Great article post from ExactTarget that is spot on about how brands interact with your company:
Key Points---
- Brands must invest in building audiences now more than ever.
- Engagement isn’t just a metric, but a marketing mandate.
- Brands are making mistakes across Email, Facebook & Twitter
- The coming user battle for Facebook’s soul (commercial vs. non-commercial)
- The huge impact smartphone adoption is having on Email, Facebook & Twitter
The power of email. There have been a lot of articles lately stating that we are coming to the end of the email era, but that is far from the truth. All social networks need email to survive, and email is still the largest growing digital communication method. 93% of US internet users willingly receive at least one commercial email daily– that’s a huge amount! Moreover, email is the first thing that 58% of those same people check when then go online in the morning—compared to just 11% who check Facebook.
When digging a little deeper, our SUBSCRIBERS, FANS & FOLLOWERS research concluded that people who check email as a first priority tend to be customers who interact with brands for the sake of receiving discounts or promotions. People who chose Facebook as a first port of call for online interaction tend to be those who become fans of brands for entertainment purposes or to show their brand support to all their friends. The act of “liking” a brand should, therefore, be viewed as an opportunity to engage with your customers and create conversation, capitalising on its viral potential.
As for Twitter, it has a smaller user base than email or Facebook (around 20% of US internet users have joined, and 5% follow a brand) but mighty. Twitter has captured content creators with the daily Twitter user generating 2 to 6 times more content (blog posts, pictures, comments, ratings, etc.) than other internet users. The bottom line is that what these people say on Twitter, doesn’t stay on Twitter, and what they say about your brand could have a profound impact on your company.
The reasons for why brands and fans “break-up” all comes down to the same three things:
--brands talk too much (frequency)
--continuously repeat that same information (boredom)
--and there are other brands out there who do it better (relevance).
So in reality, it doesn’t really matter what social media channels you choose to talk to your customers, it’s all about how you engage with them. The frequency and content of your marketing efforts need to be tailored to the unique needs of your subscribers, fans and followers.
