Comments on: How do Customers Want to Engage in Social Media?

By: Becky Carroll

Becky Carroll — Sat, 29 Mar 2008 17:05:42 +0000

Thanks, Micha, for adding your insights! Social media is a great tool for listening, understanding ways to improve, and for conversation. The conversation doesn’t always have to be between the company and the customer – it is often at its best when it is customer to customer.

Glad to hear you are getting back into blogging, too!

By: micha

micha — Sat, 29 Mar 2008 17:00:50 +0000

I really enjoyed the presentation this week! Completely agree with those three points, additionally some of the themes of social media which have proven successful are to:

- Utilize Social Media as a customer feedback mechanism. When customers get involved in product development/ process improvement and business’s listen it encourages customer evangelism.

- Communicating personality. Websites & Brochures are expected to be canned marketing. Social Media is the online platform for conversation marketing and provides a great opportunity for companies to showcase their personality and connect more deeply with like minded customers. This only works when companies have a well defined culture aligned with the psychographic variables of their target customer segments.

Thanks again Becky! Its too easy sometimes to get caught up in the day to day, seeing you speak last week really inspired me to get more involved with blogging again!

By: Are You Creating a Customer Army? : Lead Marketwatch

Are You Creating a Customer Army? : Lead Marketwatch — Thu, 27 Mar 2008 12:35:00 +0000

[...] They seem to be following the primary social media themes for success: [...]

By: Becky Carroll

Becky Carroll — Thu, 27 Mar 2008 05:22:56 +0000

Forrest, thank you for the compliments! Also, you are right about relevance. Social media should not be a “me, too” tactic but should be part of a customer marketing strategy to reach out to and interact with customers and clients. The differentiation in point of view or message may well be different for different customers, too.

Thanks for adding to the discussion!

By: Forrest Wright

Forrest Wright — Wed, 26 Mar 2008 22:39:32 +0000

I also thought last night’s presentation provided a solid overview of social media’s impact on brand loyalty. Kudos, Becky.

Becky brought up something that not enough marketers pay attention to — relevance. Using the right tools for the right audience. Too many brands and businesses engage social marketing and new media tools without asking themselves if it truly makes sense for them. They’re doing it just to do it and this betrays another important quality that Becky brought up, authenticity. In the end, success is the difference of truly understanding what your brand story is and then finding the most successful ways to engage people in that story, versus just trying something to see if it works but not having a differentiated point of view or message.

By: Becky Carroll

Becky Carroll — Wed, 26 Mar 2008 18:53:18 +0000

Dawn, thanks for coming out to the blog and joining the conversation! I am so glad you found the talk useful; that makes it all worthwhile for me.

By: Dawn Hobbs

Dawn Hobbs — Wed, 26 Mar 2008 18:42:25 +0000

Becky,

I was a part of the group that you spoke to last night! It was a great presentation and offered incredible insight into how to build brand loyalty through social marketing. Thanks for all the great tips!