As the CEO of Collective Intellect, I have the pleasure of interacting with dozens of companies, agencies and technology vendors every month who are at the forefront of social media engagement. These interactions are confirming that the importance of social media is real. I wanted to share some of my perspective on how companies gain strategic advantage through social media engagement, and to do a plug for why Collective Intellect should be a key component in your approach.

As a serial entrepreneur, I have been at the frontline of customer relationships many times. Through these start-up experiences, I have discovered that new business services exist on a continuum from tactical operational improvements to services of truly strategic import. The good news for investors and users is that services everywhere along this continuum have the potential to create value. The dynamics of the value provided have a significant impact on the client’s (i.e. users) underlying business models.
From my perspective, it is clear that many earlier adopters of Collective Intellect’s services are adopting them in ways that deliver strategic advantage. I would like to highlight some the strategic potentials associated with social media engagement.

• First, social media engagement is being used to increase revenue and market share. More and more consumers trust web sites for recommendations and advice than ever before. Several weeks ago, General Motors announced that it was shifting 50% of its marketing spend to digital. The reason was that traditional media was primarily valuable for building up awareness for new vehicle models, but digital media is where consumers made consideration and preference decisions on which cars to purchase based on their own online research and conversations.

• Second, social media engagement is being used to optimize messaging delivered through social media and through traditional media. Identifying the key issues and concerns of authentic voices found in blogs and other social media allows companies to deliver the messages most important. Coca-Cola recently opted to encourage and recognize user-generated mash-ups of creative advertisements rather than continue to try to enforce trademark protection. Now, if you create a cool Coke commercial, you could get sponsored to create the next one.

• Third, early adopters have less competition for the attention of creators and users of social media. Thus, the odds of meaningful engagement will never be higher than now. We have clients that are creating meaningful relationships with the key influencers in social media around topics that are associated with their brands and companies. These relationships form a foundation for future interactions that start to integrate these companies and citizens in valuable communities.

• Fourth, innovators are striving to harness the value of the social media content in their web properties to engage clients. We are working with several clients to build next generation publishing models that integrate social media influencers together in ways that support specialized vertical topics. These early models, if successful, will provide enormous first mover advantage for these clients.

If you’re an adopter of social media engagement, I encourage you to contact Collective Intellect today; so you can take advantage of this outstanding opportunity.

Tags: Analyzing Consumer Generated Media, Brand Management, Social Media Metrics //