Social Media Communities Shaping the Future of Business

01Jan10

The power of word of mouth is nothing new to a successful business. If you want to run a successful business, word of mouth could be your golden ticket. Social media sites are plentiful on the Internet and based on trends from users and sites like Yelp.com and Lunch.com, consumers are definitely more than willing to share their critiques and opinions. In the past, we relied on the close proximity of your friend, co-worker and relatives to share their experience of a restaurant or product. And as the saying goes ” Do something good nobody remembers. Do something bad, nobody forgets.” But good or bad any criticism from a business stand point is like having a focus group on a silver platter. Honestly, it doesn’t get any easier. Want to know how you’re doing as a company? Read a review. Want to know what they like ? Read a review. Want to try a new concept? Test it out on Facebook.

That’s exactly what Bottlenotes.com did when they wanted to add some features for their start-up website.

Bottlenotes.com was created four years ago by Alyssa Jill Rapp in Palo Alto and it started out as a e-commerce site for  premiere online wine community to buy wine to their specific perferences using match technology. Originally, the platform was created as a portal to sell wine and as a educational tool for wine enthusiasts and the novice. Today it is a community around a passion for wine.

Rapp had a passion for wine and built a business around her interest when she was going to business school in Stanford. With a lot of hard work and a bit of serendipity.

” When doors open you have to walk through it” Rapp said.

As a small start-up being creative and scrappy will be your mantra. As they wanted to introduce the feature of a daily newsletter called the ” Daily Sip” which offers a quick tip or introduction to a particular product they did so with Facebook. From the test,their feature received positive feedback and the Facebook user base tripled.

This is just one of many ways small and big companies are using social media sites to increase business awareness, customer satisfaction, and simply to advertise their service or products. Advertising, Public Relations and Journalism Industries has changed because of  blogs, Micro-Blogging and social media.

Consumers today have a voice and they are not shy to share it with the world wide web. With the increase of Internet usage and social community web sites,  social selling and customer reviews would be more invaluable than a glossy celebrity endorsed ad in Vanity Fair. Today self-made experts are blogging, Tweeting, and broadcasting their thoughts and views about EVERYTHING.

Large public relation firms such as Porter Novelli has opened an office in Brussels, Belgium solely for social media purposes. In addition, recently companies such as Levi Strauss  are hiring  social media experts to fill new additions to their company. They will be the tie between company to consumer as well as company to bloggers.

Long gone are the days of being a passive consumer and more than ever before the sense of being heard is loud and clear.

Filed under: Uncategorized   |  Leave a Comment
Tags: bottlenotes, business, Social Media