“Indeed, social networking conversations create a level of immediacy and a kind of public intimacy that is impossible with traditional marketing. ” – Social Media: Report (PDF)
As we all know, public social networks can be great tools to help businesses and organizations create demand and drive awareness. However, you could also say that public social networks are tools designed to allow individuals or groups to interact directly together – in exchange for your information.
Last week, I highlighted some of the key things to consider when deciding whether or not to build an online community. This week, I’ll focus on some of the specific benefits and challenges of incorporating public social networks into your business. Next week, I’ll focus on private social networks.
Lets first go over the benefits of public social networks:
“Social media dramatically lowers the cost of customer acquisition, and increases the lifetime value of a customer exponentially. It also has the added bonus of being inherently viral…” – Fixcourse.com
- Free (or low monthly cost)
- Easy to setup, easy to use, easy user adoption
- More outreach, recruitment, and lead generation
- Increased brand exposure, as well as opportunities to humanize your brand
- Enhanced web authority
- Increased traffic back to website / increased SEO
- Regular new features
- Fun (never underestimate the power of fun!)
- Increased word-of mouth marketing (easy source for unsolicited reviews)
- Real time customer service and quick responses to rumors/problems
There are tons of success stories out there. But here are two of my personal favorites:
- Old Spice’s “The Man Your Man Could Smell Like” campaign (YouTube)
- Best Buy’s Twelpforce (Twitter)
Public social networks can clearly offer a lot of value. But there are some risks and considerations to take into account:
“Social media also creates a whole new world of privacy, security, intellectual property, employment practices, and other legal risks, to name just a few…” – Social Media: Report (PDF)
- You don’t control your data
- Limited branding options
- Third-party advertisements
- Sudden changes to the terms of service or privacy settings (ex: Dropbox)
- Unexpected UI changes (ex: Facebook’s “Timeline”)
- Your competition has access to the sites’ information and membership/audience
- Your business will want to create additional procedures for capturing and responding to the “beneficial unsolicited reviews”
- Security breaches can occur from malware downloaded through social media
- Employee conversations on social media sites can disclose trade secrets
Here are some social media “lessons learned“:
- The Next Web: Social Media Nightmares and How To Avoid Them
- Business 2 Community: 3 Social Media Horror Stories
As you can see, there’s a lot to consider when setting up a public social network. It’s worth taking the time to outline where your business would derive value, and where the challenges could be.
Next week, I’ll discuss the benefits and challenges of private social networks. Stay tuned… and feel free to share your stories of success or lessons learned!
