20 comments

1. I love your analogy here and yes, social media is a two-way street.  Perhaps, this is the same reason why many fear its tremendous power – to make or break your brand.  You may not control the conversation about your brand online, but you can get plenty of opportunities to listen and engage your target market.  The problem is that many forget the basics of conversation online and it’s supposed to be an art.  I’ve seen profiles that look like a human rss feed or run by bots, where no attempt has been made to converse with their peers.  Perhaps, they took automation at heart.  I’d say there’s nothing wrong with doing so as long as you do it responsibly.

2. Businesses
   need to have a clear objective when it comes to Social Media. Will it be used
   for brand awareness, will Twitter be used to engage their audience and
   understand their needs, what content will the business distribute. There are so
   many questions to answer before embarking on a Twitter campaign, as both
   yourself and aaroneden have discussed.

   Social Media
   is just that “Social” keep it that way and you will soon find you
   begin to develop loyal citizens of your brand!

3. You’re totally right, James – businesses definitely need to have a clear objective. And once that’s defined, execution comes much more naturally.

4. Thanks for your wonderful feedback and additional commentary! It’s really obvious which accounts are bots and which are human-run and maintained. It’s okay to auto feed some stuff, but it should be entirely automated.

5. Ah, controlling the conversation – now, that is a concept businesses need to get over if they want to have a social media presence. What they can (and should) do is make sure they have someone, or several people, who are managing their accounts and monitoring statements about them and their brand wherever they may appear. All it takes is one disgruntled customer to begin a worldwide whisper campaign and it could take a lot of time and resources to remediate if they are not on top of the problem when it happens. 

6. I think you hit the spot with your comment about this being two way communication. That’s what most people without a plan are doing. Just pushing out content without talking to others.

7. Fantastic post and I couldn’t agree with you more. Just yesterday I had this same discussion with a traditional marketer who only wanted to push out info and not listen to consumers. Frustrating. I’m against one-way all the way.

8. I think it’s hard for many business owners to unlearn what they’ve been taught by traditional marketing and advertising. They are so used to direct marketing tactics that they are looking for immediate ROI. But as Scott Stratton (of UnMarketing fame) said, “What’s the ROI of a conversation?” It takes time to see a “return” on social, because it takes time for people to get to know and trust you and your business.

9. Debbie – your “social hospitality” is one of the things I love – great insights on those using twitter or any other social media portals 

10. Aw, thanks so much, Cyndee!

11. Great point, Mitch. I saw Scott Stratten speak and make that point — so true. There’s an entirely different spectrum of “ROI” for social than their is with traditional marketing.

12. Seriously. It’s so spammy.

13. Definitely. Total disregard for the “social” aspect.

14. Great points!  Thanks for commenting, Susan!

15. Debbie… good concept and very well done. This ROI thing, especially as we linger at the crossroads between legacy and social marketing, isn’t going away.

    It’s about the conversation, right? Most of us know if a conversation goes well or not. Can we replicate those insights here as well? If so, would they be measurable? Could the resulting data be “sold” as social media ROI?Jeez… and I haven’t had any coffee tonight! Suffice it to say, you really got me thinking!

16. You’re welcome Debbie.  Great to connect with you here – Cheers!

17. You talk sense and I appreciate that, feeling very much like a beginner. Thanks for sharing Cyndee:)

18. My pleasure. Thanks for commenting!

19. Haha, thanks, Rick! Hope you got your coffee 😉

20. […] spammy information solely about their brand and nothing else. This is not social marketing. Actual social media marketing practices involve being […]

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