Marketing with Social Media

Marketing though Social Media is perhaps the most talked about topic doing rounds of the Marketers round tables these days. So what is the hype all about?

Since years now traditional marketing tools have been used for conversations that are ‘one to many’. Today, these methods are rapidly giving way to a new generation of Internet-based tools that allow for far greater levels of two-way interaction, discussion and conversation. Indeed, so fundamental has been the shift from 'static', 'information only' websites to the new 'conversational' internet that many pundits are calling the 'old' internet "Web1.0" and this new web world "Web2.0", reflecting dramatic improvement based in large part on in far better software coding and functionality.

Markets are Conversations

The other day, I was reading this concept called Clue Train Manifesto.

A powerful global conversation has begun. Through the Internet, people are discovering and inventing new ways to share relevant knowledge with blinding speed. As a direct result, markets are getting smarter—and getting smarter faster than most companies.

– Clue Train Manifesto

The tools that allow companies to join in and create these conversations happening in their industries and marketplaces have been called 'social media' tools, because of the new 'social' nature of the internet medium. Social media allows all stakeholders like company, consumer, influencers, experts and publics to interact, engage, and build rapport more easily than ever before. As more people walk around with net-enabled camera phones, and install webcams and microphones at home, user-generated content will keep giving a parallel dimension to the markets.

Traditional Media Vs Social Media

The ‘traditional’ media is static and therefore can’t be changed. For example, newspaper can’t change its stories, even if readers decide that something in them is incorrect. Whereas news on blogs and online forums can change and be corrected if required. The interactivity with the social media is much more. Archiving and searching becomes extremely easy. It’s free and it’s of the people, by the people, for the people. Imagine walking into newspaper office few years back and saying, “I want my voice to be heard- publish my article!”. Today, I don’t need to convince an editor to write on any topic.

Social media is great example of forest on fire. The way it can get linked and back linked creates an infinite amount of information. Imagine Economic Times writing 500 articles on one topic with varied opinions- but its possible with Social Mediums

Blogging

The biggest and most widely-used social media tool is blogging. Blogs are the new medium to these markets through 'conversations' and that unless companies are willing to enter into these 'conversation' they will be left behind.

Basically, blogs are very easy-to-manage websites. They are no harder to set-up and maintain than sending an email or using Microsoft Word. This ease of use allows you to post your ideas and opinions often and without using up too much time. That keeps your blog 'fresh' and is more 'immediate' than the staleness of a 'traditional' corporate site. Blogs are very search engine friendly. Every post has a separate URL and the linking behaviour of bloggers also promotes them up the search engine rankings. No wonder, today customers and investors are more likely to find your blog than your website.

There are now more than 60 million blogs, a new blog site is created every second of the day, and 50,000 blogposts (think of a blogpost as an article published by someone on their own website) are published every hour, day and night. The total number of blogs in the world doubles every five months. The interesting bit is that these conversations are happening irrespective of company’s action.

For example, even if your company takes a stand that it is not going to be active online, it still doesn’t guarantee that your stakeholders will not talk about you online. I think that its better to 'join in' than risk having lies and distortions go unchallenged in the conversations that are happening every day — around the proverbial 'water cooler', over coffee, in phone calls and emails.

Few Other Social Media Forms that I will talk about in upcoming posts are:

Wikis: Wikipedia
Social networking: Orkut and Facebook
Video sharing: YouTube
Virtual Reality: Second Life
News aggregation: Digg and Reddit
Photo sharing: Flickr
Broadcasting: Podcasts
Social Bookmarking: del.icio.us
Online gaming: Zapak.com