Looking to engage new customers on social media? Be prepared to do it guerrilla-style, with meaningful one-on-one interactions, rather than throwing messaging at a Facebook wall in hopes something will stick.
Panelists addressed the question at a May 31 roundtable on social media hosted by the Fairfield County and Westchester County Business Journals in Riverside (see related article on page 6). Panelists included Chris Dessi, CEO of Silverback Social in Chappaqua, N.Y., who suggested too many businesses make the mistake of seeing social media as a way to cheaply chase new customers, rather than using it to cement relationships with existing customers.
“The paradigm shift here needs to be for everyone ”¦ not to think of social media as where it fits within your marketing funnel ”“ ”˜Okay, we have an email campaign and we have a print campaign and we have a point of purchase and all that stuff; hey, let”™s add social media,”™” Dessi said. “No ”“ it”™s on the other end of the funnel where once that customer has gone through the funnel, to manage to and through the happy customer. Give them that platform so they can share their stories, those wonderful stories about your brand and that interaction.
“Social media ”¦ surrounds the funnel,” Dessi continued. “This is a definitive, cultural shift. It has nothing to do with, ”˜Gee, should I do a print buy?”™ or ”˜Should I do an email campaign?”™ It”™s everything ”¦ It”™s going to be, ”˜I love that brand, I want to talk to that brand.”™”
Still, in a 2011 survey by Wildfire Interactive Inc., 44 percent of respondents said Facebook adds value to their marketing efforts due to its effectiveness in recruiting new customers. Just 18 percent of respondents cited Facebook”™s value for inducing existing customers to make more frequent purchases.
“I actually think Facebook has a very strong advertising platform which if used correctly can be incredibly powerful for a business,” said Kris Ruby, a Greenwich resident who is CEO of Ruby Media Group in Mount Kisco, N.Y. “You can actually do ads around wall posts you want to target to a very specific area. You can say, ”˜I want to target people within 10 miles of my business located in this Zip code. I only want to target women, and I want to target women between 32 and 40 years old. And you can do that ”“ it really will go directly to that demographic.
“I think that”™s an incredibly powerful tool,” Ruby said. “If used correctly, that can result not only in ”˜likes”™ but can result in leads that can be very powerful and are hard to get in a different way online.”
In that maelstrom of content, the conversations that matter are the ones that mentioned one”™s brand last night, according to Jack Serpa, executive vice president in the Norwalk office of Engage 121.
“The first key step to doing social (media), whether you want to put your toe into it or you really want to go big ”¦ is to listen,” Serpa said. “Wouldn”™t it be crass if I just walked in here and started handing out $20 coupons to buy this snazzy tie, without me knowing whether you even wanted a tie or not? Don”™t do that in social (media) either ”“ don”™t just jump in and start making offers to use your product or service. Start by listening; find the conversations that are relevant to your business and then tactfully engage those conversations.”
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