Consider Social Media as Word Of Mouth Marketing

"I love the companies that have created a position called “Head of Social Media” or similar"
Antonio Batanero, Sr Director Distribution & Digital Marketing, Sol Meliá - The Americas.

In this interview with Ritesh Gupta, Batareno states that the establishment of a corporate social media committee might be the best way to release its full potential.

If as he suggests we view social media as a mix between "word of mouth, customer satisfaction, email marketing, CRM, and loyalty" then it is really no surprise that the responsibility for this important marketing tool is often poorly defined within an enterprise.

This is precisely why building, maintaining and monitoring online reputation are such important strategies and the corporate structure for managing this needs to be clearly thought through.

Friends telling friends reveals the good, the bad and the downright ugly about an enterprise.

BP who are currently battling with a growing ecological disaster are using social media as a key part of its PR strategy.

In this way they can counteract some of the negative and satirical PR that is being generated on the Net.  They are using the hashtag #oilspill on Twitter and judging from current trend mapping they seem to be maintaining the highest profile in the area most affected.

I suspect that there is a 'corporate committee' handling this and all of the emergency PR associated with the oil spill.

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Buzz Me Up Scotty - Earned, Paid and Owned Media

Forrester Interactive's Sean Corcoran defines earned, paid and owned media in his latest blog post.  The definition for paid media is the easy one but not many people have come to grips with the concept of "owned media".

This is arguably the most exciting, as it is where your customers become your channel.  Word of mouth maybe the most credible but it is also an approach that requires the most monitoring, as it is outside the direct control of the company or organisation

Monitoring the Buzz need to be built into any digital strategy and while there are many online tools that can assist, there needs to be an equal investment in staff resource.  Listening to the conservations is not enough;  people with the right skills need to be trained to sense opportunities as they emerge and feed these immediately to the business owners.

I would advise caution about jumping straight in to a paid media strategy.  Many of the agency promises simply don't translate into business growth and response rates are declining.

Ask yourself this question, when was the last time you clicked through on a Facebook or Google Ad.word?  I suspect the answer will reinforce the above observation.

Sean recommends treating paid media as a catalyst to drive increased engagement over a specified campaign period.  Don't hang your digital hat on it as a long term solution though.

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