Social media networks: How businesses can leverage consumer generated media networks

With the launch of social networking sites such as MySpace and Facebook, many business executives were involved in discussions about whether or not social media was a passing trend, or a marketing tool that they should learn to leverage. As this new social media continues to emerge, it is clear that social network sites are more than just a passing trend.

However, with regard to marketing potential, many businesses have yet to figure out a business process that can leverage their popularity and potential reach. The problem is, no single business process will work equally well for every business or every social network. If upper level management were to devote time to “getting their hands dirty,” they would see that each social media network caters to and focuses on distinct social networks. To develop a successful business process requires an understanding of how these social networks represent very specific target markets.

Facebook and Myspace, for example, offer highly expensive on-page advertising solutions, yet studies have shown that there are fewer traffic conversions with this form of paid advertising, than campaigns that have harnessed the power of social networks to increase word-of-mouth recommendations. As complaints increase about how social networks are unable to monetize their sites, businesses must heed those warnings.

As this new social media continues to emerge, it is clear that social network sites are more than just a passing trend.

Paid advertisements and the ‘old school’ model of blatant sales and marketing messaging across social networks, are not well received by community members. It’s not even an issue of reaching the right market, because in many cases they have. It’s more about communicating their messages in a way that break through the resistance and skepticism present in today’s, prosumer-generated, mass-collaborating, content-sharing world. When you hear words such as buzz marketing, viral messaging and word-of-mouth marketing, what you are witnessing is an evolution of marketing and advertising that focuses on communication, and, more specifically, two-way communication.

When businesses are considering how to leverage consumer-generated media networks, they need to consider how to build an actual community, and not just an email database, or a friends list to which advertising messages can be fed. Today’s prosumers are seeking conversation, belonging, and a place where their ideas and opinions are heard; they are seeking dialogue, not one-sided information. So, to businesses looking to leverage the reach of social networks, the solution is this: “get your hands dirty,” become a part of a community, and learn what it takes to create dialogue with your target market, because it is those conversations that generate interest, create buzz, and build your community reach.

A local to Sudbury, Tammy Graham currently works in Toronto directing the web marketing and communications strategies for Canada’s leading provider of executive suites for extended-stay. Competing within two of the most challenging online industries, hotel and real estate, Tammy draws on her many years of experience in digital communications to successfully increase brand visibility.

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