Your Customers Want You To Be Social

“93 percent of Americans believe a company should have a presence in social media, while an overwhelming 85 percent believe a company should not only be present, but also interact with its consumers via social media.”

That’s what the Boston Globe reported in an article yesterday about findings by communications agency Cone in their 2008 Cone Business in Social Media Study. The social web has changed the way we conduct relationships with friends, family, customers and business associates. This in turn has changed the way we relate to brands, products and services. The result is that traditional marketing methods of communicating in a ‘monologue’ is not only a thing of the past but is doomed to failure in a ‘multilogue’ world.

The worst thing for a brand is not that conversations about you are happening somewhere else, it’s that they’re happening and you’re not a part of it. That’s not to say that just because you create an online community with all the bells & whistles, or are part of one, you’re safe. You need to think about your role and voice in the social web. How are you engaging with your customers? What’s your relationship like? How are you nurturing that relationship?

As a consumer, I love what the social web has done for us. It’s put us in a place where we should always have been. #1.

As a brand, you used to be able to control things–the way your customers received and shared information and in effect the choices they were aware of. This is no longer the case. Like any relationship that is treated poorly, it ends. How will you adapt?

UPDATE: Read Write Web’s story on this study.