Social Media Creates Better Consumer Experiences

With the use of new technology and social media tools, businesses are able to understand their customers’ needs and wants in ways never before possible. Fortunately for internet marketers, we have amazing technologies and tools at the tip of our fingers that allow us to listen and respond to customers on a whole new level. Gone are the days of mass impersonal messaging in advertising and marketing. These days, there are new ways to engage in conversation with your audience and get the feedback you need. With these results, we have the power to give consumers not only exactly what they want, but how and when they want it.

How can you find out what consumers want?

Social Media Sites

Social media is completely revolutionizing the way businesses interact with their customers. Stored information from Facebook, Twitter, Foursquare and other networking sites can show us what brands they and their friends like. With this data, companies can now listen and respond to what it is people really want.

For example, Carnival Cruise Lines does a great job at listening to what people are saying. Their team monitors Twitter and Facebook for any mentions of their brand using the platform Tweetdeck. Social Media Manager from Carnival Cruise Lines Eric Schechter states, “We not only listen to the good, but also to the bad, correcting any customer service or providing service recovery if possible. We take into consideration what people write on our Facebook page and use these suggestions and comments to improve our cruise ships, guest experiences, etc. Social Media builds trust by being able to directly engage in conversation with the people who build and make our brand what it is.”

He continues to explain how the consumers “voice” actually builds the brand. “Now, with consumer generated content, customers turn into your brand ambassadors. By simply uploading pictures, videos, or commenting about your product or service, they are essentially building free PR for you! What’s better then free advertising?!”

Below is an example of Carnival Cruise Lines promoting conversation with customers through Facebook.






Another example of successfully understanding the needs of your consumers is a Facebook campaign by Target. Target launched a back-to-school Facebook page targeting college students living in dorms. The page included interactive games, photo and video posting opportunities as well as a discussion board. They offered a fun quiz application and colorful graphics which captured the interest of college students. In result, the page attracted a surge of new traffic and allowed Target to connect users to not only their brand but to receive insight on their products and customer service, both positive and negative. Marketers could then use this information to make changes to their current strategy and learn what exactly to continue doing and what to change out or improve on.




On the flip side, with the emergence of social media many consumers have also used this as an outlook to post negative comments and to vent or rant about products or services. Companies need to understand that this is not necessarily a bad thing. It gives the company an opportunity to fix the problem and a chance to learn what they can improve on in the future. If you are a business, check out this interesting article on how you can respond to negative social media reviews and turn it around to a positive.

One example of a company responding to negative feedback positively is Gap. After 20 years with the same logo, in 2010 the company decided to revamp it with a new one. This resulted in a frenzy amongst customers all over social media networking sites. Followers of the business posted negative comments about the new logo. So what was Gap left to do? Nothing but the obvious. They were able to take this feedback as constructive criticism and give people what they wanted – the original Gap logo back. In result, the negativity turned positive as it created buzz for the brand, increased sales that year, gave people a voice in the company and gave them back what they wanted.



In conclusion, internet marketers are using social media to help them better understand customers. Whether it’s listening to suggestions for new products or turning a negative review into a positive buzz, businesses are taking advantage of this new medium. A few years ago companies would have killed to have these channels of communication with their consumers.

Social media can be an extremely powerful channel if you have the right internet marketing company that knows how to use it correctly. If you’re looking to understand what your customers want on a whole new level, let an internet marketing professional help. Contact Mannix Marketing, Inc., your local Upstate NY internet marketing company to learn how you can use social media to create better experiences for your customers.

Using Social Media for the Success of Small and Medium Businesses

If there’s one aspect small and medium-sized businesses should look into, it’s social media marketing. And it is proving to be an integral part of today’s business landscape, adapting to the rapidly evolving socially-aware Web.

Word-of-mouth has been transmuted to real-time tweets. TV reportage has been elevated to live Web streams and on-demand videos. Generally pandering advertisements have been turned into messages especially targeted to specific members of the brand’s client base.

All these have set the stage for newer practices and technologies, bringing in much brand and product-driven successes than traditional marketing tactics could ever hope to achieve. True enough, social media has proven to be a stable marketing platform, so if your company has yet to jump onboard the dynamic phenomenon that is social media marketing, you are missing out on a lot of its great benefits.

Follow the Market
According to a recent study titled “What Do Americans Do Online,” social media has risen as the number one American pastime, beating all other online activities. In fact, the Internet Advertising Bureau agrees, even claiming that “If you’re not on a social networking site, you’re not on the Internet.”

Indeed, a massive social migration is taking place and this shouldn’t come as a surprise with celebrities like Oprah Winfrey and Ashton Kutcher driving social networking sites to massive popularity. As such, social media is where the consumers are, and that is where you should set your online marketing focus on.

Ramp up Your Presence
Unless you’re carrying a pretty popular brand, it may not be easy to find you online. So take the extra step by introducing your company and your products to social media by setting up a blog and then creating profiles on Facebook and Twitter, among others. That way, people who like your products can easily find and connect with you online—and you can even pull in untapped markets through their own contacts. These can also serve as effective search engine optimization tools to drive significant traffic to your Web site and help boost your client base.

If you have a physical store, you can also invite your customers to visit, shop and sample your products. To do this, you can have your location listed on geolocation services like Facebook Places, Yelp, Google Places and both Foursquare and Gowalla. These sites will allow you to include contact details, embed maps, photos and would allow subscribers to rate and review their visit; thus increases mentions online.

Better News Distribution
Naturally, as the number of followers grows on your social profiles, you can offer your demographic different ways to receive news updates about your products or any promotion you may have. With its easy accessibility and scalable publishing capabilities, social media offers many great distribution platforms like blogs, live chat rooms, multimedia streams and social networking status updates.

