A New Year of Social Media

After the highs and, unfortunately, many lows of 2008, many of us are looking forward to the New Year that begins this Friday. As one of my colleagues just said, we are hoping for "that Obama bounce" for the economy and to settle people's nerves with his zen-like quiet confidence. We are hopeful that our families and friends will be healthy and happy -- and employed in good situations. We are ready for a steady stream of good news. Take it from someone who has real problems with perkiness -- we could even stand some perkiness in 2009 -- a good long dose of it.

From a communications perspective, we clearly are in the throes of true change regarding how companies are talking with their customers and prospects. More and more of our clients -- even those whose products are extremely complex and very far from the consumer -- are realizing the need to have more of an engagement with their customer base and industry via various social media tools.  Some of our CEOs have signed on to Twitter, just to check it out and to see if it yields value for their previous time allotted. A number have established blogs that either the CEO or senior team members are using to directly speak to their customers and contacts. Still more are social media-enabling their newsrooms to make them easier for the (increasingly) few, the brave, the tech media to access and use. And most of our clients are actively listening to the social media chatter to make sure they are aware of conversations about their company and their products and ready to participate in the discussion or dispell any misconceptions or slurs from competitors.

With the need to do more with less or even do more with no more, it is both prudent and cost effective to make sure that a smart social media program is part of your communications program in 2009. Customers are cutting to the chase when they make buying decisions and they want as much third party confirmation as they can obtain. They search Internet sites that aggregate reviews of products and services. They look for word-of-mouth endorsements or warnings. They fully expect to have a personal relationship with the companies whose products they decide to purchase.

So as you dust off last year's New Year's resolutions and see how you fared and start to build this year's list, put an assessment of your engagement in this critical aspect of your communications program on the list. At the very least, check to see if your direct competitors are participating more than you are.  Those that consider themselves techy savvy within the general population is growing rapidly, evidenced by the after-Christmas crush at the Apple store compared to the relatively calm aisles at Macy's and Nordstrom. That means more and more consumers of products and services are gaining digital access to information.  

One of my other collegues told me before the holidays began that the current revolution is similar to the Internet explosion where companies felt they absolutely had to have a web presence to compete.  Now they have to have a voice as part of that web presence. Let the two-way communicating begin in 2009.