Jon Samsel

Social media has become an important marketing engagement and feedback mechanism for many Fortune 500 companies. The process of fostering authentic conversations with consumers is both insightful and useful — and the interaction is having a direct impact on brand perceptions in the market.

Online social spaces marketing is akin to a company’s advocacy, outreach, public relations and consumer research programs all rolled into one and on steroids. Done correctly, companies are able to collect deep customer insights, on-the-fly and statistically relevant — then utilize the information to tailor their messaging to better meet consumer demand.

The act of participating in these brand conversations — in very the places where their constituents are having them (websites such as Mig33, Woot, Twitter, Facebook, and the like), top corporations are ingesting the wisdom of crowds to improve their offerings.

Getting Started
Big companies like to play it safe – there is just so much at risk. Most big firms hire agencies to jump start and/or manage social media campaigns since they don’t want to take on this risk directly, and, to be honest, many don’t have the in-house expertise to kickoff and optimize these types of programs.

At the present time, there are a handful of competent agencies out there with the skill set to fully implement and manage a multi-platform social outreach plan that can drive results. Most agencies have channels of expertise, such as organic search or media buying, most agencies sub-contract with consultants or boutique agencies with experience in a particular discipline such as blogging, link building and content syndication.

Social Scope
Social Media Sites - Social network websites, like MeetUp.com, are gathering places for online communities of people to share interests and opinions. These sites provide tools that help connect and promote conversations. Websites range from social shopping, to contact management, or photo sharing to online buzz ’o meters.

Social Media Marketing - Social marketing activities vary as well. What makes off-site social marketing different is that the activities are not limited to a particular community or site itself. Essentially, content is ‘pushed’ through the deep data exchange highway enabled by the hidden web itself (RSS feeds, API feeds, etc).

Here is a short list of social web activities that are worth noting:

• Social networks
• Microblogging
• Viral content
• Dynamic publishing & content syndication
• Link building
• Online surveys & usability tests
• Influencing WOM influencers
• 4D analytics
• Reputation and risk mitigation
• SEO public relations
• Social currency
• Collaborative sharing

Example of Company Enlightenment
A friend of mine works at a Fortune 500 company who launched a new online service that immediately garnered some really negative press within the first few days of launch. The company already had an agency on retainer that had some social media marketing experience. The agency was able to quickly identify who the influencers were and engaged them in a dialog on how best to improve the service. The company was able to take this feedback and within days, issued an acknowledgment of the issues, made some fast alterations to the user experience, and offered discounts to inspire loyalty. Needless to say, the social media outreach program was a success.

Crowdsourcing: Parting Thoughts
Social media websites and marketing campaigns are evolving at a rapid pace, faster that most Fortune 500 companies can keep up with. Branding and messaging are no 100% controllable by corporate communications departments whose prior world consisted of bland, one-way directives. Markets have become true conversations – and the insight of crowds is starting to have an impact on the way companies do business. For those firms bold enough to work with agencies and influencers to engage in an honest dialog with their constituents – the future looks bright.