With the huge number of response that I have received for the last post, I would echo my appreciation (in addition to all) towards Peter Kim who is to be credited of undertaking the enormous task of building this list.
Peter was kind enough to provide me the link for readers coming to my site, to dig deeper into 200+ examples of companies using the strong mean of social media marketing. You can view the examples on Peter’s Blog. I am sure no one will miss it.
Additionally I would take this opportunity to reemphasis the importance of social media marketing. I am confident that sooner or later it will force to transform the way we (marketers) develop or build our strategy(s) or plan(s). Power of social media marketing is much like the power of internet is enormous and inevitable. Organizations across the globe will have to imbibe this mean of marketing sooner or later. Having no social media marketing plan is just not the case anymore. I am sure this will be an enormous task and please do not think it is cheap or one of activity. Social Media is on its own growth trajectory and with its deeper penetration; it will evolve itself into something we could not imagine however we would all create.
One such example of evolution among the list is of Kryptonite, one of the leading manufacturers of bicycle locks. This company has immensely evolved its social media marketing from creating its own blog - www.unbreakable-bonds.blogspot.com to its presence at facebook, twitter and plurk. Another example is Cincom – Newsletter, Twitter, Blog, YouTube, Flickr, and so on. They are virtually building an entire social media ecosystem for themselves.
Is it that what we thought of fun time has emerged as business time. My friend at Twitter - Jobblogs gave me a new phrase - “Social CRM”. Hence I can safely assume that we are talking serious. This is no more only about interacting with people from our “community” but also our customers. Listening, reacting, understanding, information, knowledge and so on are few attributes that you can expect to gain from this.
I am sure that social media much like the evolution of Google, yahoo and so on, could not have been imagined to evolve into something this big. I am not an expert on the topic of “theories” but as a layman I do see some similarities of social media to the fusion theory? According to Think Quest fusion theory – “The energy that comes from the process relies on the joining, or "fusing," of two atoms to form a new molecule. When this larger, relatively unstable molecule splits apart, it releases energy.” The energy and evolution of social media, internet, Google, and so on seems to be taking the same trajectory. We made it, we use it and now we cannot survive without it.
However I would like advise when people ask me questions like is this one of activity, is it cheap, can we have pockets within an organization using it, is there any “quick & dirty” option, and so on. My response to all this is a big NO. Honestly I wish being a marketer that all the response to the above could have been yes, but then that is where I would stretch my argument toward a term “evolution”. If you cannot evolve it then I would recommend do not start it. As mentioned, this is like fusion, when you will start and getting atoms or people joining then this can easily be uncontrollable without an evolution plan and/or strategy and/or organization buying. The list of organizations is one example of its inevitable importance and emergence. You like it or not, you will have to do it.
Looking forward to your valuable feedbacks on the “fusion theory of social marketing”.
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