evolve - embrace brand evolution. The Sponge - master brand makers - embrace brand evolution

I have been talking a lot lately about the legitimate incorporation of a social media strategy for businesses. To put it into a context that can be easily understood I recently wrote a post under the title of this post. If you have not read it already, I urge you to jump over to Anthill or thinksocial.com.au and give it a read.

I want to briefly add that in order to compare it I may have given the impression that social media is an easily quantifiable marketing exercise. It is so much more than that, which brings me to a few key hard to measure benefits for businesses active in the social media space:

Managing Your Online Brand Reputation

People are (or should be!) talking about your brand online right now, and social media gives you the ability to listen and be involved in the conversation directly.

Create a Community of Brand Advocates

Create brand advocates & advisors by keeping them active with frequent contact. Be where your audience is and expand your database. Create online brand communities who will continue to market you to the web.

Become a Knowledge Leader

Be seen as the leading edge in your industry and share your perspective and expertise. Learn of new developments as and when they happen around the world. Monitor what your market is really thinking and saying about your competitors.

Customer Service

Respond to your client’s and potential client’s queries live and direct, either publicly or in private depending on the impression you wish to make or whether it can help others at the same time.

Secure your Social Media Identity

Similar to branding through domain names. Have you secured all your social media profiles?

Display Business Intelligence

Social media trades traditional media spend for labour cost. By activating your social media strategy you will be seen as maximising your existing expenditure (staff) which in this economic climate is critical.

Open a Recruitment Channel

Create an online identity that can attract like minded people into your organisation.

So whether or not you think that Social Media may be where the bulk of your market is, the comparison in the linked post identifies it as a similar channel to a print publication, where the exact same question can be asked. The question I put to you now is which medium of the two is growing right now?

So how have you started using Social Media in your business? If you need help: thinksocial

A friend of mine sent me a advanced release of his new book a couple of weeks ago. After reading it I feel compelled to give you 3 reasons NOT to get this book. When you read it and are inspired by the information contained within…

1.  You will have people all around the world talking about you!

2. These people will visit your website and buy from you!

3. You may even become the authority in your profession.

…all by simply harnessing the power of the internet and creating a World Wide Rave. Who would possibly want such things?

The book is called World Wide Rave and it is written by a friend of mine named David Meerman Scott. The truth is that this is a short, entertaining and easy to read book that will leave you with a list of things to try yourself (or talk to your design team to assist you with). I have to admit, here at The Sponge we have used, and continue to use David’s wisdom and suggestions on many of our clients online strategies.

You may want to look at some of David’s previous books and ebooks too at his blog.