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While most forward-facing brands are jumping into social media marketing, some older, more recognized brands are still reluctant to give in. They see it as an unnecessary online strategy that doesn’t guarantee quick ROI.

Truth is, they do have a point, because, after all, they’ve gained international resonance and a huge chunk of their respective markets through traditional marketing and advertising platforms. But really, if the social Web seem dubious to your brand, keep in mind that it also offers far greater benefits as well as handling your reputation.

Beef Up Online Presence
We’re way, way past the dot-com boom and chances are your brand already has an online presence with a Web site upfront. Most likely, it’s propped up with copy that details your brand history, products, services and ways to contact you. But unless you carry a popular brand name, not many will be able to find out about what you have to offer.

Social media can help optimize your site to make it rank higher among search engines and make your brand easily discoverable for untapped regions of your target demographic. Blogs, podcasts, the social networks—these offer an organic atmosphere for creatively driving traffic to your online domain.

Branding & News Distribution
Whether you’re carrying a traditional brand identity or you intend to recast your identity for the new generation, social media affords you a pretty organic atmosphere to leverage on—and there’s a lot of leg room for creativity.

Consider Blendtec. You may not have heard of them a few years ago. Sure, you could’ve guessed by their name that they sell industry-grade blenders, but unless you’re a homemaker or you work for a hotel, the culinary or the general service industries, you probably won’t grant them a second glance then. The launch of their Will It Blend series of videos in 2006 changed all that. These videos proved to be a highly entertaining campaign tool that captured both the attention and the imagination of their target market and the social Web. The meme-tastic videos have since gone viral, and both Blendtec and its CEO Tom Dickson have reached rockstar status online.

Managing Your Reputation
It does feel off-putting for these uninitiated companies that they have virtually no control over what’s being broadcasted across the social Web. Opinions and conversations about their brands are tossed into the stream for the rest of the Internet to read and comment about, and this happens whether they have an online presence or not. So wouldn’t it be better to level the playing field and combat these issues mano y mano? And in real-time too which allows the good feedback to spread while filtering out and resolving the negative responses as they come.

Take the case of last February’s too-fat-to-fly debacle between filmmaker Kevin Smith and Southwest Airlines. It’s scary for a brand to deal with and even more so with Smith’s pronounced tirade on an episode of his podcast. It’s a sticky situation to be in and a very strenuous endeavor for a brand to clear the air especially with the combined forces of extensive media coverage and Smith’s stance as an influencer with over a million followers retweeting his exasperated outbursts. In this case, Twitter became the arena where Southwest dealt with the situation, tweeted out an apology and promised to make it up to him.

Tags: Blendtec, Kevin Smith, reputation management, seo, Site traffic, Social Media, Southwest Airlines, Will It Blend