Today’s sophisticated online content monitoring systems capture and
decipher in seconds ions of real time chatter across Facebook, Twitter and
other social media platforms. Brands analyse this chatter to deduce conclusions
pertaining to perceptions people around the world have of them and their products.
Technology has transformed chatter into something that can
have potentially incalculable value; Consumer Insights which come directly from
consumers’ mouths or, to be more precise, straight from their social media
accounts. Uncensored and un-vetted, impulsive and emotional ‘Likes’ and
‘Dislikes’ of the very people marketers vie to attract. Pure gold!
Possession of such
insightful information is manna from heaven for the marketing community giving
its privileged members a power that knows no boundaries, has no restrictions or
limits as to the type of information, messaging and content they can put
directly in front of their target audiences.
Companies the
world over have jumped on the social media bandwagon to develop integrated
campaigns that appeal to the billions of social media users. Brands have become
more globally relevant than ever before as they can now talk directly and in
real time to almost everyone in this planet who’d lend an eager ear to listen
or rather anyone with an Internet connection and the right hash tag.
PR, digital and
other communication specialists have also become a lot more social media savvy
and should now work together and in unison more than ever before to provide
clients holistic integrated communications solutions to satisfy the yearn for
social.
This is not only
important as an enabler to produce results-driven campaigns that are
strategically solid and effective but it is a matter of survival in the
fast-changing communications industry. Social media sits right at the middle
but instead of dividing opinions as to who is its rightful owner it can serve
as a catalyst for authentic integration between the disparate marketing disciplines
to the benefit of agencies, clients and consumers.
In the pre-social
media world, there was only so much one could do as a marketer, an advertiser
and a PR man to bring a product to the attention of the masses. It would either
be through a TVC, an outdoor or print advertisement, a press release, a
promotional campaign at high footfall areas, an invitation-only event, a
celebrity brand ambassador or at the shelf of the supermarket or store the
product was on sale at. Consumer feedback was non-existent, at least in real
time. There was no real conversation between products and
consumers, just a one-way monologue.
Social media has changed
all that for good and for the better and has unlocked the full potential of
communications leaving it up to the industry itself to develop a disciplined
path to actual integration.
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