Marketing in the Age of Google: Your Online Strategy IS Your Business Strategy, Revised and Updated

BUT WE WANT TO CONTROL OUR BRANDING!

Many companies are understandably hesitant to enter the new world of social media. After all, historically, only those with media and PR training made official statements on behalf of companies for good reason—an entire brand can be at risk with one wrong comment. And legal and marketing departments the world over have spent substantial resources developing branding guidelines and messaging requirements.

But the truth is that the world has changed. And not participating in the conversation is a loud statement of its own to your customer base. You can’t control your branding message in any case because your customers are already talking about you online. The best you can do is to participate.

And the advantages of search alone (through increased visibility in search results and up-to-the-minute market research) make entering this space worthwhile, not to mention the added benefits of better engaging with customers, providing an efficient customer support mechanism, and opening a whole new acquisition channel. (Those latter topics of course, are excellent material for another book.)

But it’s smart to be wary of jumping into social media. You want to go about it in the right way, and since you’re engaging directly with consumers, you don’t want to abandon your efforts halfway through to rethink your strategy.

Here are a few options for getting started:

• Start with market research. Find out where your current and potential customers are talking ...