Last year, Rinck began experimenting with Social Media in a systematic way. The Social Media phenomenon is not new. The 2008 presidential election and other changes pushed social media into the mainstream, expanding the audience from teens to everyone else and now to brands.
Social Media is a living, breathing media fueled 24 hours-a-day by millions of people who have plenty to say about your brand. They’re searching and “Googling,” blogging, chatting and “Twittering.” They share and adopt brands, services, content, news items, media and experiences. It’s how people communicate in 2009.
Social Media is the power of “Friend-to-Friend” marketing across a targeted spectrum that is widening every day – over 100,000 new blogs are created every day with nearly 1.5 million posts. And those posts carry weight. We know that many consumers will listen to other consumer opinions and posts - and trust them over a marketing message. The reason is simple – these posts are relationship-based and so the honesty of that conversation is inherent.
So, how do you jump in? A few easy steps:
1. Find out where your consumers are hanging—chances are, they’re already talking about you. Do you have a fan page on FaceBook? Are they chatting about you online? When you Google your brand, are blogs popping up? If you answered yes to any of these, your consumers are ready to meet you online.
2. Drop your marketing message and your advertising jargon. Consumers are not interested in receiving it in this environment. To them, it feels manipulative and unbelievable.
3. Be real. It’s okay to have a real conversation with your consumers. Sure, it’s also okay to have the security of your talking points, but just be prepared to do your share of listening and respond accordingly. You’ll make friends and those friends will become your ambassadors.
4. You are about to build a real two-way relationship with your consumer. You have to be transparent, open and honest. At all times.
5. Dedicate resources to Social Media. If you’re going to get out there then be consistent with your presence. It’s not cool to manically Twitter and then disappear. Slow and steady wins the race. Call us. We’ll get you started.
Rinck is seeing significant site traffic to sites based on Social Media such as FaceBook, YouTube, Twitter and LinkedIn. Rinck also sees a strong trend among teens and 20s to prefer Social Media to all other media except cell phone texting. As we observe in our own kids, “Email is for old people.” Web information is Wikipedia or via friends on Social Media.
We believe the next hurdle for marketers will be developing a strategy for Social Media integration as part of the communications plan.
Laura Davis is co-owner and Vice President of Rinck Advertising.
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