In today’s digital age, social media competence is a critical communication tool for any kind of business. Whether you’re looking to engage clients, increase awareness of your brand, or garner media coverage for your department, engaging in social media will give you a competitive edge. Whether marketers like it or not, consumers are now generating over 25% of content that appears in web searches for specific brand names, and consumers often trust those social media messages more than advertising or news articles about the brand.
Experience has shown that this “electronic word-of-mouth” is seen as reliable by consumers and significantly affects a firm’s perceived value. Social media marketing is not about completely giving up all control of the brand, but changing methods to maintain influence in the new consumer-controlled social media reality.