By M. Isi Eromosele

Your customers are talking to each other.....about you and your brand. They are discussing their respective experiences and perceptions about your brand to other customers and prospects. Wouldn’t you like to join these conversations and be heard?

As these customers are making comments and expressing opinions about your company on the social media, the information is being shared in real time on a global basis.

Social media has come out as an important platform in the digital revolution that is taking place within global communications. This new communication channel certainly carries a lot of influence, the foundation of which is consumer generated content.

It is imperative that companies acquire the necessary know-how and infrastructure to respond to this new and very powerful communication channel. Organizations can use social media to improve interactions with their customers, identify trends in their markets, build brand equity and increase market share.

There has been a marked shift from one-on-one conversations between brands and their customers to customers having multiple conversations with each other as they network through several social sites.

Rather than get product information from the companies, consumers now prefer to conduct their own online research to obtain this information or acquire it from friends and relatives, who they look to as trusted advisors. It is vital that companies engage their customers in these conversations, driving home their response to consumers’ concerns and opinions.

The business world is now operating in a highly collaborative world where social media enables them to partner with their customers to produce their products and services.

Given the power and influence of social media, companies have the responsibility to join in and participate in these discussions, even if it is to initially listen to what is being said about them.

With the availability of social media tools, any customer can now become an author, creating content that can be distributed globally in an instant.

This empowerment of consumers poses a real challenge to companies and their ability to monitor what is being said about them in community channels that can run into the thousands.

These collaborative environments, where customers exchange opinions about brands and answer each other’s questions can also serve as a human knowledge base for companies. They need to listen attentively to the voices of their customers to enhance their own ability to improve their operations and deliver better products and related support services to their customers.

Social sites used by consumers today have the following highlights:

• Conversations are peer moderated and are beyond the control of companies
• Negative comments or opinions can be mitigated by a converse statement from a fellow peer participant
• Conversations can easily go viral because they are shared across the Internet
• They are highly collaborative with individuals offering opinions, perspectives and other information which other people base their actions on
• Overt selling and promotion are not welcome

When used appropriately, social media sites offer a cost-effective way for companies to deliver information and conversely capture feedback on market trends, product and service feedback, brand perceptions and customer views.

Companies can utilize social media to engage their most valuable customers to get feedback, tap into their expertise, crowd source incidents and create word-of-mouth marketing.

By joining conversations at social media sites, companies co-create content with their customers and leverage the wisdom of communities and embedded experts. Information gathered from social media sites should be incorporated into the company’s customer history.

M. Isi Eromosele is the President | Chief Executive Officer | Executive Creative Director of Oseme Group - Oseme Creative | Oseme Consulting | Oseme Finance

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