Social media is a tool that can skyrocket your company to success if used effectively. It is also a tool that can destroy your brand if used poorly. As different social media platforms become more and more important to the success of businesses new and old, top executives are becoming more outspoken on the topic. The following list of quotes from top execs can help you figure out how to harness the power of social media for your own company and avoid detrimental slip ups.
“The viral power of online media has proven how fast creative ideas can be spread and adopted, using tools like cellphones, digital cameras, micro-credit, mobile banking, Facebook, and Twitter.”
Tina Brown, co-founder and former EIC of The Daily Beast
Social media is powerful. It has built and destroyed brands. It has even started revolutions. A single idea can travel across the world in seconds through different platforms, and your brand will be at a huge disadvantage if you fail to realize this. With all of this potential, why would you not take advantage?
“Social media has shaken up the world of sales, with Facebook, LinkedIn and Twitter offering new ways to hound leads and unprecedented insights into clients.”
Ryan Holmes, founder and CEO of HootSuite
Social media is changing the way businesses interact with customers. Not only do you have unprecedented access to customer feedback, but you can also engage with potential customers in a way that has never been seen before. As Ryan Homes notes, this gives you a variety of new ways to source leads.
“Social media is changing the way we communicate and the way we are perceived, both positively and negatively. Every time you post a photo, or update your status, you are contributing to your own digital footprint and personal brand.”
Amy Jo Martin, CEO of Digital Royalty
Personal brand is just as important to maintain as your company’s brand. Many CEOs and even regular employees are now viewed as an extension of their business’s brand. These days, like never before, the two go hand in hand. Therefore, it is just as important to maintain personal social media accounts with a sense of decorum.
“The evolution of social media into a robust mechanism for social transformation is already visible. Despite many adamant critics who insist that tools like Facebook, Twitter, and YouTube are little more than faddish distractions useful only to exchange trivial information, these critics are being proven wrong time and again.”
Simon Mainwaring, founder and CEO of We First
Social media is here to stay. Naysayers have doubted the permanence of various platforms, from Facebook to Twitter to Instagram, since they came into existence, but it certainly seems like they are here to stay. If a fear of fads has kept you from getting involved in social media in the past, now is the time to abandon that mindset.
“Online I see people committing ‘social media suicide’ all the time by one of two ways. Firstly by responding to all criticism, meaning you’re never going to find time to complete important milestones of your own, and by responding to things that don’t warrant a response. This lends more credibility by driving traffic.”
Timothy Ferriss, author of The 4-Hour Workweek: Escape 9-5, Live Anywhere, and Join the New Rich
Once you begin to engage with social media sites, beware of “social media suicide.” If you can address a customer complaint, do that by all means. But do not feel obligated to respond to every small bit of criticism. This will get overwhelming and you will lose time that could be spent doing things that are actually useful. You are not going to be able to make everyone happy. Fix the mistakes you can, but do not get bogged down by a sea of petty complaints.
“Social media is all about an exchange of value. Sometimes that value is in the form of entertainment, sometimes education, and sometimes economic. If you’re not providing significant value in some form, your audience has no reason to have a relationship with you.”
Christopher Barcinas, Head of Digital Marketing at Toptal
You have to give your audience a reason to keep returning to your content. Followers are not going to engage if you are not providing things that they are interested in. Use a mix of entertainment, education, and discounts to help accomplish this. If you constantly provide value, your following will grow.
“Being effective at social media, whether for business or personal use, means capturing people who have short attention spans. They’re only a click away from a picture of a funny cat, so you have to make your thing more compelling than that cat. And that can be a high bar.”
Alexis Ohanian, co-founder of Reddit
It’s hard to compete with pictures of funny cats. The internet is full of all kinds of distractions, so Ohanian, like Barcinas, stresses the importance of high quality content to keep your users engaged. Avoid posting nonsense simply to post something. Instead, set a high bar for your social media engagement. This will keep your followers engaging with your content in the future.
“I think the adoption rate with respect to social media and how companies leverage that varies by the company. Cisco is probably a leader in the space. A lot of times, we actually use virtual ways to communicate our brand and do some of our advertising, first on the social space, then we do on physical advertising.”
Padmasree Warrior, former CTO of Cisco Systems and Motorola
Social media can be a great warmup for physical advertising. You can test how your audience responds to certain campaigns before spending a ton of money to launch them in a physical space. Of course, social media is valuable on its own, but it can also be combined with other forms of advertising for the highest impact.
“Social media is the future, with employers recognizing they need to start hiring people with the right skills.”
Ryan Holmes, founder and CEO of HootSuite
It’s a common misconception that anyone can figure out social media. Like any other skill, there are those who are bad at it, those who are mediocre, and those who are truly great. View social media as an investment and hire people who are suited for the job.
“It’s a dialogue, not a monologue, and some people don’t understand that. Social media is more like a telephone than a television.”
Amy Jo Martin, CEO of Digital Royalty
Actually engage with your audience, do not just talk at them. Social media provides a space to engage with your customers like never before. Above all, social media is social. It breaks down the wall between you and the consumer. Treat interactions on social media platforms like you would treat in-person interactions. After all, there are real people behind those screens.
“Expressions are more valuable than impressions.”
Laura Ruff, Marketing Manager at Coca-Cola
Speaking of real people, never forget that is who you are really targeting. You can focus on likes, favorites, impressions, and page views all you want, but if you do not truly connect with your followers, you are not using social media effectively. Social media is an important tool, but in the end, it is people’s attitudes over analytics that truly matters. Keep your conversations authentic.
“You can buy attention (advertising). You can beg for attention from the media (PR). You can bug people one at a time to get attention (sales). Or you can earn attention by creating something interesting and valuable and then publishing it online for free.”
David Meerman Scott, author of The New Rules of Marketing and PR
This goes back to the importance of adding value. In the end, you can try to get attention from customers in many different ways, but you won’t actually keep their attention unless you do something interesting and valuable.
“Social marketing eliminates the middlemen, providing brands the unique opportunity to have a direct relationship with their customers.”
Bryan Weiner, CEO at Digital Agency 360i
Social media is an opportunity. If you can figure out how to use it to your advantage, you can engage with customers like never before. Instead of fearing change, embrace it. Gone is the barrier between you and your customers, and this can be a huge advantage if you leverage the opportunity well. Now, get out there and engage!
from Darlene Milligan http://ift.tt/1hhK60U via transformational marketing
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