Using social media to converse with consumers

Social media marketing can be deployed to hold conversations between businesses and their consumers, however, according to recent research, many big-name brands have forgotten this.

A survey carried out by New Media Age magazine revealed that 74 per cent of the 500 "superbrands" polled have no presence on Twitter and of the 130 that do use it, less than half Tweet daily.

While 54 of the surveyed firms claimed they Tweeted once a week, just 50 used it for daily updates.

The findings also appear to be reflected in Econsultancy's Social Media and Online PR Report, which revealed that although 64 of the companies it questioned claimed to have experimented with social media marketing, many added they had not done much and 31 per cent were not spending any of their budget on it.

Commenting on the news, Jason Falls, a social media consultant and blogger on socialmediaexplorer.com, said marketers have "forgotten" how to have conversations with customers.

"They've been taught for decades to yell at them. Now that consumers are rejecting that approach, all the classically trained marketers are looking around at each other wondering what to do now," he stated.

Mr Falls added that the key was to act like "human beings" to close the gap between brand and consumer.

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