Social Media Marketing

We’re really just at the beginning stages of this whole social media marketing phenomenon. Facebook “likes” are just now showing up in search results on Bing and if that takes off and becomes the new de facto way of search, then what happens to Google? This is why Google created Google +, so they can tap into the social graph and bring more relevant search results to users. Basically, people trust what their friends recommend so that “like” button is positioned to be one of the most powerful widgets on the internet. I’d rather see what all of my friends thought about a movie or restaurant than aggregate scores and comments from completely random people I’ve never met before. I have feeling other people feel this way too and that’s why it is important for companies to get on board with social media. New generations are growing up online with Facebook and Twitter and it’s becoming normal for people to put their likes and dislikes online. Companies need to be aware of what’s being said about them and join the conversation. An important lesson I learned in this class is that companies should do more than simply react to negative comments. They should create conversations and engage with users in a positive way. That way when negative instances do occur, you have a stable of loyal users who will come to your rescue and talk about all of the positive things your company normally does.

A major issue moving forward for social media is worry over whether it becomes spam or not. I think this is a valid concern and companies need to figure out how to balance their activity on social sites. Making a lot of posts on your Facebook page might lead to more views, but it can also become information overload. I’m part of a group page for an organization on Facebook and actually turned off receiving updates from them because it happened too frequently. I was being spammed with email updates sometimes twice a day in one instance. Companies need to balance staying relevant with being courteous to their users.