Social Media is a phrase that everyone knows or has heard, and it is certainly being thrown around by seemingly everyone with a heartbeat and pulse these days, and yet it is sometimes difficult to answer the question about social media. . If Facebook, MySpace, and Wikipedia are social networking sites, what are social media? Perhaps the best way to define social media is to break it down. The media are an instrument used for communication, such as radio, a newspaper and television, and social networks would be a social instrument of communication.
In Web 2.0 terms, you receive information as that information interacts with you. Interaction can be various things, from comments to rating a product or articles, and thus the beauty of social media – it’s a two-way street that gives you the opportunity to communicate while you’re engaged on that site. At one point it was commonly held that no one could sell high-priced items online, or anything else of real value for that matter, but that time has come and gone. More than three-quarters of US online adults made a purchase via the Web.
Nearly 4 in 10 online shoppers have made a travel purchase and more than a third have managed their bank or credit accounts online. American Express Publishing and the Harrison Group report “The Second Annual US Affluence and Wealth Survey” found that 70% of US consumers surveyed with more than $ 100,000 in discretionary household income prefer shopping online to experience in the store. The same number (70%) also goes online to search for products, compare prices and make purchases.
This hobby for online shopping could very well be a case of time equaling money. More specifically, the retail experience has varied in character. For example, the introduction of online retail has significantly changed the overall shopping experience. The term e-tail encompasses as many different experiences as grocery e-tail, auction e-tail, and specialty e-tail and many others. But now there is a new experience on the rise and it has been added to online shopping which is the rise of e-luxury online.
So what has caused this sudden growth of online luxury? This new growth is largely due to the majority of wealthy internet users in the United States being optimistic about the economy going forward, according to Ipsos Mendelsohn, and their online spending has historically been higher than average. That should make everyone happy and present an appeal to retailers, who have increased their attention to social media to attract customers. But does this mean that the wealthy will be as receptive to social marketing as other web users? The answer to that question depends on who you ask. According to a study by Unity Marketing, the prospects are mixed. But as confidence among the rich about the economy grows, the rich will boost spending online. Believe it or not, the rich are leading the way to e-commerce recovery, and that leads to another interesting point I’d like to make.
In the past, the communications teams of most corporations were responsible for protecting and preserving the reputation of the corporation. However, with the enormous popularity of social media, every department in your company can play a critical role in branding, monitoring and protecting corporate image and reputation, starting with the Human Resources department. One of the biggest challenges for HR executives is breaking down the walls that some corporations build simply because there is a belief or policy that allows only communication departments to represent the company and its brand identity. In some companies, the wall is big. But there is a way to tear it down, if you have the right tools. Except in a few cases, most companies offer largely undifferentiated products and services; airlines, for example, fly their planes over and over again, serving the same food, and retail stores offer the same merchandise.
In many respects, your branding strategy is simply your business strategy. A brand, frankly speaking, is a promise to consumers to provide a specific level of service, value, and quality that can be expected and received. Think of a brand as a pact between a company and its customers. Brand expert Martin Lindstrom said it best when he said: “Big brands and religions have something in common: the idea of defeating a shared enemy.”
Today’s media approach to branding a business’s message to the consumer has vastly improved, with all the social media platforms out there today, one thing is for sure: if the promise is not kept, customers will flee and they will go elsewhere. A classic example is Eastern Airlines, which promised to “earn your wings every day” through superior customer service while also canceling flights, losing bags, and serving passengers horrible food. As a direct result, trust between customers and the airline was irrevocably broken, passengers boycotted, and eventually Eastern Airlines shut down and destroyed the brand forever.
What went wrong? Eastern Airlines failed to align its employees’ behavior with the brand promise, and that brings me to my first tip for anyone building a brand; Understand that your ad copy doesn’t deliver on your brand promise, nor is it your product; Your people deliver on your brand promise.
Herein lies the opportunity for Human Resources to break down the walls and get into the branding game, by helping to ensure that all the actions, large and small, that people in the company take every day, throughout the organization, conform to the brand’s strategy.
Finally, use these seven tips to further improve your position and stake in the company’s brand identity, ensuring that your company and brand will have long-lasting years and will be in business for years to come.
Top 7 Strategies and Tips for Getting Involved with HR Department Company Branding to Reach the Rich:
- Conduct interviews as if you were using a crystal ball. Look deeper and ask questions that will lead to future answers.
- During interviews, start thinking about the big picture: convey how corporate reputation affects all aspects of the company’s business, including the hiring and termination process.
- Create a company policy focused on behavior and disclosure, and offer it to the communications department for implementation outside of your office and department.
- Understand how quickly information moves online and be prepared to respond quickly in the event of a problem online.
- Review social media sites before conducting an interview and learn about the social behavior of the person seeking the position at the company before hiring them.
- Keep your temper in check and never badmouth anyone who uses social media and check to see if the potential new hire has done the same. Remember that your bad comments will overcome your temper.
- Think ahead. Try to predict how advertisements, policy changes, ad campaigns, and world events can affect your organization, as you participate in leading a reputational crisis.
Taking these helpful tips and strategies into account will go a long way in engaging and supporting an HR executive with branding strategies. Ten years ago this kind of smart departmental interaction would not have been feasible.
As an HR executive, you can take this opportunity to reach the wealthy consumer by incorporating social media and monitoring into your communication plans today.
