A Guide to Using Social Media as a Marketing Tool

9/20/2010 at 10:12 am by The Sage ERP Team

One of the most challenging things about managing a business, be it a major multinational corporation or small local operation, is enticing customers to choose you for their business needs.

Why should a customer buy your cakes, LCD screens, paint or magazine over a competitor’s? What makes your particular light fixtures or brand of dog food special? Why would I choose your ERP software? Companies devote millions of dollars every year to marketing, branding and advertising campaigns designed to answer those exact questions. But in today’s media world – where strangers can become stars overnight on YouTube and ordinary people get book deals when the right person stumbles across their blog – marketing a product can be a much less expensive affair.

Many businesses are using Facebook pages, Twitter accounts and other social media to engage directly with the consumers they target. And if you’re not leveraging social media, as part of your overall marketing strategy, it’s probably time you added it to the mix. So how can your business harness the power of social media? Here are just a couple tips to get you started.

Use YouTube and Twitter to directly address consumer concerns.
Old Spice, which recently launched a series of highly successful commercials, took its handsome spokesperson on YouTube to respond directly to questions and issue “thank yous” to the site’s users. Many universities also use YouTube to post videos of student life, professional commentaries and other examples detailing what it’s like to be a student at their schools. As for Twitter, the ability to direct tweets at other users allows brands and customers to interact like never before. Twitter users can pose a question to your company, which you can then answer in 140 characters. Likewise, you can reach out to customers directly by tweeting to them from your own Twitter page.
Upload and manage a Facebook page.
Since users can post anything they like to corporate Facebook pages if privacy settings aren’t restricted, these may require some monitoring. However, they are an extremely powerful way to connect directly with consumers. Updates your company posts regarding its products or services will appear directly on consumers’ News Feeds when they log into the website, meaning that you don’t need to spend millions on costly campaigns to reach them.

Of course, wielding the power of social media carries some risk. Say the wrong thing, and you’ll never be able to escape the riptide of videos, blog posts and jokes that will follow. BP CEO Tony Hayward knows this feeling intimately – after he remarked to devastated gulf fishermen and other salt-of-the-earth types affected by the oil spill that he wanted his “life back,” presumably referencing his life of multimillion-dollar yacht trips to Greece, he was lampooned across every imaginable dimension of media.

The moral? Be careful with what you do, say and write. If you are, good things will come your way.