Reading for 9/3

In Paul Gillin’s third chapter of Secrets to Social Media Marketing he begins the discussion by stressing the importance of companies being able to “tap into the conversation” (p 41).  I think this idea is absolutely essential to the success of social media marketing because there is a plethora of free tools at their disposal, if only they know how to find and use them. The internet is full of consumer feedback and conversation just waiting to be found and used by the service providers.  What companies seem to be failing to capitalize on is this abundance of commentary, suggestions, and criticisms.  While certainly not everything written on the internet is necessarily constructive or helpful, a great deal of it is.  And the best part is that there's so much of it you can easily find what the majority of your consumers do actually agree upon.  There's so much potential to what social media has to offer companies in the way of immediate and superfluous feedback.
In addition to the tremendous amount of consumer feedback, social media also offers this direct interaction with the individual consumer.  If companies can find a way to work into this aspect of the market, then they can cut out all of the negative aspects of broad range campaigning and appeal to smaller, more similar groups of people.  By tapping into the potential of targeting groups and their shared interests, companies now have the opportunity to campaign to the individual as opposed to the whole.  People tend to ignore mass marketing and generic ads, but advertisement that targets their personal likes and peaks their interest is something that has much more potential to grab attention and appeal to the consumer.  I think the focus Gillin places on the importance of companies realizing this and utilizing it to their fullest potential is extremely important for social media marketing and a key component that must be fully realized.