Tweeter, Facebook, Linkedin, Google Plus, YouTube, Blogs, Newsgroups… and that is just for starters.
Have you seen this video?
Sure you have and so have more than 6million brits in the last 8 weeks alone. Thru facebook, twitter, youtube et al videos, pictures, ideas and web posts gain a momentum that can leave you breathless (and shouting ‘Jesus Christ’).
As marketers we need to be part of the conversation or at the very least be listening to it, but many marketing departments tell us they simply don’t have the time to engage with social media.
Our response is that for most of them they somehow they need to find some time. Not just because it is another route to market, but because if you ignore it your brand can suffer serious damage. If you don’t at least listen to what is being said you may not find out until it is too late that your company’s good image or product reputation has run off into the distance, never to be seen again. The world really has changed.
In the new media age one bad customer experience can go viral. Negative comments can get out there faster than Fenton chasing deer in Richmond Park. One little video rant about poor service could be seen by hundreds of thousands of your customers within hours.
Fast response is the best defence, so at the very least set up some alerts that tell you when you are being discussed and have a rapid response plan in place.
Don’t end up chasing the problem yelling for it to stop when it has already crossed the road, left the park and taken a herd of your clients with it.
You never know, you might even start to enjoy social media. the positive possibilities are as big if not bigger than the negatives. Just one message that goes viral could bring more new clients than a decade of traditional campaigns could ever hope to produce.
The above video from quicksilver has attracted 10 million views and is still pulling them in.