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July 16, 2008
Marketing 204: Building a Social Media Strategy for Enterprises
During the past year I have spent time thinking about the profound effect social media will have on Enterprises around the world. By the end of 2010, I suspect most large and medium Enterprises will have an active social media strategy.
The key to leveraging social media in the Enterprise is the empowering of customers with the ability to engage in the viral marketing of that company’s products and/or services.
Leverage the power of the passionate customer and that customer will contribute their energy and their reputation in building the buzz and extending the reach of the company to their own friends in their social circles. Understanding this and empowering this is core in order for Enterprises to be successful in their outbound social media efforts.
Enterprises that do not provide a method for their customers to express their passion and their commitment to a company are at risk being competitively disadvantaged by those companies that do.
While thinking about ways for Enterprises to best leverage social media, the song "Sweet Dreams are Made of This" floated into my mind and I couldn’t help but notice how the lyrics in this song mirrored a lot of what I was thinking.
Key social media phrases from the song "Sweet Dreams are Made of This":
everybody's looking for somethin'.
This is a reminder we can not take our customers for granted.
We need to serve our customers and earn their respect and make sure they know we are there to serve them.
Some of them want to use you
Relationships require some give and take. And there will be times when your customers will want something from you. It is up to you to recognize this and make a value judgement whether or not you want to be leveraged in that way.
some of them want to get used by you
This is the KEY line of the song and the reason why this song is a natural contender to be a Social Media Anthem in my mind.
Customers who are passionate want to be asked to share their passion in support of a product/service they are passionate about. Understand and recognize this simple phenomena. Provide a way for customers to share their passion and you will be ahead of all competitors who have not yet come to understand this.
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Enterprises that learn how to unleash the passion of their customers and help them leverage their own social graphs will be the first to benefit from their investment in an active social media strategy.
Tags: Eurythmics, marketing, Social Media, Jeff Pulver
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Posted by jeff on July 16, 2008 07:23 AM | Permalink
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Comments
Jeff, great post.
Posted by: John Fleming at July 17, 2008 07:32 AM
Jeff,
I just stumbled upon your site today. I love the tags. This is perhaps, the first time in social media history that the tags, Eurythmics, Social Media & Marketing have been lumped together! At any rate, our company is in the process of navigating its own social media strategy and its always great to listen to what others have to say about this phenomenon. And how appropriate that you choose a song as the foil to social media, since, I would contend much of social media is about listening. At any rate, your site has been bookmarked and I look forward to reading more of your musings!
Shehan
Cirrus Financial Communications
Posted by: Shehan at July 16, 2008 07:02 PM
@Chris - yes "Some of them want to abuse you"
Is a KEY line in the song. (thanks for the heads up)
And to me this is a reminder that there is a dark side to Social Media. Enterprises need to have an active policy in place which will monitor the possible abuse.
An engaged customer is much better than an enraged customer. Hopefully this is an opportunity to build (not break) relationships.
Posted by: Jeff Pulver at July 16, 2008 09:34 AM
Jeff,
Excellent article. My only quibble is that you overlooked the other significant quote in that song:
Some of them want to abuse you.
Which is at the core of too many enterprise's fear of engaging in Social Media. While experience shows us that corporate blogs that are open and honest will find supporters as numerous as detractors.
I believe that this fear is what is holding back too many companies from engaging in SM.
("Some of the want to be abused" falls in there somewhere too.)
Thanks,
Chris
Posted by: Chris Kieff at July 16, 2008 09:24 AM
Enterprises who deploy a successful social media strategy will figure out how to leverage the social graph of their customers.
Companies can learn a lot by watching the old Breck shampoo commercial where word of Breck is spread by one woman telling two friends, and so on and so on...same concept applies here.
Figure out how to empower your customers to share their passion and leverage their own networks and you will see an Enterprise with a successful social media strategy. People who are passionate are usually the best references a company can leverage in the marketing of their brand and the spreading of their message.
Posted by: Jeff Pulver at July 16, 2008 09:07 AM
Good article, in particular because I have always enjoyed listening to Eurhytmics. I like the analogy for Enterprises but I think the one thing stopping enterprises from endorsing this concept is being afraid of "lack of control". You almost in many cases encourage people of having to think in terms of being multiple personas.
I am being a business user (enterprise employee), I am me, personal user, I am incognito (no name) and I am secret (don't want anybody to know I am saying or posting this).
Posted by: Thomas Lidforss at July 16, 2008 08:58 AM