指导美国essay：沟通渠道在市场营销的作用
在商业中，有各种各样的沟通渠道公司可以通过这些渠道来管理与顾客之间的关系。但是要谨记的是，公司应该利用客户喜欢的沟通渠道来交流，这是非常重要的一点。所以我们不能简单地说“这个”或“那个”渠道都适合每一个公司，然而,我们相信在媒体界有一个浮动的层次，一些渠道是可以从另外一些渠道中得到好处，这和马斯洛的需求理论很像，最基本的需求在最下面，越在金字塔顶端的，就是越高层次的需求。
在金字塔最低水平的人要多接触博客这种渠道：这是通过社会化客户关系管理来实现的，公司应该多阅读博客，多看博客其他人的评论，因为这是其他所有社会媒体的桥头堡。世界大型企业联合会(Conference Board)发现,77%的成年网民认为博客是得到一个公司或产品的信息好方法。
进一步来说， RSS是 Web 上种子汇聚一种方式，多运用于家庭网络里，它能及时更新一些艺术作品包括博客、新闻头条,音频和视频,以一个标准化的格式。(维基百科,2010)。因此，聚合内容和过滤内容能在一些相关科目上帮助企业。聚合内容技术是一个重要的工具来帮助你重新再版,并为其他一些社会渠道创造一些内容，媒体渠道是至关重要的一个社会媒体策略。
A Myriad Of Communication Channels Companies Marketing Essay
There are a myriad of communication channels companies can utilize to manage their relationship with the customer. There is very important to remember that the company should use the communication channels that the customer prefers, so one cannot say that “this and this” is the right channel for every company. However, we believe there is a floating hierarchy in the media world where some channels need to be utilized in order to get benefits from other channels. This is much like Maslow`s theory of needs where the most basic needs have to be covered to excel to another level of the pyramid.
At the lowest level of our pyramid we have blogging: It is the foundation of a Social CRM implementation. Companies should read blogs, comment on blogs, and then blog, because this is the bridgehead to all other social media. The Conference Board found 77 percent of adult Internet users considered blogs a good way toPyramid.gif
Further, RSS (Really Simple Syndication) is a family of web feed formats used to publish frequently updated works—such as blog entries, news headlines, audio, and video—in a standardized format. (Wikipedia, 2010) Thus RSS helps companies to aggregate and filter content around relevant subjects. RSS technology is important as a tool to help you repurpose, republish, and create content in other social media channels which is crucial to the success of a social media strategy.
Next step of the pyramid is Social Search and this has become very important for small-business owners. “Social search takes many forms, ranging from simple shared bookmarks or tagging of content with descriptive labels to more sophisticated approaches that combine human intelligence with computer algorithms.” (Wikipedia, 2010) Social search is search engines which only search in content which is tagged or bookmarked by users. Therefore companies should ensure that their internet-content is listed in those search engines so that extra search traffic is generated. According to a recent study by DEI Worldwide, 70 percent of consumers have used social media to get information on a product, brand or company. Furthermore, a recent survey from Forrester Research found nearly half of online users say information provided by other consumers is more important to them than data given by marketers of products and services. (Accenture, 2010)
This level of the pyramid, social networks, is what people often associate with Social CRM. This is also a very important part of many social CRM strategies, but without the former needs met, companies will find problems to take advantage of the numbers of potential prospects in social networks. These networks take time to understand and they only thrive on ideas and content. Companies got to have content that inspire and engage customers if they wish to build a business case out of social networks. Examples of social networks is Facebook, LinkedIn and MySpace.
On the top of the pyramid we find Micro tools. This is platforms such as Twitter, Thwirl, Plurk, and FriendFeed which have become a very important part of the social media mix. They reside at the top of the pyramid because without content, such as that created on a blog, the engagement these channels will probably not go very deep. They are the steroids which can amplify the effect of actions performed in lower levels of the pyramid.
We believe the process for meeting long-term CRM objectives through social media is somewhat universal, but the tools needed to meet them are not. In the next section we will look at some of the tools and try to show how to implement them beneficially.
Blogging--博客
One of the best reasons to blog is to open up an interaction channel with your customers, prospects, and contacts. The fact that your readers can comment and add relevant content to your site via blog comments is a major breakthrough in the communication process. Blog commenting was one of the first mass, one-to-one conversation starters, and made people hungry for even more advanced forms of social interaction.
When companies start blogging they should first monitor relevant blogs to pick up hot topics which they can relate to and where they can give useful inputs to the customer. Learn by others how to blog and how they engage the readers. RSS is a useful tool in getting this process automated.
Then you should start commenting on the blogs that is relevant for your business to attract attention from your stakeholders. This networking is crucial to obtain the buzz around the company when introducing a new blog.
After this two first steps the company should create its own blog where it can start posting content. It is important for bloggers to acquire followers and create some buzz around its content. The aim of the two first steps is to create the snowball-effect in amassing followers and buzz around the company`s blog.
