SOCIAL ENGAGEMENT DEMANDS RADICAL CHANGES TO MARKETING

By David Carratt, Director of the Board Falcon Social

Social engagement is creating new demands on marketing teams. It requires a radically different approach to marketing campaigns because it is interactive and live – 24/7.

To build relationships and encourage brand loyalty, it is essential to engage with consumers. Engaged consumers are more likely to share content, recommend a brand on social networking sites and make purchases.

However, engagement is radically different in social media compared to traditional marketing. Social media is live and to make the most of opportunities, organisations need to build conversations and respond to consumer comments in real-time. Bombarding people is not enough; you need ideas that resonate with your target audience to encourage interaction.

Engage in real-time

Engagement in traditional marketing refers to an emotional response to a campaign and the coverage that has been earned via PR and advertising in traditional media such as print and TV. This takes weeks to plan, implement and evaluate and any follow up activity can take just as long.

Marketers using social media can quickly gauge consumer response and adjust their ideas accordingly, working out their next move based on real-time evaluation.

But without the right tools marketing teams can quickly become overwhelmed by social media. After all social media has global potential – campaigns can quickly go viral spreading across geographies and time zones. Coca Cola has over 77million Facebook Likes – growing by 50,000 a day!

Social Media Management platforms are essential

Customer relationship management (CRM) applications are unable to deal with the real-time, high volume nature of a social media. To make the most of social engagement organisations need a platform that supports the moderation and management of large volumes of consumer data. For example, Falcon Social allows organisations to bunch consumer responses into similar groups and respond using automated templates where possible. This allows organisations to be systematic and respond to a large number of consumers at the same time, while highlighting those that need urgent or one-to-one attention.

Social engagement presents an immediate opportunity and has turned traditional marketing on its head. Organisations that can get to grips with managing its high volume, interactive and continuous nature, will be able to realise the massive potential social media has to create loyal fans. That’s why we believe a social media management platform that fully supports social engagement is the best technology investment a company can make.