Marketing for Online Business

A funny thing happened on the way to the forum — and the Facebook and the Twitter page. When products begin to host their own social media networks, you know two major market forces have merged to find an ever-wider circle of possible consumers and a platform to proselytize the product. When media and consumerism, those uneasy bed-mates, strike up a bargain of sorts, we the people are sure to be invited to one hell of an event.

Though now it is a rather stale piece of Web 2.0 marketing, linking the homepage of a major product or business to a social media website (Facebook has become ubiquitous — for now) begs the question of whether or not this is a wise strategy. In some regards, these companies take their reputation management into their own hands. One misstep could mean leave millions of potential dollars at stake.

Openly hosting a social media website dedicated to Product X makes it possible for fans and critics alike to post comments, start threads, and affect organic search results. To be sure, with the growing prominence of real-time search — and the wholesale appropriation of Twitter feeds in the SERP pages — it seems one bad comment could set off a wildfire of negative press.

Lest paranoia get the best of rational minds, it must be said that these comments, whether praise or condemnation, would have been hosted on other social media websites regardless. Now comes the Machiavellian idiom: keep your friends close, and your enemies closer. Why allow another site to benefit from your company name? By hosting the social media channel or platform, you are indeed allowing negative posts to pepper your page. But, you are building a tremendous amount of consumer trust in doing so.

If you can be trusted to listen and respond evenly to criticism, you stand to retain and grow traffic and consumers. An even-keeled mea culpa is worth thousands of consumers. Allowing them to respond in kind is a tremendous means of dealing with potentially disastrous public relations incidents and can even entice the dissatisfied to a change of heart.

A good example of the successful balance of product and social media can be found at Yoostar. While offering a radical new technology, they have made it accessible by everyone.

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