In other words, how does my company benefit from actively taking part in?

Before discussing benefits or specific actions, it is fundamental to have a strategy rather than diving in head first. It’s essential to have a community strategy and define objectives that we want to achieve. However, every company can focus on the following objectives:

• - Maximising the brand’s relationship with its clients through technology and new media.
• - Showing why we are different; why we are better. What added value we offer compared to our competitors.
• - Sharing our ideas with our users. Identifying what links allow us to connect with our community.
• - Following the evolution of the clients’ way of thinking, adapting to new consumer habits.

But, where should we invest our time and resources? A brand must be conscious of its position and optimise the resources it has at its disposal. Where should I begin?

• - Your web page is your brand. It’s essential to have your own community and a place where your clients can find answers to their questions, complaints or concerns.
• - To position in social networks. Having a Facebook page or a Twitter account just for the sake of it won’t achieve anything. We must be active, giving what we do and say on social networks a value.
• - We must be where the users are. The rules of the game have changed. No brand, no matter how big, can ignore the opinions produced in Social Media. It gets more and more important to recognise the opinion leaders of a community and to connect with them.

So, what are the benefits of participating in Social Media?

• - Having a presence in Social Media will enable us to influence the decisions made by our potential consumers. We will make consumers aware of our existence, or refresh their memories. In other words, we will give our brand value.
• - We will know who our clients are and we will be able to make ourselves known to them. This knowledge will allow us to interact with our community, knowing the opinion and taste of our users. But more importantly, they will feel that the brand is with them, that there is someone there to listen to them..
• - Our success is first of all measured in consumers. Thanks to interacting with them in Social Media we can constantly optimise our products and sales strategies. We will objectively know what services work and which are the ones that don’t. We will be able to take the pulse of community opinion more efficiently and get the ROI of the brand.

Giving value to our brand, connecting with our community, optimising our products and sales strategies, detecting our mistakes and correcting them… is it, or is it not worthwhile investing in Social Media?