Engaging

 The idea of engaging, talking to customers as co-creators of the product is not a new idea. In 1997, Steve Jobs was already talking  about customer experience and innovation at the Apple WWDC (worldwide developer conference). Already before the age of social media, this corporate visionary was aware of the trend that could not be ignored, and eventually made its way to flourish in social media times. The whole business world changed. "the mobile web, social media, gamification, real-time have forced us to rewire the way we think about and run our businesses".
From 1997 till now there was a revolution in how community and social media changed communication in business.

There are many reasons why some companies are successfully using social media and some fail. In a series of the interviews last year,  Brian Solis, the author of a  book, "The End of Business as Usual" asked many top managers of the famous brands how and why they decided to engage in social media in the first place. In those interviews all of the representatives of the big brands claimed that they just had no choice but engage because the marketing that used to be one way communication suddenly changed into social marketing and not engaging in two way communication would be like a suicide. A lot of those interviews were made last year, when the companies were just starting to observe how their social media campaigns were playing out. Some companies nailed it, some made mistakes. The bottom line is they all had their individual approach to engaging in the groundswell. Eleftherios Hatziioannou, former Global Social Media Manager at Mercedes-Benz was talking about how the company recognized how important the dialog is as opposed to one way marketing, and how they started to listen to their customers, draw conclusions, and implement new marketing strategies. Another approach was described in an interview with Bianca Buckridee, AVP, Social Media Engagement at SunTrust Bank, who pointed out that their engagement with social media started from her reaching out to already existing Twitter customer's forums, and responding to them which triggered a huge change and a real dialog. These were the accounts of the very beginnings of engaging.
                                  

In 2012 this is already another stage/era of social media. Now all big brands are already deeply submerged in the social media trends. Now branding is about successful social media presence, and campaigns that work...or don't work.  Now we can read case studies of the successful and unsuccessful engaging campaigns, and learn from them.
We have already created a social media history page for everyone to learn from in the form of case studies.
There is no better way to learn how to make your company/brand media campaign engaging, than to learn from real life examples like the ones in the articles 30+Engaging Social Media Case Studies, or Case Studies & White Papers.
There are many sources and examples of success or failure in companies engagement in social media.
Engaging customer base is the goal of every company and very important part of social media. In order to be successful and count on long term growth, every company must build a relationship with their fans, customers, and even their opponents. IBM is one of the companies who took the engagement with their customers to higher level. They do understand that the old way of doing business is all gone. The fundamental change in relationships with the customers is to show them that the huge company like IBM has a human face, that the business is not only about making profit, but also about giving to community. One of the problems that big companies are facing nowadays is the general public lack of trust in their proper conduct.

IBM is trying to portray the company as transparent. The customers have the right to know everything about the product, how it is made, where it is made, who is their employers, how they treat the employers etc..
The IBM makes it clear that they make all the information available to the public, that they have nothing to hide. The companies in social media had to make this transition and become transparent.

Another condition that cannot be underestimated to engage successfully  in social media is building an ecosystem around the company,  which is explained in detail in the article from  January 10, 2012  by SanjayShetty . The main motto here is : “The presence of a community that complements a cause fosters endurance.” – Guy Kawasaki, Enchantment.
So it is all about building a community around your company/ brand, doing it effectively and on the daily basis. "In today’s social world, it’s about building an ecosystem around your company and it’s social media, brand advocate and community program."