Karl Long at the Futurelab blog writes a great piece on why social media matters to companies, even if its effect isn’t immediately evident on their bottom line:
Would any big company recognize .5% of their market-share disappearing? Should they really give a fuck about that paltry number, is it going to hit their share price? Their volume?
What if I said that was the best, most passionate, most creative, most talented most vocal, most evangelical .5% of their customers leaving, to go and create something amazing with another company? A company so small you’ve never heard of it, and won’t until it’s big enough to eat your lunch.
The number of people willing to adopt social media is still fairly small, by all accounts, but anecdotal evidence shows us that these customers are the ones who are evangelizing, who are contributing to the brand, and who are generating that "word of mouth" that companies are always after.
It’s also worth mentioning that as social media becomes more mainstream, more consumers will begin to expect a certain level of transparency and candor from the companies with which they deal. Adopting that philosophy early will set them ahead of the curve, and allow them to make mistakes when fewer people are watching.
