Creating Valuable Brand Advocates through Social Media

Mar
10

Read this eBook now – Customer Service: The Art of Listening and Engagement through Social Media – written by Brian Solis. You can download for free (PDF or Word). It’s short, sweet and gets straight to the point.

One of the key takeaways was what many refer to as conversational marketing. Here is Brian’s take from the eBook (page 6):

However, marketing needs to be clarified as I am not referring to the traditional marketing that typically “speaks” at people through “messages.” In Social Media, this is about dialog, two way discussions that bring people together in order to discover and share information.

I wholeheartedly agree that participation through two-way conversations is a form of marketing; and I would argue that it’s probably one of the most effective methods of marketing today. As Brian suggests, consumers don’t want marketed to anymore. They are sick and tired of us (yeah, me too) shoving our marketing messages down their throats. It’s about conversations; and not necessarily about conversions anymore; my direct marketing friends would scarcely disagree with me!

It’s more than just conversations though. It’s about action (or lack therof) from these conversations. A great example of this is what Dell is doing with IdeaStorm. They are having real-life, genuine conversations with their customers; and more importantly, they are listening and acting!

Technorati Tags: social media, conversational marketing, brian solis

Author: Michael Brito

Michael Brito is a Vice President of Social Media at Edelman Digital. All thoughts and opinions on this blog are his own and do not necessarily reflect those of his employer or clients; neither past or present. Feel free to follow him on Twitter or subscribe to this blog.

Michelle

the spammers are here!!!

; )

Hey Michael...miss you over here at Yahoo!
josh

Have you seen the Easy Viral Traffic blog yet? They provide some pretty cool information about how to get free website traffic... check it out http://www.easy-viral-traffic.com/blog/
shariha

Internet Marketing: A ringside view:

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Article marketing – There are several article banks which will accept your submissions and then feed to

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jamie

dood. You social media types are full of fluff. Social Media does not have any substantial ROI. Try telling an HP or DELL to cease their paid search/display advertising initiatives...

yeah right.
Michelle

just downloaded the book. Thanks for letting me know!
Search Engine Optimization Jou

This absolutely needs to be happening more between companies and their customers. When customers have more control over the market, they will be more willing to buy. Too much spam is getting out and it is turning buyers off. Great post!