Most notable of these are Facebook’s News Feed and Twitter’s stream. Because they deliver your message in real-time, you provide your followers with the freshest updates as they come, and they can react immediately—by taking part, asking questions or by spreading your message to whoever they think would be interested in their own circles. These services would also let you embed relevant photos, videos and links to give better context to your message.

Improve Social Engagements
Traditional marketing tactics would dictate that we appeal to a majority of people within our demographic. Social media marketing, on the other hand, lets you target factions of any given group, or even specific individuals. By responding to comments on your Facebook’s Wall posts or on your blog’s entries, you can address the general needs of your audience and directly engage with individuals. And this can reflect positively on your brand, showing that you’re there to listen and can also serve as an extension of the customer service hotline.

While these will keep your followers informed, you can up the value your presence offers by also showing your own personality and share other relevant content online you think others will find interesting and useful.

Enhance Your Reputation
As with the nature of social media, everyone online is given a voice. And with it, they freely express their opinions about anything, whether they are singing their praises about a company or harshly criticizing it for its bad service. And this is one unavoidable fact that happens to all brands—whether you’re a top brass institution in your industry with a global presence, or a local cottage industry with a small but loyal customer base. In this regard, social media is just the tool you’ll need as you manage your reputation online.

You can level the playing field using its many messaging platforms, addressing concerns, clarifying issues and thanking commendations as they come. You can publish a response to a rising concern on your blog, link to it from Twitter or Facebook and maybe produce a video to assure your customers of your stance and the series of actions you will take to resolve the issue.

Tweet your way to a job? Maybe

Mitchell Strobl is your average college junior at DePauw University in Greencastle, Ind., but the way he landed his new job is distinctly 21st century.

“I came across this Web site [through] a link that was posted [on my Facebook wall],” said Strobl, 20. The site lined up with his interests perfectly, and after contacting the president of HuntingLife.com, he was soon hired to become a writer and then a product reviewer for the hunting and conservation news site.

Stories like Strobl’s are rare, especially in a job market as tough as this one. The U.S. economy lost 95,000 jobs in September, and the unemployment rate is 9.6%, according to the Labor Department. As a result, new graduates and young professionals are trying new tools to improve their chances of finding work. Read more on U.S. economy sheds 95,000 jobs in September.

“Social media is a great way to learn about different employers as well as build professional networks that will help create opportunities and open doors,” said Holly Paul, PwC’s U.S. recruiting leader. “I do think now that social media is so prolific and being used by students that…it’s an additive to what they’re doing to connect with other individuals that can help them in their job search.”

A month ago, the buzz about finding work via social-media sites hit a new high. After creating YouTube Instant, a replica of real-time search engine Google Instant for searching videos on YouTube, a 19-year-old Stanford student received a job offer via Twitter — even less than the 140-character limit — from Chad Hurley, co-founder and chief executive of YouTube.

While the success stories generate a lot of excitement, and may prompt some job seekers to rely solely on social media, career experts say that’s not a smart move.

“You really have to be careful with Twitter or Facebook, because it can seduce you into an informality that can really backfire,” said Lonnie Dunlap, director of career services at Northwestern University. “I do think that the traditional methods have to be there. And they have to be very well done. You can get someone’s attention through LinkedIn, but your goal is to get an interview.”

And keep in mind that the hard-copy resume and cover letter are far from obsolete. Mary Spencer, director of career placement at the Milwaukee School of Engineering, said she’s seen an increase in employers asking for paper rather than electronic portfolios at job fairs.

Also, a problem with social media such as Facebook and Twitter is that they may reveal too much personal information to potential employers. Paul, of PwC, oversees new hires and she said social media can cause an unnecessary mix-up of work and personal life. Her suggestion is to keep certain types of social networks completely personal — she says that’s how she uses Facebook — and other types completely professional, such as LinkedIn.

She said job candidates who don’t use social media aren’t likely to be penalized for that by prospective employers. “I personally don’t think that we’re there yet. The employer isn’t there yet,” she said. “The issue with students not using those [methods] means that they are not using a channel and an avenue right there in front of them for free.”

Tips to improve your chances
The degree to which your job hunt on social-media sites is successful may depend on the type of position being sought. For instance, most public-relations firms already connect to people through Twitter and have designated Facebook pages. Same goes for corporate communications positions. However, Kevin Nicols, the chief executive of a small publishing company, said that a search for any job — entry level and professional — can be enhanced through social media.

Three years ago, Nicols started two LinkedIn groups in the San Francisco Bay Area; they now have about 1,500 members. He said social networking is a tried and true method that has worked for him, as well as many of the people in his group. With social media, applicants are able to connect with people within certain companies who can act as an advocate for them within the company.

Nicols offered the following tips for using social media to enhance your job search:

•Become an active participant on a social network.

•Find people within your desired industry and let them know you’re searching.

•Once you become introduced to someone online, even though that might “soften the blow of cold calling,” don’t forget that meeting people face-to-face is still the ultimate goal.

•Practice what Nicols calls “good job karma” — rather than just asking for help from others, do your part to give back and help others out.

Finally, don’t forget that it’s not always as easy as some make it seem. Brittany Sykes, a recent graduate of Penn State University, has been on the lookout for a public-relations job in the entertainment industry since May. Sykes, 22, said she hasn’t had too much luck, although she follows many PR firms on Twitter and has seen a fair amount of job postings.

The job search can be challenging, she said, but the use of social media is bringing a little hope in her search. “I get stressed out sometimes when my parents drive me crazy [about finding a job]”, she said. “But I get really excited when I make some type of connection.”