Social media has become such a part of everyday life. Gone are the days where a company’s website was its only direct communication channel. And no more is traditional media the only social commentary. Everyone has an opinion and everyone can share it – anywhere, anytime.
What I find more interesting however, is how integrated traditional and social media have become. The whole media landscape has changed and it seems that traditional and print media often find their angles and stories via social media channels.
This means that our approach to social media will have to change. Twitter and Facebook and their likes can mean much more to a company than sharing pictures and celebrations with followers. Addressed in the right way, social media enables one to form relationships and start conversations – getting followers involved with your brand. And is that not what all brands want – customer involvement?
Traditional media also have social channels and if we develop a structured and integrated media strategy, we can make this new media landscape work for us on all levels. It will however require us to think about the process and also to plan, strategise and formalise our approach.
And then we have to measure our performance – how successfully are we implementing our strategy, do we get the involvement we want and from the target market we want. We need to measure not only the number of followers, but rather who we are talking to and what their influence is.
In the end, it is about creating a community around your brand and social media now enables us to do that – both with an online presence and via the traditional media channels.