The corporate awakening toward social media

The exponential rise in interest in social media is pressuring businesses to sit up and pay attention. And it’s happening fast. Not only is there a significant number of mainstream media reporting on this phenomenon, but it seems the lion’s share of bloggers and micro-bloggers with their sights trained on corporate America are also espousing the virtues of facilitating a dialogue with customers.

The value of engaging in social media is now seen in every aspect of business, including:

• Brand-building
• Lead-generation
• Research and development
• Product or service launch
• Customer retention
• Partner or channel communications
• Thought leadership
• Internal communications
• Media relations
• Crisis management
• And more

Corporate executives are starting to understand how transformative this new perspective on marketing can be, if executed properly. Businesses realize they need to stop talking at customers and begin to talk with them. But the value of these conversations relies on authenticity — social media is not a new advertising platform. People congregate around relevance and value. Brands are shaped and influenced by dialogue.

Businesses that don’t begin to let go, become more transparent and engage in conversations could miss an opportunity to influence and shape the very brands they hold dear. Not engaging could open the door for the competition to come in and build meaningful relationships with your customers. Our customers are asking for counsel. They want to know the value of social media to their business and how to proceed.

We believe it’s important to push forward and explore the tenets of these new communications channels. But not without a plan. One of the hallmarks of our organization is strong strategic planning for marketing communications. And we will bring that same level of forethought and experience to bear on this exciting new medium.

Stay tuned.