As mentioned previously, blogs are run by software, so one have to determine what software to use and get it set up. An example that is customizable and that we can recommend is:
WordPress.org: It is a free, open-source blogging tool that you download, configure, and upload to your Web host. Because it is open source there are also many beneficial add-ons and plug-ins that can add even more power to the software. Some of these plug-ins that we recommend are: Add to Any: a tool that makes it very easy for people to subscribe to your blog. Disqus: interactive commenting system. Twittertools: automatically adds your new blog posts to Twitter. Google Sitemaps Generator: creates a sitemap of your blog in XML format and pings search engines. Akismet: helps fight comment spam. Related Entries: creates a list of blogposts related to your current one and inserts this into your post. All in One SEO: adds features that allow you to make each blog post even more SEO (Search Engine optimization) friendly.
When the blog is up and running, companies should use their surveillance and publish content that answers or contribute to hot topics for the stakeholders in the company. Listen, then inspire with content and facilitate communication at the blog. Active commenting is a healthy sign for a blog, so commenting other blogs, answering comments and asking for comments true the blogging is important to continuously gain additional followers.
Affective listening should uncover valuable customer and prospect insights about what is important to customers. This newer, deeper knowledge based on social footprints should help companies create better opportunities to successfully interact with their target audiences. But these interactions must inspire customers and prospects to take action. Social customers are looking for solutions. They seek out opinions as well as share their own. But they only do so when they are motivated.
Social search--社会调查
A social search engine is one that lists small businesses and allows people to rate and review them.
One thing we know is that people use social media to collaborate and share their experiences and opinions with like-minded people. As evidenced by the growth of sites like Epinions.com and other opinion-generated sites, people are increasingly looking to other people for product information, rather than depending solely on vendors for it. They feel more comfortable gathering information from other customers. And as they engage others interested products and services they too are interested in, communities form, and conversations expand beyond product and service talk to other areas of importance.
Companies who use social tools and services to inspire customers and prospects to take action should also look at how they can facilitate that action. Make it easy for customers to engage each other on areas that are not only important to the company, but also things that are important to customers - even if they are not directly related to the company’s product or service.#p#分页标题#e#
By creating these kinds of opportunities for customers and prospects to engage each other on the issues that are important to them, and also by showing genuine interest in those issues, you create another point of inspiration and a sense of community. Facilitating these kinds of exchanges between community members can create loyal, highly-motivated customer advocates.
Social Bookmarking--社会背景
The difference between bookmarking and social bookmarking is where you store your bookmarks. When bookmarking you store it on your computer, but when social bookmarking you store it on a public web site where subscribed users can utilize them. The webmaster of the public site periodically verifies the validity of bookmarks added to the site, so that the amount of spam diminishes. Visitors to social bookmarking sites can search for resources by keyword, person, or popularity and utilize bookmarks, classification schemes, and tags that registered users have shared.
The conventional resource ranks a resource, or website, based on the number of external links pointing to it, whereas social bookmarking systems by how many times it has been bookmarked by users. This shifts the focus of search engine optimizing from quantity to quality in the customers perspective.
These social bookmarking technologies are growing in popularity and are here to stay. One of the main driving forces for the evolving web are social bookmarking and social search engines. Today the web is being labeled and this makes it easier to find and share the information you seek. Social bookmarking can allow you to share the sites that you own to others with relevant tastes, driving traffic to your site, and creating valuable backlinks.
Companies should participate in social bookmarking and use it to create awareness for and amplify the content about the company housed on the web. It can also be a valuable resource to identify and get in touch with core customers that is committed to the company`s field.
Social networks--社交网络
We are moving towards the upper end of the pyramid and touch upon what people commonly associate with social media. We will identify two of the most valuable social networks for small businesses here. This is in our opinion Facebook and LinkedIn.
Facebook--脸书
Facebook has become the most widely recognized name in social networks. Social networks allow people to join, and “friend” members or invite others to join and then share and exchange information.
Small businesses who engage in social media does not ask themselves if they are going to utilize Facebook, but rather how they are going to use it. Today the Facebook platform and its applications make it feasibly to build the entire Web presence there for small businesses. This is especially true after Facebook introduced the Fan-page application. Thus it is not a surprise to us that Facebook is the preferred choice, for small businesses, in the competition with other platforms such as Twitter.
Companies should create a profile that helps tell their business story and then enhance it with tools and applications that allow them to branch out and connect with like-minded individuals.
Friends--朋友
Friends in the world of Facebook are simply people who are also members who grant you permission to view their profile and contact them directly. This is really at the heart of the networking aspect of Facebook. Without any friends, your Facebook efforts won’t be as useful.
The first step is to connect with people who already know you and then you can start to connect with friends of friends and other recognized thought leaders in your industry. Don’t forget to send friend requests to journalists in your industry as well. Once someone accepts a friend request you can begin to share information with them and view the information they make available. The connections you make should be about networking and building trust.
The way to go further is to business-stream content into your personal page including blog posts and Twitter (which we will cover later on). The purpose of this is to engage and create interaction on your Facebook site. Companies should also use the fan page to create additional awareness, answer questions, post video, and publish events, including audio and video archives from those events.
