Social networks are, to oversimplify, just about communication. But, oh, the ways you can use them to communicate!  Where to begin? Let’s look at some of the many ways businesses are using social media. It isn’t all just for marketing, either. Think of the ways your company could benefit from active listening, publicizing/promoting, and community building.

Product Management/Product Marketing

• Grow a community of evangelists – Create a fan page on Facebook or set up a group of Twitter followers, and share information with them that they will want to pass on to their peers and colleagues.
• Be an industry influencer – Grow a followership on Twitter, and tweet about trends and news that others will want to “retweet”. Remember not to sell. Be a thought leader.
• Or follow industry influencers and thought leaders – You may want to start out following other industry thought leaders to see how they’re doing it. If you have vital information to share, then you can become one of them.
• Track emerging trends – Be selective about following others’ blogs, tweets and posts in order to stay on top of the latest industry trends.
• Crowdsourcing for new product ideas – Build a community, and ask for input on what the market is looking for through LinkedIn groups or your own online communities.

PR

• Issue a social media release before or with your Press Release – You can create buzz within your industry by pre-announcing information to key social networks. Or you can simultaneously issue the press release and link to it in a tweet on Twitter.
• Listening to what social networks are saying about your company – Stay on top of what is being said about you on social networks with Google Alerts and more advanced social media monitoring applications like Radian6.
• Develop your own industry thought leaders – Use social media releases with quotes from your execs to help establish them as thought leaders in your industry.

Customer Marketing, Customer Service

• Customer service communications – Comcast pioneered this almost by accident. One of their customer service reps started using Twitter to communicate with customers on service issues. It has become immensely successful for Comcast. (Google “Comcast Frank” for more information.)
• Listen to the “voice of the customer” – Customer-focused marketers get their best tips on what customers are thinking by talking with them directly, and this can include through social media. Facebook fan pages and Twitter are both viable options. Create virtual customer advisory boards.  Find out what networks your customers are using and join in.

Core Marketing

• Brand building – First you need to be clear about what your brand is, then use social media to reinforce it. The more personal nature of social networking (compared to traditional one-way communication) means your customers can relate more closely to your brand — if you do it right.
• Community building – Online communities defy the boundaries of traditional communities. They engage customers with shared interests regardless of their geographies. You’ll need to be honest and transparent to allow the community to grow. Hire a community manager who will be a trusted community liaison.
• Share links to important relevant content – Use social media to stay on top of the news. When legislation, court opinions, scientific findings or any other new developments relate to your industry, link to them and become your market’s trusted source for content that concerns your customers.
• Drive traffic to your website/blog – Of course, you’re keeping your website new and fresh, through a blog or other regular new content of interest to your customers. Rather than waiting for people to find your content, alert them to it through Facebook, LinkedIn and/or Twitter. Use content in your integrated marketing campaign.

Events

• Generate event traffic – Let your customer community help spread the word about key events by posting the details through your social network. Make it interesting and engaging, and encourage them to pass it on.
• Event content capture – Use Twitter to share high value bits of information that originate in your event with a broader audience.

Market Research

• Surveys and polls – Use TwitPoll or other online survey applications to gather opinions. Remember the rules about randomness of samples. Larger samples from respondents chosen without bias will more accurately represent the population.
• Track emerging trends – With your own polls you actively gather data from your own sources, but you may also be able to identify trends via information developed on social networks like Technorati.

HR

• Recruiting staff – When you’re ready to hire, think of which social networks would be most likely to reach qualified candidates. LinkedIn is a great resource to find people with specific backgrounds.

Whatever ways you use social media, remember not to do all the talking. Don’t allow it to be just about you or your company. Be active listeners, and participate in conversations to get genuine feedback from your target community.

We’ve given you 19 different ways your company can use social media. Choose the ones that will be of highest value to your organization and only pursue ones to which you will be able to dedicate a resource.

Do you know of other business uses of social media? Please comment and share with our readers. That’s part of participating in the social Internet!

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