Using Social Media: Engaging Customers

I wrote last week about finding value in Social Media. One way to find value in it is to meet customers where they are, where they are talking about your company. A lot of times if your service or product pisses off a customer, they won't call your customer service center, they'll just stop buying or using your product. But they'll probably tell their friends and family about why they chose not to use your product anymore or why the choose to use your product.

Social Media allows you to be the fly on the wall. See this example of how JetBlue is using Twitter to communicate with their customers, hear their thoughts and concerns and create a better service. A lot of companies try out social media and think they fail. It seems that a lot of bigger corporations are a little weary of cross pollinating their media initiatives. My question to that is why do we create whole media plans and create advertising campaigns that span across TV, print and with web banners here or there? It is another medium that you can use in your campaign.

But be aware it's not enough to just kibitz. (I love that word.) What you do with the information you find is important. This is a tool that will allow interaction. Use the tools you have available to engage your customers, build relationships and use the information you get (most times for free) to make better products and gain new business.