Motivating is an important keyword here, so companies should remember to give Facebook fans a little something extra they might not find on your blog or website.
LinkedIn - for connecting--领英
LinkedIn is often billed as the largest network of business professionals. It certainly has much more focused business participation than many social networks and is a great place to network and do research on specific organizations and opportunities.
Probably the biggest difference between Facebook and LinkedIn is the focus on introductions. Ingrained in the LinkedIn culture is the ability to see who knows whom and who can make an introduction.
As is the case with any social network, it’s important that you take a little time and get to know the culture and the accepted norms. This is often done by surveillance of experienced users. Use the time to build your profile and your network of current friends and from there begin to contribute and seek out connections with demonstrated leaders within the preferred network.
If you pay for the premium package, LinkedIn have added a tool that allows you to create searches and then save the profiles that look interesting to folders in what is called your Profile Organizer. With this feature one can search, set up a folder, and save all the profiles of interest in folders for later contact. The most interesting part of this tool, related to CRM, is that one can take link notes to profiles. This enables you to come back to the profile whenever and do laser-focused reaching out at any time (Note: You don’t have to be connected to someone to save and note their profile either.)
Another feature of LinkedIn is groups, which is a feature where anyone can launch a group and lead discussions and networking on a specific topic of interest. This enables companies to gain added influence with your key stakeholders as customers, experts and suppliers in your field. Groups are open to the whole LinkedIn universe and small businesses can find this feature to be one of the strongest ways to build their network. Building a group around your brand is a great way to bring users or customers together.
Together with groups, the “Question and Answer” function is highly relevant to small businesses. By jumping in and answering questions thoughtfully, companies can demonstrate expertise while potentially engaging contacts that are drawn to them by their knowledge. LinkedIn has added a rating system to this feature to reward people, who give the best answers, with some added exposure. This is a very powerful tool where you can connect with users and customers to build stronger relationships. The key to LinkedIn is professionalism and thoughtful answering.
Micro--微型计算器
This is platforms such as Twitter, Thwirl, Plurk, and FriendFeed which have become a very important part of the social media world today. Twitter is one of the main outlet for Social media and therefore we will introduce this as our example of a micro-tool.
Twitter is a free service that allows anyone to say anything to anybody in 140 characters or less—it’s the “what are you doing right now” kind of micro-blogging that permeates online social communication.
Twitter enables the user to choose streams to follow, post own messages, and even watch the entire public stream of comments flow by. It is very easy to use and today millions of users use Twitter to network and communicate with both new and old contacts. Twitter is packed with tools such as the ability to subscribe, friend, share or follow every Twitter feed that you like. Regardless of this, developers are still creating tools that enables users to bend and twist the feeds in new and creative ways.
This makes Twitter an excellent tool for connection and networking with others in the same industry or connect directly with customers. Twitter is also a very good tool for monitoring what’s being said, this minute, about your organization, people, products, or brand. This means that the company gets a steady stream of ideas, content, links, resources, and tips focused on their area of expertise or interest. Lastly it helps the company to amplify other media channels like blog posts and other content in the social media sphere.
When the company has built a network, Twitter is useful if they want some immediate feedback on things, because then it is merely to post questions that need to be answered. This often stimulates conversation but it can also do a great deal in terms of helping companies make a decision—a bit like a poll.
Further, an important feature is Twitter Search, which is this little tool that allows you to monitor your brand and reputation. This feature enables you to search anything you want and then Twitter filters out noise depending on how wide your search is. This can be used to monitor anything that is being said about your company, products, people, or services at anytime. This also enables you to respond instantly whenever needed. This is a great way to stay in touch and even network with folks who have an interest in your products and services.#p#分页标题#e#
Even Dell, a large organization, uses Twitter to communicate effectively with customers—satisfied or unsatisfied alike. Twitter has become a major customer communication tool for both small and large organizations today, because they can respond accurately and immediately. Customers are asking questions, complaining, and searching for solutions in every corner of the world on Twitter and they are often more than happy to hear from someone who can provide an answer locally.
Summary--总结
One of the hardest challenges for companies just entering the world of social media is to understand what is happening and where this is happening. It is hard for small companies to determine how to accomplish the seemingly endless list of new tasks to surf the information wave.
Participating fully in social media as a business and connect with stakeholders requires discipline, automation routines, and a daily commitment. The key issue is to facilitate the interaction between company and customer, or customer to customer, or customer and prospect, and so on. The goal of implementing social CRM is to inspire people to engage so that company gets open and transparent exchanges that are driven by people, not the company.
In order for companies to fully embrace social media and use it successfully to engage customers and prospects calls for a new way of thinking and operating. Organizations will have to transform the way they think and evaluates in order for them to effectively use the tools available to them to join the conversations already taking place. Just as social CRM vendors are integrating social networking activity data into their applications, companies using these systems will need to integrate social strategies into their traditional approach to customer acquisition and retention.
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