Out of nowhere, IBM has been releasing marketing insight and news in what seems like a constant stream, and today they have released a report that may help marketers with their social marketing efforts. The report is called “The Business of Social Business” and it details some of the basics of social media marketing and what marketers can do to better make use of the medium. What may seem strange about the report is that it covers the basics, things that many marketers may already know about social media marketing. However, social has taken a beating from many marketers who have not seen too much success using it, and the criticism may be a bit unfair. It may be the marketers who are to blame for their own unsuccessful efforts, but with a reminder of the basics, things could get better.
Thus, IBM has released a report that may serve as a reminder or may simply be insightful to those new to social. They break their report into three sections, and below are the highlights of these.
Create valued customer experiences
Engage and listen
Build the community
Shift toward sales and serviceDrive workforce productivity and effectiveness
Increase knowledge transparency and velocity
Find and build expertise
Leverage capabilities beyond organizational boundariesAccelerate innovation
Capture new ideas from anyone
Use internal communities to innovate
Enable structure innovation efforts
What many marketers have had trouble with is the “Engage and listen” aspect. Marketers rarely find trouble getting consumers to engage with social marketing, but the listening is the issue. After all, according to IBM, 60% of consumers in a survey responded saying that they use social media to respond to customer inquiries, which leaves 40% who don’t. It is important for marketers to listen to their social fans, because how else are they going to find out what the public wants or needs?
Social business is the new way of doing things today, and knowing how to go about it properly is of the utmost importance. Marketers underestimate the amount of effort that goes into social marketing and social business, but clearly there are a lot of considerations that must first be attended to before starting anything. Social networks try to make things easier for users of social for business, but it cannot be put in their hands entirely.
The question surrounding social media today is not whether you are doing it, but whether you are doing enough. Getting your 100,000th “Like” on Facebook, or having your latest pearl of wisdom retweeted 200 times an hour is all well and good, but are these activities driving revenue, attracting talent and bridging the collaboration gaps in your organization?
The entire report is available on the IBM website, and who knows, maybe it will help quite a bit. The information in the report is quite insightful, and it is always helpful to learn a bit more about the things you are taking part in as a marketer.
