Tips I Feel Useful
- In-house social media staff is very important. Whoever manages a company’s social media activities must know the company, including the organizational culture, services and products offered, and the operational procedures. Otherwise, a company can repeat Chrysler’s mistake on Twitter.
- Be consistent in feeding new content.
- Carry on an on-going conversation on social media. Social media is more than just sales and marketing. Content creators also need to consider “WIIFM” (what’s in it for me?) and “IDNK” (I don’t know that) for the audience when posting updates and news.
- Companies must have clear objectives when implementing social media strategies. Otherwise, social media can be very counterproductive for business.
Tips I Disagree
- Will social media become less important if a company does not need to interact with consumers directly? I don’t think so. I believe that social media, if used appropriately, can be very effective in B2B, B2C, and C2C communications. Even if a company’ business model does not rely on B2C communications as much as the others do, they should still use social media, including Facebook Page and Twitter, to promote B2B and C2C communications. Additionally, recent research indicates that blogging can have a positive impact on a company’s performance in the stock market because companies often share positive information on their blogs.
- Is social media optional for senior executive members? It may work for Nick Swinmurn at Zappos.com, but I don’t think it will work for others. My question is: How can an executive make viable decisions on a company’s social media strategy if s/he does not even use the tools? Let’s use e-mail marketing as an example, if one does not even use e-mails, s/he may not know how to send or receive e-mails anyway. How can this person make good decisions on e-mail marketing?
Do you see my points? What are your thoughts on the advice
provided by these three entrepreneurs?
These three entrepreneurs have found a way to use social media to their benefits. Some do not feel the necessity to use their Facebook or Twitter, and have deactivated their accounts. I personally would not know what to do if I were to deactivate them, because I use them every day. As time goes on more and more websites are going to be created, but it is the job of the creators and the brains to keep its audience and users interested in what could possibly be coming next. Users always want to know what the brains of these websites are actually thinking.
ReplyDeletePeople need to have a clear idea when they are trying to implement new social media strategies. Social media is more than just sales and marketing. There needs to be constant developments in social media websites, so that its users do not get board. I do agree with the statements you provided. Everyone should be able to decide, on their own, if they want to use these websites. Social media is a great way to keep in touch with people you do not see or speak to on a daily basis. But in reality, there are still many other ways for us to communicate with one another. We should not solely rely on these websites as our only way of communication, and it is incredibly important for everyone to realize this statement.
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ReplyDeleteTo answer one of you questions, "is social media optional for senior executive members?" My answer is yes, they don't need to have personal page or personally manage social media. However, their company better has one. It is important that executives understand social media but they don't need to have a personal account to make decisions. You can make decisions based on statistics or legitimate thoughts.
ReplyDeleteBefore doing a social media campaign, companies also need to think "WIIFM", if their customers or future customers don't use any of those social media, what's the point of doing it? Like one of the speakers said, if the followers or comments are made by the same people, the result isn't effective. My philosophy is : if you want to do it, do it well or don't use it at all.
I agree with you in some way, Sandy. It is not necessary for everyone to have a Facebook Page, but the decision makers need to be on Facebook (as a individual user) UNLESS they don't need to make decisions regarding a company's Facebook strategy.
DeleteThe statistics are indeed critical in helping executives make decisions, but experience is also very important. Let's use hospitality business as a example. Many restaurant entrepreneurs fail for a reason. Some never worked in restaurants before, but they just LOVE cooking and think it would be cool to have their own restaurant business. Until they get their hands dirty, they don't know what it takes to run a restaurant business (e.g. dealing with cash flow issues, controlling inventory and employee theft, etc.). They may be able to see a lot of numbers, but without the real knowledge of running a restaurant, they may not even know how to interpret the numbers. To someone who does not know anything about a domain, a number is just a number. Many of them ended up failing.
Sandy, I completely I agree with you.. If you are going to have social media you have to go all out and maintain it. No one said it was easy, but I believe that in today's world, if you don't use social media you are going to be left behind, quickly. Also, I agree that the executives should be using the social media chosen. Like you said Doctor Kwok, how could they be making vital decisions on what strategy to use if they do not know first hand how each platform works?
ReplyDeleteThe advice from the entrepreneurs that I find are most critical for businesses today who are deciding to use social media, are that if you are going to use social media you must have a clear strategy and plan ahead of you.. you do not want to be all over the place, using too many platforms and not be able to maintain them. If you have a clear plan you can then focus who and how you will maintain the sites. Lastly, like we have said this entire semester, you must keep fresh and new content posted daily. This is perhaps the most important part of social media. You must keep your information relevant and often, and that is the start to success!
Very good point on selecting the right social media tool and then doing well on it. That's something we shall discuss in this week's class discussion.
DeleteAs sandy said above, social media, it is better not use it if you are not sure you can do it well. However, although it is not something mendatory to use it, they gotta use it. Social media is becoming more popularly used and I don't think the time will go backwards to those era that social media was not really used by people. To do business successfull, communication and interaction with customers are really important. I personally think that it is now time to use social media for those who havn't thought of using it, and is time to use it rightly and well for those who are already using it.
ReplyDeleteAfter reading this post i agree with the tip that you must keep an on going conversation on your social media platform. I think that if when you first start out and continuously provide your customers with information and whatever you would like and then all of the sudden you just start to slow down or even stop completely you are going to lose a major percent of your current customers. You MUST keep an ongoing conversation going on at all times because this will show that you are fully committed to what you had started in this social media world. I feel as though that if you are company who does not think that implementing a social media strategy is necessary, then you will quickly fall very behind because other companies are quickly latching on to these platforms and using them to their fullest adavantage. Communication is one of the main keys to success in anything, whether or not you are in the business world, however since most people are they must know how to do so. Social media is a great way to show that you are a good communicator and are trying form a good relationship with your customer, however, yet again this is where ongoing conversations must be implemented.
ReplyDeleteI think that these three entrepreneurs know exactly what they are talking about and give very excellent advice. I completely agree with them that you must have a complete and clear strategy as to how you want to go forth with your social media platforms. You must know what is too much or what is too little when using social media. With that, by being too all over the place, or not even contributing to your social media platform is a major unattractive quality to your current and potential customers. So basically, i think that the major concept that everyone in the business world must live and learn is to keep up with the social media strategies but make sure that yours are clear and concise at all times.