2013
Autospeak-Straight Talk contains articles covering digital and social media marketing social communities and events marketing
Social media destinations today seem to be a what’s trending, what's fashionable media where Social Icons are losing ground and where smaller ones are constantly being replaced with the next technologically fad driven way to communicate and share with one another on the internet and platform changes on these web properties can cost you dearly as many of you have learned.It is time to look more within your organization to find better and more stable ways of attracting customers and communicating with your existing customer and employee base from your most important online asset-Your website. Having your message emanating from and traffic directed to your website is the only way you will reap 100% of the benefit that SEO and link building provide.
 This can be done by forming an onsite community to provide a central platform on your site where employees and customers can be engaged and can act as advocates for your brand that will strengthen your company in ways that no other medium can.
Social communities can integrate your marketing initiatives to organically grow your inbound traffic and SEO effectively reducing the cost of your online marketing and provide a host of benefits that cannot be achieved or more effectively controlled in any other way.
This interaction can be streamed across your social channels to engage potential customers by showing them that you have a customer and employee centric culture. This builds trust and confidence in your brand that will:
Increase visibility
Increase site traffic
Increase recommendations and testimonials
Increase employee retention
 All of which combined will result in higher sales and a fatter bottom line.
Onsite social communities bring you closer to your employees and customers by acting as listening posts that leads to better communication to gain valuable insight to make better decisions that will result in a healthier organization.
There is a saying that content is the fuel and social is the fire. And for businesses in today’s customer centric marketplace creating a private social networking platform connects your employees, existing customers and potential customers into a single-focus environment enabling them to exchange ideas which will ultimately strengthen your brand and broaden your customer base.
In addition to your overall digital marketing strategy social communities are a perfect branding platform to show your members your appreciation and dedication to serving them by offering member only specials on purchases and services all geared towards producing devoted customers who will ultimately become your brand ambassadors.
This sense of community creates a win, win relationship where both you and your members can communicate closely and collaborate on such things as events, volunteer efforts, etc which in turn is channeled through organic SEO and social networks to generate goodwill across the internet from your website.
“We all know that social technology enables human connections. But the thing is, there are no boundaries between consumers or employees, because most of us are both. Technology has also amplified the speed and reach of every type of communication. This evolution in how we share information and knowledge goes far beyond just social "media." It's a complete transformation in the way we interact. When businesses fail to take advantage of the valuable assets in their organization, they miss out on an excellent way to create both customer engagement and employee empowerment." Michelle Killebrew, Program Director, Strategy IBM Social Business.
In today’s world of being relevant using content marketing in all its forms, what better way is there to be relevant than by creating your own onsite social community-What are your thoughts?
William Cosgrove
Bill Cosgrove Straight Talk
See Social Communities to learn more