subject: Social Media as an outlet for relationship marketing [print this page] Social Media as an outlet for relationship marketing
Relationship marketing is an approach which focuses attention on the needs of preexisting customers, in order to guarantee a high level of customer satisfaction and retention. Consequently social media sites such as Facebook, Twitter, etc, which offer new channels of communication between customer and service provider, would appear to have great potential as relationship marketing tools.
However let us imagine for a moment a freelance investor, who believes he has discovered a good stock trade and then writes about it on twitter. Now lets imagine that someone, knowing their profession, follows that lead but takes a big loss. The legal ramifications don't have the be real in order for serious damage to be done to the image and reputation of their company.
The relationship of social media to relationship marketing, and indeed to business as a whole, is that of a tool, and as such when a tool ceases to be useful or effective you throw it away.
Many investment and companies are giving careful consideration as to whether or not social media has a place in their business. One thing that should be kept in mind is that social media does have a role to play in relationship marketing, but we need to be aware of the changeable nature of business, and even anticipate it.
Another issue that many firms in particular have is their concern that social media could be used as a platform from which the image of their company is attacked. So, while many organizations are in a hurry to increase their social media presence, some financial firms view social media as an impediment to their relationship marketing efforts.
Imagine what people would do if they knew they could criticize JP Morgan, or Goldman Sachs on twitter, facebook and the like? And everyone associated with the accounts who were also employee's would be open to attack as well.
Many companies have prohibited personal use of social media platforms like facebook and twitter.
My belief is, Social Media should just attempt to represent the personality of a given organization, or your own person.
Ultimately it is difficult to say what influence Social Media will have on relationship marketing in the long term, for this reason we advise companies to take their time and approach the issue with caution.
