Social Media is all pervading. It has taken over the way we manage friendships (how do you arrange to meet up without Facebook again?), the way we document our lives (just nipping to the Chemist to buy a Kodak film for my Camera and getting the old film developed??said no one for the past 10 years ) and how we spend our time (if you are ever at a rock concert, look around the crowd and see how many mobiles are lit up .).
At Kloodle, we realise the power of social media. Or well, we have realised the power of Twitter. We like to think that we are different to 90% of other companies on Twitter, all of whom are engaged in PUSH marketing. Check out our this, buy our that, share our other. Whilst we give you the occasional heads up when we have changed something, the majority of our time is spent engaging with people. You see, Twitter is all about the conversation. Most other companies are a PAIN to get to interact. I once bought a flat-packed bookcase from Argos. It had the most horrendous set of ironmongery, with screws designed without a care for Newtons laws of physics. These screws had the screw driver notch off-set from the centre, meaning tat each turn generated zero screwing force, rendering tightening the mother flippers impossible.
So, my forum of choice was to vent on Twitter, tagging Argos directly into my tweet. Did they reply? Errrr, No! Their last X hundred tweets were Check out X deal, Buy Y item, etc etc etc ad infinitum. Not one single bit of interaction with a customer. Which, as far as we are concerned, misses the point massively.
Social media provides businesses the opportunity to interact with their customers. This opportunity has been lost since the days of large organisations and the death of the corner shop. If you couldnt talk to customers and handle their problems on a personal level in a corner shop, you would have lost business as the person who had had the raw deal wouldve told their immediate circle of friends. Well, the same thing is happening, only the forum has changed. We all take to Twitter or Facebook when we have an issue, or indeed if we have had a great experience.
This is where Twitter, for me, is a much more powerful tool than Facebook. Twitter enables you to find the right conversations and JOIN these conversations MUCH easier. You can then interact easily with the person of choice and hey presto, customer care is made simpler, you are engaging with the people you want to love your business, and you are creating a reputation of caring??that is how to get ahead on social media??GENUINELY care about who you are interacting with. Twitter allows you to do this.
Facebook, well, I aint so sure. Facebook Pages for business, for me, seems too pushy. You can post updates and information about your business, but engaging in conversations with customers and users is much harder. For me, social media needs to be social. People are very good at sifting through being spoken at as opposed to being spoken to. Facebook is speaking at people, and Twitter is speaking to people.
Or maybe, I am just doing it wrong! Let me know what you think. Tweet us @kloodleuk.
