What to do about Social Media

Social networking has established itself as one of the fastest-growing and most used consumer communication channels, and that makes it a vital channel for building customer engagement, according to Keith Pearce of Genesys-EMG. In fact, research by Nielsen found that 22.7% of time spent on the web during the previous year was spent on social networking web sites, compared to 15.8% the previous year. Combined with the rise of an 'always on' mobile society, the Twitters and Face Books of the world have quickly become invaluable customer service and even marketing tools.

Consequently, it's not difficult to identify the main business arguments in favor of the adoption of social networking within the customer communications mix:

1. Wider product research... Consumers are relying more than ever upon social networking sites to conduct their product research. Gone are the days when major search engines were the primary online shopping aid. Consumers have always been interested in what their families and friends are saying, and social networking sites make it easy to survey that collective feedback. What this means for retailers is that not having a Face Book page and Twitter feed is the digital equivalent of not yet having a Yellow Pages listing. 

2. Competitive advantage... With social networking rapidly becoming a de-facto component of the customer service mix, the question of adoption is not "if" but "when". There is mounting evidence that social networking represents a new communications platform that is perfectly suited to being an effective customer service channel. However, there may be only a limited window of time in which tapping into social net-working's potential can provide businesses with a significant competitive advantage. 

3. Social customer service... Companies now face a critical choice. They can both sit on the sidelines and watch their competitors take leadership roles on the social networking customer service front, or they can deploy applications, create Face Book pages and Twitter feeds, and establish a foundation to connect with customers via a medium that they appear to love.

4. Extraordinary customer engagement... By bringing customer service environments together with Face Book and Twitter, retailers can give customers easier ways to contact them. Most customers don't carry phone numbers for the companies they do business with, and they're not likely to seek out those numbers when they're away from their computers. But through social networks, consumers can connect directly to a company's Face Book page or Twitter feed from anywhere. By engaging customers where it's most convenient for them, the whole customer service experience is improved.

Clearly, there are many huge potential benefits for brands that choose to engage with consumers in the social space, but the challenge is to identify the type of social experience that consumers actually want, according to marketing communications agency UM. With social media now being firmly ingrained in consumers' everyday lives, and with more and more people using these platforms to connect with friends than even the telephone, email or face-to-face meetings, a deeper understanding of their needs is the key to compelling and successful social media initiatives.

Perhaps the most significant shift in social media in recent years is the ability of users to engage via mobile devices. Nearly 30% of mobile users now access the internet on their devices. The study noted that smartphone users, who are more likely to be male and of higher socioeconomic status, are more often engaging in social media, tearing down the perception that this is a medium dominated by the younger demographics.

The younger demographics still prove to be more deeply engaged, using the social media platforms as one-stop shops for interacting with peers. From direct messaging to pictures and information sharing, everything is conducted in a single space. Consequently, the company argues, tapping into that space is increasingly more valuable to brands, with social media communities often proving to be more valuable than traditional brand web sites.

New 'social conversation' engines are emerging every day, and a brand must be able to leverage them by saying something meaningful. So, as traditional media spending is rapidly shifting toward digital channels, brands must now invest more heavily in 'social listening' skills.

To illustrate, 72% of consumers who have joined a brand's social community say they think more positively about the brand as a result, while 71% are more likely to buy the brand, and 66% feel more loyal to the brand. Advocacy is a notable benefit, too, with 63% saying they had already encouraged others to join in. These figures suggest that the 'socialization of brands' represents a major shift in how brands are communicating with consumers, and that this is a trend that is likely to continue for some time.