It's simply all about people!

With fancy new apps & technologies and newer social networking sites being released almost every other week; social media seems to do be driven by technologies. But it isn’t, it’s all about people! When I think about social media, the most famous words “Of the people, for the people and by the people” by President Abraham Lincoln in his Gettysburg address come to my mind. That’s precisely the essence of my blog “E= MC² (basics) of Social Media” and specifically this post!

Photo Credit: http://www.marketing4newmedia.com/

Social media provides the opportunity for people to participate and contribute their ideas, experience and knowledge nearly real-time. In their book, Groundswell, authors’ Charlene Li and Josh Bernoff explain the collective power of social media, “People connect with other people and draw power from other people especially the crowds. Internet allows people to draw strength from each other.”

Blogger Susan Gunelius lists “Crowdsourcing, using other people to create your content” as the top Social Media Marketing Trend for 2012. Coca-Cola is one company that has managed to do this particularly well. If you visit their Facebook fan page, they’ve narrated the feel-good story of all time. The story of a fan, Dusty, who couldn’t find a facebook page for Coca-Cola and ended up creating one. It’s interesting because they are placing fans/customers’ first, they’re “listening” and allowing fan’s to do all the “talking” thereby building trust. 

“Dusty loved Coca-Cola and was in search for The Coca-Cola Fan Page on Facebook. He couldn't find one that felt official enough, so he set out to create his own. With the help of his friend Michael J, they created this Page.”

In this virtual (social media) world, most participants in the group/conversation do not even know each other personally. However, they do have a common purpose in mind, they come together for a cause, and the technology just facilitates the connection. And as authors’ Li and Bernoff say, “The collective strength is what makes them really powerful and leaves the feeling of being “unafraid.”

Across industries, a wide range of social media tools and technologies are used for news gathering and distribution. Google Plus and LinkedIn can be used to build his professional brand reach and authority, and Facebook to engage prospects and customers.  Marketers can gather great info from Facebook. The likes can help them rank up on the search engines. So many new social channels emerge that give marketers tremendous insights to their customers. Consumer-centric sites like Pinterest lets you see what people are interested in for home, fashion, cooking, automotive, sports and more. Trending topics on Twitter can help you determine spin for posts to help bubble content to the surface.

Photo Credit: http://www.breakingcopy.com/social-media-flowchart-status

It might not make sense to dedicate specialized experts to each platform to keep up with the technology and the culture, but using a personal approach to turn user into a customer with a dash of social will do the trick. “Because a strategy that treats everyone alike will spell failure – people aren’t alike and won’t respond in the same way,” explain authors’ Li and Bernoff in their book Groundswell. 

It is important to always adapt and be ready for change especially when it comes to social media marketing; and according to Brian Whalley, search marketer at Hubspot, “marketing actually speaks to their audience and doesn't hinge on a specific feature or method of outreach.” Social Media is inherently conversational and transparent; examples of brands that have been successful in building trust with their customers are listed on PR Daily.

Companies can take advantage of the collective power of employees active on social media as well. Citibank launched the “Building a new Citi” campaign as a part of their 200 years celebration. They first introduced the concept internally gathered ideas/stories/blogs from employees and then rolled it to the external world. In her talk at Stanford University, Deborah Hopkins, from the Chief Innovation Office at Citi, explains how they unleashed the true power social technologies to gather ideas, build marketing campaigns/products from employees to build partnerships and gain trust of customers. 

According to Fast Company expert blogger Julie Moreland, “As a business owner, if you can tap in to the passion of your workforce, you can accomplish things that no amount of money can buy.”

A humorous video showing how integrated these new technologies are in our lives today is attached below. Given the discussion, what according to you dives people to publicly connect with brands/services/employers?