Social Media Optimization: Lessons To Learn From Tasting The Rainbow

A lot of companies who’ve not yet made their presence on the Internet, should read this and be careful about how they dip their toes into the social networking world. Skittles had a crash and burn experience with social media optimization which we all should learn from. For those of you who don’t know, Skittles is the popular chewy fruit flavored candy created by the Wrigley Company. They look a lot like M&M’s except they have S’s on them instead of M’s. Social Media Optimization can be an outright success or it can turn against you. And by analyzing Skittles experience with social media, it is very important to consult an expert Internet marketing consultancy to guide your company in the right direction. 

Skittles as a part of their Social Media Optimization campaign inserted a live Twitter feed on their home page. It seemed like a great idea at the time. It offered followers a chance to interact with the company and post their statuses about Skittles. Any follower who included the word “Skittles” in their status was automatically displayed on their homepage. But things got out of hand when followers started posting explicit content such as “Skittles gives you gonorrhea”. Skittles soon took the Twitter feed down when they realized followers were manipulating their social media campaign.

A lot of people differ in opinion when it comes to the idea of the Skittles social media campaign. Some people said it took guts for a company to do this, others said it was a really stupid idea. But the point of the matter is, Skittles got a load of coverage in the news and all over the Internet for their social media campaign. They created such a buzz and hype from just that one social media campaign, to trigger over 500,000 followers on Facebook. However it is crucial to have control and responsibility over your campaign to effectively direct and guide your followers. Guiding your followers to your services and products through various social networks will help your business gain more revenue. With your guidance and their feedback this combination will enable your company to improve the quality of products and services for your customers. Social media optimization allows an honest response and discussion between the customer and company and a chance for companies to react on the knowledge they gained from this.

Seek expert advice from an offshore Internet marketing consultancy that can start your business off with the right social media campaign. They will be able to guide you to follow the right practices of social media optimization so you can get the desired results. Internet marketing consultancies will first register you on the popular social networks and help you build your profiles with useful information for your followers. After building a good profile on all the social networks, maintaining each profile with  new updates and information is just as important. Information and updates from your blog and website should be distributed through your social network profiles so you can attract visitors to your website. Any business can benefit from Social Media Optimization but it is very essential to seek expert advice and have a strategic plan in place before venturing into the unknown.