Here’s a Q&A Quickie on Social Media that’s sure to delight. It’s from an interview with Joseph Jaffe, President of Crayon, and best selling author of many books on advertising and new media.

Question: Can you share some tips for companies trying to make sense out of defining a social media strategy?

Answer:

• Don’t cede control completely to your consumers. They don’t want it. Meet them halfway. Partner with them. Work with them.
• Marketing is not a campaign; it’s a commitment. If you want lifetime relationships with your consumers, you need to invest in them–genuinely–for life. Begin with investing in what we call “commitment to conversation”.
• Learn to deal with negativity. You want the love, but can’t deal with the hate. Criticism is not your enemy; apathy and indifference are. Any negative response from consumers (whether by blog, e-mail or customer service inquiry) is a cry for help and an acknowledgment that they care enough to reach out to you.
• Think strategically. Define a social networking strategy. Invest in well-structured experimentation. We distill this into a very real and workable number: four. Four experiments over a calendar year. Is one experiment per quarter that unrealistic, or irrationally exuberant? I think not.

Onward & Upward!

Eric Bryant

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