How can companies protect themselves against these risks?
Work with your technology provider and let it know that you are implementing these strategies and ask about security solutions available to protect your company.
It’s also very important for IT, legal, human resources and marketing to work together to establish corporate policies and guidelines around social media. Each company needs to identify who can review and post comments.
In addition, some companies might consider restricting access to specific sites, such as Facebook or YouTube. There’s a risk of declining productivity and network bandwidth if your employees are on these sites all day.
Companies need to be open to negative customer reactions and be able to react when these criticisms are voiced. Look at it as a way to instantly understand issues/concerns and respond in a timely manner. Negative reactions can become high risk if you allow them to go unanswered. Social media can have a viral marketing impact, so make sure you are being proactive and managing your company’s responses.
How can a company begin to create an effective social media strategy?
The top priority for a company is to understand how its buyers use social media. For example, if a company’s target audience is IT service buyers, chief information officers, or vice presidents of IT, current research states that they use social media in the exploratory process of purchasing. It’s important that the vendor information is present on vertical market and industry sites, IT communities and blogs to specifically share what product, service or solution the vendor provides, how the vendor provides its services and what key values differentiate the vendor from its competitors.
The next steps for businesses in developing a social media strategy are to research and determine which social media portal is most appropriate for their buyers. Facebook might provide more visibility if a company is B2C or consumer driven. However, for a B2B company, LinkedIn might be more appropriate.
Businesses should create a social media strategy that uses the applications their customers utilize and then determine the level of activity necessary on those applications to make a positive impact on the company.
Mary M. Rodino is the Chief Marketing Officer with CIMCO Communications. Reach her at [email protected] or (630) 691-8080.
