Social Media & Customer Power

Something to consider when thinking about social media and digital marketing is the increased level of interaction with customers.  Before the Internet, if a customer had a complaint, he or she actually had to write a letter and send it to the company.  But other customers would never see this letter, and it was easy for a company to keep customer dissatisfaction under wraps.  Sure, the customer could tell friends never to do business with that company, but they couldn't reach hundreds of people in a short period of time.

Enter the Internet, and fast forward to the emergence of social networking sites.  Now a customer can post a rant on a company's wall that many, even thousands or millions, will see.  These complaints can be hasty and even vulgar, but in the heat of the moment the customer doesn't care and probably feels better for a brief period of time (Personally when I look back on such posts I'm usually embarrassed).

So how can companies respond to such complaints?  They definitely can't ignore them, because that just damages the image of the company even more.  That is the topic of Cheryl Hanna's blog post on Customer Think, How to Survive Customer Service Blunders in the World of Social Media.  Most important is the need to treat customers with respect, but also making the decision if the customer is worth keeping.  If the customer seems like he or she just wants to start a war with the company for no reason, you just might have to lose that customer.

While customer service isn't part of marketing, the image of the company is definitely something to consider when choosing which social media sites to use.  These types of scenarios are important for any school with a digital marketing degree to address so students can be prepared to face these situations in the real world.

Digital Marketing Trends

If you need more proof of how digital marketing is a changing field, look no further than this article: Industry Experts Predict the Top 5 Digital Marketing Trends for 2013

If you want to go into something stable and consistent, where you know what you'll be doing in 10 years and it will be the same as what you're doing today, digital marketing definitely isn't for you. Just like in ITM, you can expect technology to change so much, even in just a year, that you could be working on completely different platforms than you when you started.

Important to note in the article is the growing importance of mobile. Reaching consumers on their smartphones is rapidly becoming the next big thing in digital marketing. I think schools that want to have the best digital marketing degree programs will need to include courses focusing on m-commerce.