How do we execute the social technologies to engage with our customers? Here are some ways to do it.
1) Create a viral video. Blendtec has created a viral video on how its blenders can blend almost anything. Watch them in Youtube. This is the best method to generate awareness online.
2) Engage in social networking sites such as Facebook. Create a personality there for your brand, and communicate with your consumers. Ernst and Young created a Facebook personality to connect with fresh graduates that are potential employees. Adidas created personality profiling to segment consumers to its different shoes, and place them into ‘teams’ online. This generates lots of word of mouth and 2-way communication with your customers.
3) Write blogs to engage your customers. Also read others’ blogs related to your products or services to get a better understanding of your consumers. You can also help to educate consumers on how to use your products, especially complex ones.
4) Create a community to engage your consumers. P&G set up beinggirl.com to listen and reply to young girls’ questions and fears.
Costs mainly go to content production, brand monitoring services and IT platforms. Benefits come from PR values generated from blogs, and reduced calls for support. It allows companies to research on their companies at a low cost. This is followed by word of mouth and advertising value from traffic generated.
Instead of traditional brand equity measures, also measure engagement: how consumers navigate your websites, comments on your blogs, amount of buzz and sentiments on your products.