Socialnomics (Chapter 5 toward the end)

I've learned from the book that once things went wrong on the social media, companies shouldn’t think about covering the mistakes their made. Instead, they should learn from the mistakes and turn it to an opportunity. And if a company would like to benefit from social media, they need to know how to use it wisely. Learning how to use it wisely is not a choice, but it’s something a company must do for its survival in today market.

Here is what we should keep in mind, when using social media, Qualman suggests that we have to make sure we own a great product. We might have learned from other marketing class before that marketers should care about messages they market to customers. However, the successful of companies nowadays heavily rely more on the focus in the quality of the products or services. This is because the effect of social media is so enormous. It can either enhance the reputation of the company or degrade it. An opportunity to review the products or services on social media anytime can leads to a final decision in potential life-time customers since these people looking for recommendations that do not come from marketer, but their peers, or real consumers, which are the influencers. Therefore, if the product is good, we can’t stop people to spread words about it.

I totally agree with Qualman because I have experienced how powerful those influencers are many times. My decision in whether buying a product or not most of the time purely base on how the product was reviewed. I used to disregard a product that I’ve never even tried just only because it was rated less than three stars. Vice versa, I spend lots of money on some products that has lots of positive reviews, although I many times end up with not happy with the product I purchased.