enable audience ‘self screening’ for their decision making process
Expanding your audience reach to generate likes/followers, leads and sales
Providing customer service & support
Listening and learning from your audience to research all aspects of your business, industry & marketplace
Enhancing your firm’s organic search positioning
Enhancing your cross-platform activity between blogs, website, retail channel, etc

More thoughts on social media:

Measuring Performance. We are wary of the term “social media expert” as it means different things to different people under different circumstances. At the end of the day, social media success is measured against how well your efforts contribute toward meeting/exceeding your business objectives by providing a favorable return on your social media activities.