Using social media in business

Businesses are using social media like Facebook, LinkedIn and blogging tools to form new and lucrative connections with customers. But there are pitfalls when they get it wrong. Nick Churchouse reports.

Tom Reidy is no expert.

His year-old business Catalyst90 knows social media inside out, but he says that is no reason to claim he knows it all. No-one does.

"I've just used it a lot."

With the rise in social media exposure to businesses and the spectre of "free" exposure through the new forums, Mr Reidy is managing expectations and advising companies on how to tailor the likes of Facebook, Twitter, YouTube and LinkedIn to their advantage.

Long since moved out of teenage bedrooms into the commercial world, social media is the new marketing frontier for business, a new way to reach a new breed of customer. But as many businesses have discovered, it requires a new way of thinking.

The increasing shift from traditional media to online is obvious, but a badly thought-out start into the interactive space could do more harm than good.

"Don't just jump on it because it's there and it's free," Mr Reidy says.

An example he highlights is recruitment agents using Twitter, a micro-blogging service, to advertise job listings.

Hunting for a job is a much more involved endeavour than getting the latest gossip on the All Blacks, and tweeting will not endear you to job hunters.

"You don't search Twitter for a job. That is just tweeting without thought."

The minimal effort and seemingly small online footprint of a single Tweet or Facebook update might lull some into thinking it's negligible, but as many who have put something disagreeable into cyberspace may attest, the reverse is true.

"You have to be very careful what you say," Mr Reidy says.

Colin Phillips, interactive director at Wellington creative agency Base Two, says the use of social media is a "horses for courses" scenario.

Each social media platform has its own necessary level of understanding and confidence.

Working for Save The Children locally, Mr Phillips heard the organisation's Italian branch has been operating in Second Life, a virtual world populated by "avatars" controlled by real people.

Organisations are using social media at different levels, from experimental use to a full immersion commercial tool, Mr Phillips says.

Each platform has its own characteristics, and it is pointless, if not damaging, to use the wrong one.

But he says the problem is not that everyone is rushing in haphazardly, but rather that overt scepticism is holding businesses back.

"That's the hurdle to get over.

"A lot of people are a bit scared of the hype. If you remember the last boom and bust with the web, a lot of people got stung."

Media attention over Facebook accidents, hate campaigns and embarrassing social media blunders is turning businesses away from the idea of it, as they get an appreciation of the cost of getting it wrong.

"It used to be the case that you could say anything on a blog and people really did not care. Now they say it has to be vetted."

Websites have popped up that catalogue chronic mistakes people have made, creating a growing apprehension about engaging social media in a serious way.

Mr Phillips says the rewards for using social media correctly are not yet showing on the bottom line in many cases. Most businesses that understand social media see it as a another arm to their marketing mix, not a sales generator.

"The rest will come over time, as people get more comfortable with it. It is like anything on the web, it goes through a very tight time frame from infancy to maturity, and that is where a lot of the mistakes happen. That is where we are."

Social media is in a similar place to where digital media started out.

"Everyone wanted to try it, but few were really sure how it worked in a business sense, or more specifically, if it could work for them."

Clemenger BBDO creative director Paul Nagy says experience with digital has benefited the social media pick up as some businesses have been quicker to realise the value of being a trail blazer in new media.

"That said, it is still misunderstood in many ways," Mr Nagy says.

True success in social media means being brave enough to give away your brand, not pretend to give it away and try to keep control, he says.

"This is extremely uncomfortable for most companies, and for good reason. Giving away your brand means understanding that people will often say nasty things about you along with the good. You have to plan for that and work with it.

"If you can, the benefits of social media are almost endless."

Martinborough lodge owner Kent Baddeley's social media strategy is in its infancy, but he sees only good things.

With a three-year-old personal Facebook page and few clues as to why it was worth the effort, he wondered why he should bother doing it for his business, Parehua Lodge.

Then he met an international social media "expert" and picked his brains.

Ideas such as including video on the business website, reducing static imagery and putting up a blog have since been instigated and the budget has been a lot smaller than he is used to.

"We're in a very small community over the hill from a large metropolitan area.

"Monday through Thursday it's very hard to get anybody over here. We spend a fortune on marketing."

He calculates putting an effort into social media, and paying to have it done well, has gained Parehua about $5000 of reservations.

Emboldened by that success, he banked on a candidate who showed up in the social media space when looking for a sommelier for his restaurant.

"He had a profile, I felt he had a digital footprint and I could watch how he was talking to winemakers and so on. Through social media he became a better candidate.

"I can see that in today's vernacular social media is a hype term, but there's more to it."

Mobile technology guru Ben Northrop watched the hype grow with a sceptical eye.

Easily embracing cutting edge technology at his company Run The Red, he says he thought the worst when social media started to show up on the radar.

That has since changed.

"I thought we don't need another way to talk s... to each other. But it has rapidly come out of the airy fairy space. I've become a convert."

Communication conduits such as Twitter had gained critical mass which made it a "real channel", he says.

"I see the potential in social media and social communities in the fact that there has been a change in the community where people no longer want to just be talked to, they want to be involved, they want to be heard."

Run The Red now has three staff members creating company tweets.

He was impressed by the social media campaign for V energy drinks, and notes the desired results from such a campaign mean different things to different people.

Run The Red's focus is on building a network and a community around the business – more about generating awareness than sales.

"If people want to know or hear something that is relevant to the [mobile marketing] industry, we want them to think of us first. It's building the brand."

The downside of this new approach is that you have to take the good with the bad. Some companies seem to think they can delete negative feedback and still maintain an aura of credibility, Mr Northrop says.

It does not work that way.

"If you can take the good with the bad you get a lot more loyalty with it."

The balance in content is the million-dollar question. Too much advertising and product-pushing is as much of a turnoff as being overly personal – something people do not necessarily want to hear from a business.

"You just can't have too much of one or the other. You have to think about what people want to read. I don't want to know what you had for lunch."

A simple social media strategy

WEBSITE: The online brochure for your business; provides information, case studies, product information, samples and contact details. BLOG: A tool to show your customers what you are working on and how you are working on it. Keeps your website fresh and drives new and repeat traffic to your site.

TWITTER: The online conversation between the company, staff and customers (existing and potential), fans and foes. A customer service tool, industry information tool and information aggregator. LINKEDIN: The social network site for professional experience and expertise.

BULK EMAIL: Outbound communication, interaction and information sharing. Another driver to your site.

OTHER SOCIAL MEDIA: Facebook, Bebo, YouTube, MySpace and others, designed for communicating with family and friends, or via company pages with fans and commentators.

SEARCH: Use search tools on existing social media platforms (like Twitter) and Google Alerts.

Source: Catalyst90.com / eliterate.co.nz

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