Social Media and the power of the consumer.

Last week was part 2 of our FREE Pop-Up Marketing Workshop – Understanding Marketing and it made for a lively and interesting debate.

One of the areas covered was social media and the power of the consumer in today’s digital age. Want a refund? A tweet can do the trick in minutes. Found a new favourite shop or service? Sharing it with a Facebook group can convert to more customers than any expensive advertising campaign. The power and influence of the social media savvy consumer can leave new business owners quaking in their boots.

In the old days, journalists were wined and dined by PR agencies: the positive review was the holy grail of business. Nowadays bloggers have huge influence over their thousands of followers. A blogger is seen as a ‘real’ person, not a media type who does their favourite PRs a favour in return for a posh lunch. Engaging with relevant bloggers can be a hugely affective way of reaching your target market.

The Google ‘spider’ is another friend or foe, depending on how you woo the little fella. Think of Google sending out lots of virtual spiders to do their bidding, crawling over websites looking for prominent keywords, evolving content, page errors and third party links and then reporting back to Google HQ. If that spider doesn’t think you’re relevant, your search engine ranking is affected accordingly. And we all know no-one gets past the first few pages of search results.

We also covered the power of joining forces with media, brands and events which share your target market, especially in times ripe for promotion. Valentines, Movember, Mother’s Day, Christmas, Breast Cancer Week, Wimbledon, Halloween….the opportunities are endless. But making sure your branding is consistent – across your website and any cross promotions, sponsorship, media partnerships or PR you choose to do – is essential. Partnership with other brands can be a goldmine in terms of reaching a wider audience but if the fit is random rather than relevant, those spiders, bloggers and tweeters won’t be impressed. And they won’t hesitate to let you know.

Get in touch if you’d like to find out more about how to market your business to the right people. When the possibilities are endless, a little help can go a long way.