Toby the Marketing Diva has some advice today about using social media as marketing tools. In a nutshell, she says you’ve got to have a strategy. Don’t just jump in and build a MySpace page willy-nilly because it’s the cool thing to do. Toby suggests 10 ways to use social media. Among them:
1. Open customer communications .. listen and learn.
3. Improve Customer service
8. Build community
But one of the great insights in this post is Toby’s discussion of the “value add” in social media. Building on the thoughts of Amy Gahran at The Right Conversation, she points out that we all gain something when we communicate with our customers or our constituents or our members. We are building goodwill, we are learning from diverse perspectives and creativity, and we are growing in a host of other ways. Those things might not be classified as part of a “strategy,” but they are nonetheless benefits.
Hi David – thanks for extending the “conversation” .. as you’ve shown we learn from each other as ideas are exchanged and enhanced. Amy’s concept of how does social media impact the company rather than how does social media impact the customer puts a new light on how a strategy might be developed.
Hope all is going well in your world.
Toby, great to hear from you. Things are fine here — I hope they’re the same for you. I appreciate you stopping by.
I like the way you put it in this comment, by the way. “How does social media impact the company rather than how does social media impact the customer.” In other words, there’s intrinsic value in participating.–even beyond our typical measurement standards.