November 5, 2010 in Blog, Business by malte

Social Media & Internal Marketing – Part 2 – Social Media: improving staff communication

Social Media: improving staff communication

The internal communication processes of a given organization are generally highly diverse and fragmented. They encompass communication at different levels as well as different communication practices. Various aspects such as organizational learning, conflict management, values and information distribution are addressed under the umbrella concept of internal communication.

A sophisticated flow of communication is not only vital for proper dissemination and utilization of company information, but also plays a significant role in empowering people.

To put things in a nutshell: Use of social media within a company can help boost idea dissemination, generation and R&D. Via Employee-to-Employee and Employer-to-Employee connections, knowledge can be shared. The use of social media can, in addition, be extended to the recruitment and retention of employees.

Outcome managers will see an increase in idea generation, investment and loyalty from empowered employees and discover new skill sets and expertise among employees. Social media will also help the manager to share his/her culture and values.

Social Media is not simply confined to marketing: It is about people that an organization should value and also help develop both inside and outside the context of their corporate culture.
In our next blog post learn about some easy steps and techniques to use social media in internal marketing.

Malte Kempen

November 2, 2010 in Blog, Business, Facebook, SEO, Social Media, Training, Web Development by malte

Social Media & Internal Marketing – Part 1

Social Media & Internal Marketing – Part 1

Internal Marketing is learning to socialize.

By now it must be clear that social media provide a powerful and very important tool when it comes to communicating with so-called external customers as part of the overall marketing mix.

Another possible use open to you is to harness social media within an organization, as a means of internal communication and internal marketing.

Internal communication is as important as external advertising. After all, how can a company win the trust of its customers if it does not have the goodwill and trust of its own employees? When successful communication takes place in a company, the business has more information available with which to base a successful marketing plan.

Surveys of managers indicate that leadership understands that efficient internal marketing is a key factor in achieving corporate success as it acts to ingrain corporate culture, implement change management and/or to keep the workforce up-to-date. However, there are indications that managers lack knowledge in how to implement an appropriate internal marketing campaign, using social media.

It is, therefore, not surprising that half of all employees surveyed in a UK study indicated that they do not feel well informed about company-related issues. Such findings reveal just how important it is to improve communications with staff as part of an HR (business) strategy.

When it comes to social media, managers tend to act with caution. Companies need to stop asking to what extent they should limit and control social media and instead they have ask themselves how they can expand their organization’s internal and external communications via social media.

In short, social media platforms can help achieve business objectives beyond marketing. Key elements that go beyond the scope of classical marketing include: shaping company culture, strengthening change management initiative, improving execution of corporate strategy, facilitating corporate communication and last, but not least, increasing employee engagement.

In the following weeks we will post more on the topic of shaping internal marketing using social media.

Malte Kempen

October 4, 2010 in Blog, Business, Social Media by malte

Customer Retention Management via Social Media

Customer Retention Management (CRM) is one of the current, omnipresent buzz words in marketing and business publications. Increasing Customer Satisfaction is the starting point for every CRM Strategy.

Let’s take a scenario where, so far, the foundation for the relationship has been laid, but now needs to be built upon so that it endures. A strong relationship is built around dialogue, conceptually speaking through interactive communication. The development and rise of Web 2.0 allows small and medium sized businesses to keep a dialogue alive throughout the whole span of a business/customer relationship. Social Media enables the company to communicate, interact and build a lasting relationship with customers. Most organizations probably have a well-designed website, but this is no longer sufficient in this day and age. A website is simply a cyberspace business card. If we make a comparison with human relationships, no-one would claim to have a fulfilling relationship with someone by merely repeatedly studying the other person’s CV or business card.

This same assertion is true of a company’s customer relationships. Nowadays the internet is part of our mainstream culture, offering social interaction 24/7. The fact that people live and socialize online is something modern service-oriented organizations cannot afford to ignore.  Businesses cannot afford to stand still, but have to wake up to the prevailing reality. Not least that social media enables many retailers to receive more orders than through catalogues.

Online Feedback: Online customer feedback and complaint management made online is not uncommon. Customers like to share their dissatisfaction and appear to be more comfortable voicing their opinion this way. Acting proactively – i.e. giving space on a company’s online forum for complaints – enables an organization to handle negative word-of-mouth within their own parameters. For a leading hotel chain this could mean that the traditional contact centre broaden their remit to detect customers voicing their views online and react proactively. Tools like Google Analytics help to filter postings and messages relating to a given organization throughout the internet, whether on social communities like Facebook, Orkut and LinkedIn, or on personal blogs. Word-of-mouth behaviour plays a significant role in estimating the value of a customer and must be prioritised. Social media are an ideal medium for sharing experiences about a service encounter and recommending – or not- the company to a third party.

Limitations: There are two main issues with this approach. First of all, customers may feel that organizations are harassing them as they follow up on online postings and this may lead to a feeling of being manipulated and spied upon. Secondly, many employers feel uncomfortable about letting their employees reply to internet postings about their brand and company, without consulting with PR first. Therefore a healthy balance between empowerment and guidelines has to be reached. Placing excessive restrictions on employees’ social media interactions limits their ability to respond to consumers in an authentic way.

Conclusion: Social media is cost effective and interactive. It can offer insight into word – of – mouth behaviour, most especially when used in conjunction with traditional communication channels. Social media is rapidly becoming the preferred communication alternative in CRM, as follow – up calls, direct mailings and traditional email marketing begin to strike consumers as irritating and can come across as aggressive and pushy. Social media relationships can appear more organic and friendly as internet postings (to a certain degree) are perceived as enjoyable. Relevant Facebook postings, for example, appear between several other news updates and can help to remind former customers about the brand and service, without being ‘in your face’. Furthermore these messages may lead to a viral effect as customers share postings (e.g. Twitter or Facebook) within their online peer group.

Malte Kempen

October 1, 2010 in Business, Social Media by malte

Customer Retention: Customer Satisfaction is just the beginning

Simply put, CRM is a development strategy designed to create effective relationships with key customers and segments. Meaning a company should aim to establish and maintain relationships with profitable and loyal customers. First rule of thumb in CRM: not every customer is equally as profitable. Bearing this in mind, a company should not only research who their profitable customers are, but also refocus their marketing spending to target this segment.  To sum up, profitable customers should be encouraged to become even more loyal by investing in a relationship with them.

Focused: Relationships whether in private or in a business context mean work and communication.  Work needs to go into communication, to make a relationship flourish.

Customers will want to stay in contact with a company if their experience was pleasant.  All well thought-out marketing is in vain if the actual delivery fails to meet expectations.  Most companies understand that the level of service delivery has a strong impact on the perception, and therefore the satisfaction, of the customer. Satisfaction is a key force in creating customer loyalty – indeed, customer satisfaction and loyalty go hand-in-hand with one another, closely interrelated and even inseparable.

The focus on customer satisfaction does not just shape the customer experience, but shifts the operational perspective of a whole company as well. Having realised this and reacted appropriately, does this imply that management can kick back; having done all that there is to do? Far from it! Realising that customer satisfaction, particularly its maintenance, is a shifting goal, will keep management focussed on the further challenges at hand.

Malte Kempen