Using Social Media to talk to your customers

Econsultancy reported this week that the fastest growing media used in digital consultancies this year, is online video and social media.

Now, to be completely honest, sometimes digital agencies have a tendency to use a medium just because its there (and they might win an award for innovation) but the continuing trend actually does signify a change in way customers, and potential customers, notice and digest marketing messages.

Aliya Zaidi, research manager at Econsultancy, says, “In online video, advertisers are becoming much more creative, and the experience is more interactive and highly personalised according to the user’s own preferences.”

This is key.

Users now expect information to be delivered according to their own channel preference and will tend to ignore messages that are not. However, you don’t need to make seismic shift in your marketing, nor do you need to start tweeting about your lunch to appeal to the social media user.

For example, some internet users believe that Facebook is actually the Internet and will use the search bar in Facebook like we might use Google.

To address this, it can be as simple as creating an official business page on Facebook, so  you stand a higher chance of not only attracting these customers but also interacting with them using their preferred style and in an environment they consider to be safe.

In an ideal world we’d design individual marketing campaigns for each customer, but unless you’re selling private jets then this isn’t feasible. The next best thing is allowing each customer to access, manipulate and digest your message in any way they please.