Editorial Articles

Marketers are fully familiar with the the significance of social networks such as Twitter and Facebook. But there's an opportunity for companies to offer a more social experience through their own purpose-built platforms, says Tracey Green, Head of Product (Dealer Desktop) – Automotive Marketing Platforms at Auto Trader

The rise of social networks such as Twitter and Facebook are rapidly changing the face of business, in how consumers engage with the brand and vice versa. For many businesses, this can be a bewildering challenge that creates disruptive changes to the structure of the company. However, the trend for being more social looks set to continue and brands need to be ready to engage with their customers online, whether they are a B2C or B2B business.

The evolution of customer communication

Many companies have traditionally communicated with customers through email, direct mail, phone and face-to-face. These channels remain important, but the use of social engagement channels also gives businesses a number of benefits above and beyond direct communication. For example, the ability to more effectively communicate with targeted consumers, additional information on your customer base, as well as gain valuable feedback and customer insight along the way.

Many businesses believe social media communication is something that only happens through third party sites, such as Facebook. With the growth of these social networks and increased penetration of mobile devices such as smartphones and tablet devices, it is now possible for this engagement to happen anytime and anywhere. Meaning that the modern consumer is increasingly digitally engaged with brands, whether this is online or on mobile.

There is an opportunity for many companies to offer a more social experience through a purpose-built platform, to better communicate with these customers digitally during their existing online engagement. As well as offering deeper insight on customers, a social platform also allows businesses to connect and collaborate with its customers, as well as for customers to potentially collaborate with each other. For example, using the platform to test new product concepts and improving customer care by providing an environment to share usage tips.

Creating a community

An example of this type of platform in action is our own ‘Dealer Community’ at Auto Trader; a private social network designed to allow us to better communicate with our dealer customers. The B2B social media platform was launched in beta initially to gauge customer appetite and engagement on the community site. The network was officially launched in March 2011 and now boasts 6,852 users across Auto Trader's portfolio of 11,000 dealers.

The platform allows us to have very important conversations with our customers in a more relaxed and social online environment. For example, we are able to capture dealer feedback on new product and service concepts, as well as offer a range of great tools that make this a simple task for both our dealer customer and product managers within the business. We have already seen a positive response to the site with many dealers offering great ideas and feedback across the product range.

Being more social

While many businesses understand the importance of social engagement in the coming year, it’s important to remember that this doesn’t have to happen offsite. The ‘Dealer Community’ is an example of how a business can build its own platform to better engage its customers, as well as to invite them to collaborate or feedback on products and services. With more and more brands trying to find new ways to better communicate with customers, whether this is in a B2B or B2C environment, 2012 could be the year businesses get more social.