"Is Social Media a Channel?" Personally, I'd go for Mac and Cheese

@jeffthesensei asked if what kind of meal I'd make..



I said I’d make macaroni and cheese.



As Barenaked Ladies said “If I had a million dollars, we wouldn’t have to eat Kraft dinners.. but we would”



There’s a point to my silly response. I would do what I want to do… same as your customers.



In the mass homogeneous world we grew up in in the 20th Century, we got one way communication en mass and were happy to hear from corporations.. or at least knew they weren’t listening if we had a gripe.



Now communication is two way.. the choice to listen is still there, but companies who choose to ignore customers can’t pretend customers are having conversations about them.



Old media was one way, early web sites were attempts to handles customers without a real conversation through automation. Retail puts real people on talking to customers, but communication chains are easily broken (at least until they embrace social media tools).



We call the tools “social media” and easily confuse the revolution is our ability to listen with the videos, chats, and nifty new technologies. When we embrace the opportunity to really listen, then use those conversation to satify our customers demands, they love buying from us.



“Listen and Love”.. it’s as simple as that.

Amplify’d from themountaintop.ca

Social Channel for customer acquisition: The most obvious and plentiful application of social media as companies look to establish foot prints in the big social networks. What’s the impact on customer acquisition? Well, for companies who are not inherently social, low. For those that are socially aligned, its impact is broad. Just look at how Ford has evolved itself to apply Social to build market share. Social Channel for existing customers: Sadly, the most overlooked and highest potential application of social media is for existing customer communities. Why is it that we treat those most loyal to us the worst? The current impact is minimal in my mind, but the future potential of enabled customer communities is immense becoming a key source of driving product and service innovation for smart companies. This is a game changer. Social Channel for partners: Is this even on the radar yet? My feeling is the impact will not be felt for quite a while. Feel free to enlighten me if you know more or have examples. Social Channel for employees: Interestingly, many companies, especially B2B enterprise are just scratching the surface on this. The mother to internal social is the intranet of course; a channel with questionable impact. But, in the same way that social can rapidly evolve the business’ relationship with the customer, it can also do so with employees; the lifeblood of the enterprise. Again, the impact is minimal now, but as companies become more comfortable with social, my bet is game changer.

Is Social Media Just a Channel?

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