Many, if not all companies of today have social media on the radar. It often starts in the communications or marketing departments with an interest in what is said about the company brand or some of the company products or a campaigns. That is great and the natural first step on the road to a more open and trust worthy conversation between companies and their customers, partners, fans or others. After the listening phase most companies comes to the conclusion that the natural next step is to participate in the conversation. They have found the hidden gem of a more close interaction with the people that the company have spent a lot of effort reaching out to through the years and know they are right in front of them…on the internet….and they want to communicate.
The needles eye
Traditionally most of the external communication and marketing has been handled by the marketing and communications departments. That is also mostly the case with traditionally media monitoring. Since most of the monitoring and analysis of social activity still will be done by these departments it puts them in an interesting situation that needs attention.
People want to communicate with you, but do you want to answer?
Information is published on blogs, Facebook and Twitter and now people are standing in line to ask you questions, want help or simple just reaching out. This is tricky since it can be many different topics not only as earlier when most where media articles or similar. Suddenly it can be:
- Sales leads
- Customer support topics
- Business Development subjects
- …and many other topics
Since these channels build on trust and relationship it is key these new communication channels are integrated in the ordinary business processes. Each business goal can then use the communication channel best suited to meet each business goal. Use the right channel for the right purpose.
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