Social media is still confusing to many and some sceptics see no value in it at all – believing it can actually be bad for business.
The doubters had their views confirmed by the #McDStories Twitter campaign which was intended to bring together heart-warming stories about McDonalds. Instead it brought a barrage of hateful tweets about bad experiences with the brand and, although McDonalds attempted to pull it down, the hashtag still lives on today.
However, we shouldn’t be scared of social media because when we strip it back to its bare bones, it’s nothing more than a form of communication and engagement that people have used to spread the news and help make their decisions for centuries – and that is word of mouth.
Before advertising, PR and Marketing, a business would rely on word-of-mouth to promote itself to the public as a place where customers could rely on the very best service. With the 20th century bringing commercialism and multi-national brands, word-of-mouth seemed to fall out of favour as big budget advertising and marketing campaigns were used to sell products.
We are now seeing a renaissance of the old word-of-mouth or ‘grass-roots marketing’ as social media enables us to share recommendations – or rants – about poor service or goods with our on-line friends and followers. It is no longer a chat over the garden fence, but instead, engagement on social media including Twitter and Facebook and reviews and recommendations on relevant websites. The key here is for your business to get involved in the conversation and be willing to engage. Your consumers will be discussing your business, your products and your service whether you join in or not.
Although social media is changing the landscape, we shouldn’t throw the book out on what we have learnt about effective PR and Marketing. The crucial point is that we must understand that traditional methods alone will no longer achieve our corporate goals. Successful businesses are the ones willing to fuse these off line PR and marketing methods with the new opportunities provided by social media to reach their key audiences.
