The rising importance of social networking in marketing Monday, March 8, 2010

    I've just moved back to the Denver Metro area after having lived in London for the last 6 years and am now working for the internet marketing agency IM Genius. As is to be expected, things have changed, but I've found that the statement to be exponentially true when it comes to social media sites and blogging as it relates to marketing your business online. Having worked in internet marketing both locally and over seas, I've come across 2 different types of mind sets here in the US when it comes to using social media together with marketing.

     First there's the business owner that "has no time" for social networks like Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn and Buzzherd and while the evidence is out there, refuse to believe that social networking is useful for anything other than kids gossiping and sharing pictures.

     The other one is the one that not only fully embraces social media for everything it's worth, but who is creative and actually comes up with new and unique ways to raise their company's PR online.

     What a lot of traditionalists don't recognize is that it's not only the youth of today that are surfing around on the internet. Web 2.0 is all about giving the user control of the internet, and while the kids do use that control to come up with new chat rooms and video games, that same functionality is what can empower the business owner to reach a much wider audience than usual, in a new and creative way. You see, the kids have it easy. They grew up with the internet and basically do whatever they want with it. The traditionalist, on the other hand, is bound by "the way marketing was always done" through advertising in print and on television and therefore struggle with the ability to think outside the box.

     I was involved in a series of seminars in London when I was there working for a prominent online marketing magazine. We would cover a different topic of internet marketing each month and sponsors would give presentations to the audience of the top international businesses in Europe (some were American based companies). We'd covered branding, analytics and usability to name a few topics, but then we decided to do one on Online PR. Almost immediately we started getting interest from some of the bigger agencies in London and then I got in touch with an internationally well known US based marketing agency. They were very interested and ended being one of the main sponsors. Their entire presentation was based on social media and hailed it as the key way to manage your PR online. They gave an example of an ad agency that ran a campaign for the popular pain relief medicine Motrin. They had created a series of viral videos that targeted mothers that had just given birth highlighting back pains from carrying the baby in a pouch and how Motrin could help. The main flaw in the video was that it showed an insensitivity to the mother/child bond and offended a lot of mothers (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BmykFKjNpdY). The Twitter and Facebook storm that followed created such a massive chain of complaints and even videos making fun of them, that Motrin had to issue a public apology. The problem was, that they didn't take it seriously enough when all the comments were being posted on the social networking sites, so the public apology took too long and didn't seem genuine. Because of that there was major damage to their brand. This video shows some of the fallout - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LhR-y1N6R8Q&feature=related

     In another case, a man had bought a Dell computer and had some problems with it. The customer service he received from Dell was so appalling, that he decided to start writing blogs about his experience and posting comments on Facebook and Twitter and videos on YouTube. Dell didn't anticipate that this guy was an experienced blogger. However, when they realized that he was getting quite a following, they not only began immediately posting apologies, but they actually hired him to become one of their most valuable PR spokesmen. This move ended up being a huge success because it sent out the message that they not only care about what their customers think, but that they were willing to put it in the spotlight and listen to what everyone had to say.

     Especially in today's economic environment, the ability to anticipate the power of the internet and it's impact in such a rapidly progressing area of technology is vital. Throughout the history of business, changes in the way people reach their target audience has always proved to be a stumbling block for even the worlds best companies. It's often difficult to invest time and money into something new that hasn't been a part of the strategy in the years past. The fact is, the maketplace has already changed and the internet is playing a larger roll year after year. That being said, it's always the most progressive and creative companies that make it out of a major recession alive.