Do companies need social media or not

Thomas DESFORGESM1 - 2010/11

Summary

• I - What is social media

• II - How companies can use them

• III - Should companies use them or not

I - What is social media• Andreas KAPLAN & Michael HAENLEIN :

“Foundations of Web 2.0, which allows the creation and exange of user-generated content.”

• Businesses => Consumer-Generated Media

• Media for social interaction

• Highly accessible and scalable publishing techniques

• Web-based technologies

• Communication => interactive dialogues

I - What is social media

• Difference from industrial media :

• Traditional media : newspaper, television, film…

• Relatively inexpensive and accessible

• Enable anyone to publish or access information

• Recent statistics :

• 22% of all time online

• 40 million tweets/day on Twitter

I - What is social media

II - How companies can use them

• Past : one-way, unauthentic broadcast from corporate communications

II - How companies can use them

• Future : two-way, authentic conversations between all groups

II - How companies can use them

• Collaborate with employes around up-to-the-minute information

• Share ideas and information on public social media

• Crowdsourcing (Starbucks in 2008 with My Starbucks Idea)

II - How companies can use them

• Social media research :

• New emerging trends

• How different demographics discuss

• Could issues be spotted early

• To lower costs :

• Recruitment costs

• Customer services costs

• Marketing and product design costs

• Advertising and public relation costs

II - How companies can use them

• Brand monitoring :

• Compare to competitors (brand health)

• Buzz during and after a campaign

• Social CRM :

• Customers to reach (free samples, privileged information)

• Customers preferences shift

• Why customers move to other communities

• Most relevant communities

III - Should companies use them or not

• Top-down communication not work as well as before

• Create conversations with customers

• Useful content when clients need it

• Ideal clients reached with targeted messages

• Cost less than old ad campaigns

• Instant feedback

• Measurable results

III - Should companies use them or not

• You don’t need social media when :

• Millions of customers using social media to spread the word

• Can feed the social media with content community evangelists use

Conclusion

• Social media grown dramatically the last 5 years

• More and more importance for customers

• Yes companies should use social media

Sources• http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Social_media

• http://www.web-strategist.com/blog/2007/05/16/edgeworks-concept-how-social-media-impacts-company-communications-expanding-upon-brian-oberkirchs-theory/

• http://mashable.com/2010/03/05/companies-crowdsourcing/

• http://mackcollier.com/5-ways-companies-are-using-social-media-to-lower-costs/

• http://blog.attentio.com/2010/08/20/how-companies-use-social-media-information-part-1/

• http://articles.mplans.com/why-your-company-needs-a-social-media-marketing-system-in-2010/

• http://www.markevanstech.com/2010/02/05/does-every-company-need-social-media/

Thank you for your attention