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reaction of the organization in this ter improvements in product develop- tion can furnish new insights for brand
case was much swifter and they were ment, quality control, marketing, and management.
able to put out the fire before it went other areas of the business as well.
out of hand. Marketers need to adopt a further stra-
'Findability' is key tegic form of communications rather
Reaching out to the cus- than just spamming customers or pros-
tomer Even without social networks in the pect customers. This can be maneuvered
picture, the challenge of navigating through communicating leadership via
No one likes to reinvest in the wheel. server directories, internets, websites, forums, portals and even company
That is why when we as consumers run e-mail folders, and other resources to websites. Being on a digital platform,
into issues, it is our natural inclination find useful information can be daunt- means working on quick turn around
to try to find out if others have run into ing. Customer forums and other social time and responsive customer commu-
the same issue and what they did to networks added into the mix can nication. A consistency needs to be
resolve it. Given this, a company-spon- threaten to overwhelm internal and maintained around messaging. Further-
sored customer forum can be a great external users with noise, rather than more, when companies engage with
focal point for customers. By creating come across as meaningful informa- customers openly on social media, they
a vibrant customer forum an tion. fortify a certain level of accountability.
organisation will gain a lot of near-term
and long-term benefits. To meet this challenge, organizations To sum up, organizations can view the
need sophisticated search capabilities proliferation of social networks as a
A forum is where a lot of customers that derive the true intent from each threat or an opportunity. It can be
start when they need answers. When search. This requires search capabili- seen as a threat because of the seem-
done right, company-sponsored forums ties very different from those employed ingly endless new data streams social
can be the first and best place for cus- by web search platforms such as networks generate that needs to be
tomers to go when they want ques- Google or Yahoo. To derive a search as sifted and processed for the informa-
tions to be answered. With effective true intent, organizations need enter- tion that is useful.
moderation, reputation models, and prise knowledge management that
flexible control, customer forum can features an integrated combination of However, enterprises need to approach
deliver significant value to the enter- natural language processing, informa- social networking as a huge opportunity
prise and customers alike. tion lifecycle management, and analyti- - a new way to communicate with and
Organisations can also gain a wealth of cal insight into user behaviours. learn from customers in a mode that
insights that can be leveraged to fos- customers have embraced. By interact-
Building brands with ing with customers in their familiar
social media mode, organisations can realize signifi-
cant improvements in not only customer
Social Media also provides a service but also product development,
dais for organizations to con- quality assurance, marketing, and virtu-
nect and interact with their ally every other area of the business. By
stakeholders directly and in- taking a strategic, knowledge-based ap-
stantly. With a large user proach, organizations can fully leverage
base, consumers leave vital the potential of social networks to truly
piece of information with enhance the customer experience
each, like, or, comment, on and improve business performance.
the various social media chan- (Source : BS)
nels. Amassing such informa-
You may be disappointed if you fail, but you are doomed if you don't try.
PR COMMUNICATION AGE August 2015 17
