Listening to the first panel at the Social Media World Forum bought up a few interesting insights in the role of social media management in marketing plans.
The panel consisted of:
Moderator: Michelle Atagana, Editor, memeburn
Garth Rhoda, General Manager Media, Habari Media Group
Siphelele Sixaso, Head of Marketing, SAfm
Bellinder Carreira, Senior Manager Digital and Direct Marketing, Standard Bank
As you can see this is a great panel of experts so the insight gathered here should carry some clout. There were two main insights that were gleamed from the discussion.
Can social media attract customers
The short answer is yes, but the general consensus was that you should not look to social media purely for acquisition. This is simply because each company will engage with customers in different ways, this is a natural progression. Brands have an opportunity to meet consumers in a social environment through Facebook but Standard Bank have found Twitter to be more useful as part of their business processes like customer support.
So you can use social media to attract new customers but don’t be small minded or short sighted.
Have consumers changed
I have spoken about digital consumers at length on this blog so this topic interested me a lot.
Belinda suggests that the consumers have not changed and I agree with her. These consumers have only changed they way the can communicate with brands. They choose to use social media because they like using social media.
Sufiso Mazibuko, Habari Media Group, said something interesting. The smart brands understand that the customers are not new but that social media creates a higher level of immediacy in conversation between brands and consumers. This hit the nail on the head of this discussion. Your consumer has not changed that just use social media which has changed the way and possibly the rules of communication between brands and consumers.