Although social media has become an integral part of most marketing strategies, many companies and businesses of all sizes still fail to fully capitalise on the true potentials of social media.  Why? Because they regard social media as a mere means to advertise and promote their products or services rather than a tool to build and foster strong relationships with their current and prospect customers.

Evangelists

Social media is not an extension of traditional advertising and promotion activities. It empowers marketers to turn consumers into brand evangelists—individuals who strongly believe in a company and spontaneously and passionately recommend its products/services to their families and friends. Brand evangelists provide companies with a powerful marketing force that can deliver results comparable to those of any PR and advertising campaign.

Connecting

Social Media, as the name infers, is social in nature. Ergo, it should be used to identify common social denominators that associate companies and businesses with the individuals they want to reach.

Many businesses make the mistake of either refraining from establishing a social media presence or using it as a digital extension of their brochure. So long as the push-to-sell mentality prevails when employing social media, businesses will continue to wonder why their Web presence does not generate any notable ROI.

Participate

The build-it-and-they-will-come approach does not apply to social media. The notion that establishing a corporate logo on Facebook will suffice to prompt the throngs to arrive and reflexively “like” the company is an ingenuous perception. Effectual use of social media requires sound knowledge of target audiences, intimate understanding of their needs and challenges, as well as the ability to offer them valuable and hard-to-find information and solutions. This is the “social” foundation on which a business will build trust, respect and reputation through social media.

The plain truth is that consumers don’t like to be advertised to. They tend to react more positively and do business with those companies and businesses that take the time to establish with them meaningful and valuable conversation in lieu of stone cold advertising.

Be useful

The results generated by socialising and providing consumers with actionable tips and valuable guidelines that help them address their challenges and lessen their pains will by far outweigh those that can be generated by clever tag lines, catchy slogans and hard sale messages.

Respect

In the case of businesses professionals, such as accountants, financial planners and insurance agents, sharing of social interests and passions enables them to achieve two key strategic outcomes: First, establish with their key audiences an emotional bond based on trust, credibility and respect. Second, shorten the client conversion (deal closing) time, as the prospect already knows a great deal about them.

Personal brand

Let me give you a real life example. Chad Coe, founder of U.S.-based Coe Financial Group, is someone who knows how to grow his business through evangelists. His social media interaction encompasses only his personal interests, particularly Special Kids Network, a philanthropic organization he founded. Individuals get to personally know Chad by participating or volunteering in the initiatives he organises. They first learn about Chad and the causes he favours and then that he is a financial advisor. This creates and emotional bond that helps raise their level of comfort enough to often ask him to manage their money and offer unsolicited business referrals.

Connection

When consumers establish a relationship with a company, a professional or a business that is involved in a cause they fancy, they develop a sense of belonging to that cause, get inspired and become emotionally involved. Individuals do not want relationships with a product or service; they seek to establish relationships with other like-minded people.  Without that social connection, any effort to convert consumers into brand evangelists will be inadequate at best.

Claudio Pannunzio is President & Founder of i-Impact Group, Inc. (www.i-impactgroup.com) a U.S.-based public relations, Social Media and strategic marketing communications consultancy. He can be reached at Claudio@i-impactgroup.com or on Twitter @IImpactGroup