While it’s a great thing that more and more businesses are jumping aboard the social media bandwagon, many still aren’t really grasping the point of doing so.
There’s a very finite distinction between social media marketing, and merely (doing traditional) marketing via social networks.
Social media marketing involves defining a strategy specific to social channels and tailoring distinct content to those platforms. Simply using social media to market “traditional” messages, on the other hand, is when a business solely distributes information, whether is be exclusively promoting their own offerings, having miscellaneous news automatically fed through to their Twitter stream or strictly asking for followers.
In other words, there’s no conversation, no RTs, etc. I look through my new Twitter followers on a regular basis and it’s baffling how many of them, easily more than half, are doing social media without so much as attempting to be social.
Managing Twitter and Facebook accounts can be time consuming, so scheduling content is definitely justifiable, but shouldn’t make up 100% of your Twitter stream. It’s better to not be on these channels at all than be on there while not taking advantage of the opportunities these specific channels provide. Frankly, it draws attention to the fact that you don’t know how to properly utilize this particular space, and that you haven’t taken the time to learn it, or find someone qualified to do it for you.
Plus, typically, it comes across as spammy to use social devices to only push your product. There are appropriate spaces to do that and press releases and the like are still extremely valuable in terms of overall marketing initiatives. It just comes down to acknowledging the distinction between social and non-social marketing.
Think of traditional PR and communications as a one-way street — businesses would produce a press release, an ad in a newspaper, on the radio, wherever, and their consumers would then read it. Absorb it. But they couldn’t talk back. Now, however, they can.
Social media, in contrast to traditional, is a two-way street — businesses can still use Twitter and Facebook to distribute all the same information they did previously, but the consumer now has the ability to talk back. The model now allows the consumer to talk back to their advertiser. And while this can be intimidating at first, it provides a lot of new functionality for businesses to connect with their audience in new ways, and on a human level.
With that in mind, businesses shouldn’t be utilizing the new two-way system as a one-way one. You shouldn’t be side-stepping the value of that human touch. It shouldn’t be strictly automated, uninviting information being passed along. If you’re not listening, responding to and engaging with your followers, you’re missing the point, and ultimately, a larger opportunity.
Debbie Miller
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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.
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.
You’re welcome Debbie. Great to connect with you here – Cheers!
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!
You’re totally right, James – businesses definitely need to have a clear objective. And once that’s defined, execution comes much more naturally.
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.
Great points! Thanks for commenting, Susan!
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.
Definitely. Total disregard for the “social” aspect.
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.
Seriously. It’s so spammy.
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.
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.
Debbie – your “social hospitality” is one of the things I love – great insights on those using twitter or any other social media portals
Aw, thanks so much, Cyndee!
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!
Haha, thanks, Rick! Hope you got your coffee 😉
You talk sense and I appreciate that, feeling very much like a beginner. Thanks for sharing Cyndee:)
My pleasure. Thanks for commenting!
[…] spammy information solely about their brand and nothing else. This is not social marketing. Actual social media marketing practices involve being […]