Social Media - The New Frontier

There's no question, Social Media is becoming a legitimate marketing channel. Over the past few years, I've used tools such as MySpace, Linkedin, Facebook and now I have this blog. These outlets have allowed me to share ideas with other marketers, learn of their successes and increase my network...

Social Media was a huge topic of discussion at the Eloqua Experience, but I know it was also a focal point for the DMA annual event last week as well. It's becoming clear to marketers that the market is shifting. Anthony Lye, Oracles SVP of CRM mentioned in his keynote address at Eloqua Experience, that throughout history there are interrupters that completely change the marketing landscape. These interrupters include Dell's shift in selling PC's direct to consumers, the use of the Internet and now social media to name a few. Oracle is making significant changes to their business strategy to further integrate their business model with social media.

There's a need to expand the dialogue between businesses and their consumers. The days of marketing messaging / campaigns are passing. There may be a time in the future, where people no longer use email to communicate. Many consumers are no longer using email, relying exclusively on wall-posts on Facebook, or posts to Myspace or blogs. This is already a trend identified in the 18-24 crowd, but a variety of other users as well. In fact, a colleague of mine told me last week that his 80 year old grandmother has a Blog, she's from the Bay Area, so that makes sense... It's a trend that we can't ignore.

(image courtesy of liberatemedia.com)

These insights have caused me to seriously rethink our marketing strategies and leverage some of these emerging technologies and consumer trends. Oracle is integrating social media data into their CRM that can be used in the sales lifecycle. In our business model, we need to develop rapport with our customers, true relationship marketing, instead of the old batch and blast strategy. Checkout this video I found on the impact of these relationships on consumers, via Charlene Li's blog.

I have a funny social media experience with a business associate that is considered a guru in his field. The name alone is worth millions and his brand has a loyal following. A few months ago, he says to me. "Carson, I had to kill my Linkedin profile because so many of my customers were trying to connect with me. I don't have time to respond to the requests, or manage my image with these people, I hope you understand." On one hand, I completely understood. But that sparked a thought in my mind... If your customers want to connect with you, why in the world would you want to push them away? As their marketing agency, it makes complete sense for me that we should be investing heavily in developing their social media brands. In every problem, there lies an opportunity.

I've learned a lot in a short period through setting up this blog. I've been able to utilize tools such as Google Analytics to see what traffic I’m getting, where it's coming from and what countries, cities are hitting my humble little blog. I'm getting traffic from all across the US as well as, Trinidad, Singapore, UK, Netherlands and Canada. This motivates me further to ensure I’m producing valuable content and information for those that read my posts. I'll be working over the next few months to find new ways to leverage this channel.

I'm hooked...