Social media: Strategy or Brand Dilution?

I remember in Oct 2008 when i joined here, one of my first suggestions for a consumer product that we have was to connect with consumer via social media and to my amazement, it was shot down, twice. I wondered then if I was just getting carried away by the hype and my boss could see through the thick smog that I failed to pierce through. Anyways, through the days I was entrusted other projects that needed my focus and somewhere in the process that social media connect was left behind.

While working on other projects, my interaction with the team at that product didnt slow down. The more I interacted with them, the more i was convinced. I even reached a point where each day I'd share ideas with the team on how they can use social media in reaching out to their consumers, either on an official connect or on a personal one.

When the topic was dead and gone, I even helped create a touch-point for the team on facebook and initiated connect. Though it was slow...very slow to take off and needed a serious push from my side, the team finally caught on. Today social media is the third largest source of traffic to the site of that brand.

Many old-school organizations i know perceived a social media connect (as it is known to be now)to be down-market and diluting their brand. Clearly, that opinion is changing and fast. It is interesting to note how organizations are awake and receptive to this now. One clear example is a client I am currently dealing with. Check this link www.polycom.com/company/news_room/media/index.html

Companies today have adopted this is an acceptable means to communicate with their target audiences. This would also mean they would have clear strategies on how to go about this. Imagine, the link you just saw is a B2B enterprise dealing mostly with large enterprises only. The profile of their target is as premium as can be in the technology industry. It appears now that we're prepared to be wherever our customers are, literally.

I even noticed someone designated as the "Head - Social Media" for a particular company. I noticed a few statistics that highlighted how social media is no longer a fad and is here to stay. For example, the fact that social media have overtaken porn as the No. 1 activity on the internet or 1 out of 8 couples who got married in the US met via social media or the fact that facebook added 100 million users in the last 9 months or that 80% of companies are now using linkedin as their primary source of database for recruitment. I can go on with this forever.

We have moved from the mindset of "why should i give page views to facebook from my audience?" to "how can i use facebook better to direct traffic to my site?"

My point is that if you haven't considered this, wake up before it's too late. It is not mandatory that this has to used, measusre the viability, explore options, think beyond the ordinary or as a brand adage goes "do the new".