Thursday, March 24, 2011

Getting social media right

A lot of companies have jumped on the social media bandwagon, from Facebook to Twitter to what-have-you. And a lot of companies have gotten it wrong.

They mistake social media as another path for them to send information to customers and potential customers. And one certainly can do that. (With the benefit of knowing that the people following you are actually interested in your products and services.) But that's where a lot of companies stop.

It's a rather arrogant approach, thinking that everyone will be listening to you, with nothing to say of their own.

The companies that really "get" social media will be doing two things: First, they will be talking to people (and not at them). Second, they will be listening.

Social media lets everyone talk. If you really want to leverage social media, recognize its potential for communications from you to your customers, from your customers to you, and from customers to other customers.

Listening to your customers. Now, there's a novel idea!

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