Is your Social Media strategy not working? Then its time for change!

The biggest mistake a company can make with social media is often using social media in the same old way of doing things. Going online with a ‘9-to-5’, traditional command and control mind-set is an almost certain recipe for disaster. Maximising the potential of social media requires a real reboot of your mind-set of how your company connects with employees, users, customers, and the broader public. The new approach should be dynamic, 24/7 and focused on sharing and participation.

A social-media has become increasingly present in business. 95% of companies expect to invest more in social media and 96% of companies are currently developing a social-media strategy. How can companies ensure that these investments don’t go to waste? They need big developments in new areas: in community management to grow and activate audiences, in content development to engage users, and in consumers.

A strong presence on social media can give real-time insights into consumer behavior and can measure the impact of a marketing campaign. The evolution of these capabilities, concentrated in the social media ‘big three’ of Facebook, Twitter and LinkedIn, represents a major opportunity to generate value by building powerful, lasting relationships with consumers through digital communities.

The leading companies in the social media spheres are not just building these capabilities, but are also investing in them to make them distinctive. This is done so that the capabilities become ingrained, proficient, and individually tailored to their strategies so that competitors can’t keep up. To accomplish this, companies must actively transform their key business functions from marketing to product development.

For example, Burberry’s re-imagination of its fashion shows. They were once elite, exclusive and effectively off-limits to the brand’s many admirers, but the company started live streaming the shows directly to millions of fans via Facebook. Burberry also created the ‘Tweetwalk’, an innovative, real-time social media experience in which every fashion show element was tweeted before the models hit the runway. Burberry is using social media to fully digitalize its brand, transform its organization, and unlock market-leading potential.

These are the digital stakes that businesses are (and should be) competing for.

An interesting thing to consider is that forums are still counted as the most valuable means of communication with consumers. There is the highest level of interaction, and it’s deemed to be more long-lasting. You can read more about it in this inforgraphic by ProBorads.

Don’t forget, that your business, as with any business, should have an online brand that you are considering and managing. Read more about how to do that with our blog post, here.