Let’s get one thing straight. Social media marketing isn’t the end-all, be-all of marketing. Neither is email marketing. Eventually, somewhere down the line some new avenue of marketing will develop and every business in the world will gravitate toward it. But until that time, it’s imperative for your business to take advantage of what’s working right now by having a social media strategy. Without it, you could be giving up your advantage to companies that offer inferior goods and services but know how to work the top social networks to their advantage.
Social media advertising differs from traditional methods of advertising in that you no longer control the message about your company—the customer does. A big part of social media marketing involves letting go of the wheel and letting your loyal customers do the hard work for you. This is precisely how social media works.
To that point, it’s important to encourage the participation of your customers in your social media presence. This can be a bit scary for some—what happens if a customer who’s had a bad experience posts a comment to your company’s Facebook wall, telling the world about their frustration? This has happened before and it may even happen to you.
If this occurs, you can spin it into a positive situation by addressing the issue publicly via whatever social media channel the complaint was received, and make it right. This type of transparency in customer relations is the stuff of which lifetime loyal customers are made. It’s just a matter of knowing how to navigate the terrain.