Why should I be on facebook and Twitter?

The answer comes in two parts.
What are the advantages to me to be on Facebook and Twitter?
What are the disadavtages to me if I am not on Facebook and Twitter?

Because there are many advantages lets look at the disadvantages first:
If you dont claim your name on facebook and twitter there is a real possibility that someone else will. You might say so what?

Well thats not what xxonMobil is saying after a lady called Janet kidnapped their name on twitter. Janet started anwering questions to all the followers about the company. It seems that Janet had no PR skills and knew little about the company and ignored any attempted contact from xxonMobil to try and rectify the situation. It turned out to be a lenghthy process to get Janet to finnally surrender the name back to ExxonMobil but not untill a extensive amount of damage had been done to the ExxonMobil Brand name.

This is not an isolated case brandjacking has happened to many companies even some well known politicians have had their name hijacked on facebook and twitter.

Ok so lets say you go claim your name on facebook and twitter is that enough? Well I dont want to frighten you but doing only that may be even worse as Harvey Norman, Vodafone, Pampers Nappies and many others recently found out.

When each one of them had a problem of different sorts they made the decision to ignore comments on their facebook and twitter accounts the result was a public backlash of astronomical proportions. In the case of Harvey Norman there where literally thousands of angry comments posted on their facebook and twitter by continuing to ignore it it grew into abuse personal attacks on Gerry Norman swearing and finally people starting to compare prices on the internet to Harvey Nomans prices like this one for instance this Canon product costs $1349 at Harvey Norman but $698 from an Aussie online retailer with the same gst and duty as Harvey Norman.

All of these companies and for that matter most companies and small businesses have no idea of the awesome power that has been delivered to the online consumer and the worst part is they are well aware of it, in fact there is even a new term for it, it’s called Online Brand Destruction and angry comsumers can destroy a brand name virtually overnight.

If you think facebook and twitter are going to go away they are not, they are growing into monsters that can establish your brand name and build huge new client bases in a very short period of time resulting in increased sales. Using social media you can build brand loyalty quicker and better than any known conventional method and it can also become the most powerful PR tool you could ever imagine or alternatively it can destroy you, your choice.

These case studies are not fantasy they are very real and part of the new world you live in, whether you like it or not doesn’t matter, you can stick you head in the ground all you like but your backside will still be uncovered and fair game for disgruntled customers. These sort of attacks can start with as little as just one or two angry customers.

So I guess you are asking yourself right about now when my business makes a boo boo is this what I can expect to happen to me? Yep it certainly can. Next question? Can this be avoided or controled. Answer of course it can not only can it be controlled but by using the strategies we use it can be turned into a positive experience for both you and your customers.

 In the case of Toyota who was suffering public humiliation and considerable damage to their Brand name resulting from problems of failures, Washington Post – “After months of bad publicity involving cars that can accelerate out of control” Toyota was at a loss of how to contain the situation. As we are all aware the media quite often dont print what we would like them to print. Toyota then made a brave decision to use facebook as the platform to engage their customers. Why would they do this? The reasons are very clear by using facebook they now have a platform where they can tell their story their way without the media hipe. They can also engage with their customers on a global basis instead of using conventional methods of having support or complaint lines where they are answering the same question one on one and in this case to 1.5 million people.
Their facebook followers all get to see the answer Toyota gives to a real person in real time collectively. So by doing this it stopped the phone lines ringing out of control, people calmed down they were getting answers immediately they were getting explainations and updates of the situation and Toyota only had to say it once. By engaging there customers in this way Toyota turned an impossible situation in to a positive and began to claw back their battered reputation.

A similar thing happened to Vodafone recently when their compaints line became over whelmed the old saying “there is only one thing worse than the wrong answer and thats no answer at all” this is when people become angry vindictive and seek out other ways to vent their anger. In this case they turned to social media facebook and twitter Vodafone chose to ignore instead of engage their customers and suffered an incredible puplic whipping.

I think any rational person will by now have firmly planted in their mind the disadvantages of not being on facebook and twitter.

The advantages are many, some I have mentioned above.
But lets take a look, facebook have over 5 million members tipped to be 1 billion by christmas, twitter over 200 million. Australia has in excess of 9 million facebookers and growing fast. But wait is that 9 million kids, nope the average Australian facebooker is 35 years old didnt know that did you? So guess where all your customers are, thats right you got it they are on facebook. By the way the average Australian facebooker spends a minimum of 8 hours a month on facebook, thats 2 hours a week or half an hour a day 4 days a week. So what if you could put your business right in the face of prospective clients for half an hour a day 4 days a week think it might work?

Many people are failing miserably trying to market on facebook. So why are they failing, easy because they are attempting to apply conventional marketing strategies which simply dont work in social media.
This is a whole new world with new and completly different marketing strategies. Conventional advertising agencies and marketers are struggling badly with this as they get left behind in the wake of the forward thinking inovative new breed of social media marketers.

If you want even more exposure think about this for a moment. If you could place an  add in a newspaper, say the West Australian at no cost, and only pay a few cents for every person that actually cut it out of the paper and brought it into your shop would you be interested? Of course you would.
When we set up a maketing campaign for facebook this is exactly how it works but they come to your facebook page instead of your shop. From there we get them on your list so you can market new offers and products to them on an ongoing basis.

You can also use your facebook page for market reseach giving you extremely acurate information on what your market realy wants.

These are just a few of the functions available on facebook. You can also run competitions, poles, voting, special offer vouchers that can be printed straight from facebook with the picture and name of the facebook user on it.

Well I saved the best part for last, all of these marketing campaigns can be setup on auto pilot, thats right we can set up a campaign to run on facebook and twitter for a month or three months which ever you choose.

For more info click here

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