Revolver

Following the recent undertakings by Coca-Cola and Unilever, who dropped their traditional digital campaign sites to focus all efforts towards community platforms such as Facebook and YouTube, social media appears set to dictate a number of major marketing activities in 2010.

Year on year business giants are moving away from sites created on a campaign-by-campaign basis in favour of investment in existing communities.  Yet is this the right move?  As the digital marketers Econsultancy highlight, your social media weapons should be selected by your strategy, objectives, and overall business structure.  And not use something just to look cool.  Doesn’t that sound familiar?  We all remember when Skittles, jumping on the social media bandwagon, replaced their official website with a Twitter search page showing, in real time, every Tweet mentioning Skittles.  Ok this seems like a pretty cool idea until you consider the deadly combination of cheap internet, short attention spans, and that thirst for internet fame.  It didn’t take long before the page devolved into profanities, racial slurs, and suggestions for crude new slogans. Needless to say Skittles soon resumed regular service.

It goes without saying that it is extremely beneficial to hone your social media skills by continuously educating yourself and by reviewing your existing strategies, not to mention having an exceptionally experienced public relations team behind you.