If there’s one term that you must keep in mind when you decide to engage in Social Marketing, it would have to be TRANSPARENCY!
Remember, launching a social marketing campaign is like showing up naked to a cocktail party. If you haven’t been hitting the gym, EVERYONE is going to know as soon as you enter the room. Oh, and if you’re a pre-op transvestite… well THAT fact is going to be obvious as well.
One of my first clients was a pioneer in the “pay for content” arena. When we launched the membership site, it was the mid 1990’s. I was thrilled to be blazing the trail and as such, was full of enthusiastic suggestions for how we could make the membership product “better”. I’ll never forget the reaction of the company president when I suggested that we add some kind of interactive abilities such as chat or a bulletin board for members. He got a horrified look on his face and announced that the LAST thing in the world his business needed was an opportunity for his customers to get together to compare notes.
I’m curious as to whether the rise in social interaction online has played some role in the decline of this once marketing pioneer.
According to Brian Solis in his post PR 2.0: The Art of Conversation – It’s About Listening Not Marketing
Social Media Marketing combines, in a perfect world, the most effective attributes of PR, Web Marketing, Customer Service, and a working knowledge and genuine enthusiasm of the social networks and tools to listen to, spark, and engage in relevant discussions – not all but, those with influence.
Whether it’s web marketing or PR, Web 2.0 is increasing the conversations going on online. Those conversations are all about what’s happening in each individual’s “social network” and are bound to entail what products and services work and which don’t.
For example, if you’re a Real Estate Professional, then you’re talking with other Real Estate Professionals about the products and services you can use to build your business. It’s the power of “word of mouth” advertising, sometimes known as “buzz”. However, it’s important to remember that , In the imortal words of Eric Sink,:
Word-of-mouth is not a strategy
Word of mouth marketing is the old school reference to social networking. Remember, this kind of talking about products and services has been going on since the beginning of time. Anyone trying to sell on you the fact that this is “new” or “revolutionary” has the salesman’s hat firmly in place. This is a prime example of SSDM (Same Shit Different Medium).
So, on one side of the equation, you have people congregating and talking amongst themselves using Facebook, MySpace, Digg, Sphinn, etc. The groups are known as “social networks” and what is happening inside those micro networks is what is known as “Word of Mouth Advertising”.
On the other side of the social marketing equation, you have businesses. These businesses want to grab a piece of the social marketing action. They want to insert their products into the conversations going on. When a product or service is mentioned in these informal but very public social networks, businesses are naturally interested in controlling the conversations which affect their brand.
It’s important to remember that these social networking conversations have been going on since the beginning of time. Ancient cavemen would gather around the fire and talk about how a spear made from the wood of this tree brought down a Mastodon while a guy from another tribe was using a spear made from the wood from another type of tree and ended up as Mastodon toe jam.
The difference between those “informal” social conversations and the social conversations happening on the web is that the conversations happening then left no evidence of the communication. Today’s social networking conversations are literally etched in stone, leaving a trail that anyone can follow. So while Caveman Joe didn’t have any way of backing up his story, Social Networking Joe certainly can document his online conversations.
An example of the “trackability” of the social marketing conversation trail is the tale of Vlad and his blog Go Beyond MLS. Andy Beard first introduced me to this horrifying tale of social marketing gone horribly awry through his post iHype & ePerks – How To Kill A Startup
Broker Science does a great job of illustrating the “transparency” Web 2.0 imposes upon businesses. In the post ePerks.com: A Case Study in Greed and Self-Imposed Brand Destruction, Trace Richardson follows the multiple bread crumb trails left by multiple players in the tale of one company’s desperate attempts to control the social marketing surrounding their business and brand.
Which brings us back to the admonition offered at the beginning of this post. If the name of the game is Social Networking, then the key rule to the game is transparency.
If you enter this game with the expectation of privacy, think again.
Many corporate giants have stumble mightily trying to tame the social marketing monster. Most note worthy was Walmart’s stunningly bad attempt at entering the social marketing scene. If Walmart had kept in mind that TRANSPARENCY is the name of the game when it comes to social marketing, then perhaps that story would have had a different ending.
If you’re going to show up at the cocktail party naked, pale and flabby, at least don’t try to sell the story that you’ve been hitting the gym regularly.
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You raise very many good points not least of all that so many companies fail to “get it” when it comes to this whole new way of interacting with the market place. Once it was tell the customers what to buy then it was show the customer what to buy but now it is ask the customer what they want to buy – each change looses those unable to change with the flow. Innovators fall behind and drop off the map.
Lord Matts last blog post..Massive Exploit in Multiple Social Media Systems
Great post. I think that word-of mouth is very scary and this should be the main concern of any marketer on any level and especially with how small the world has gotten due to the Internet and Web 2.0. My cousin single handidly, russled up 45 people to ban Best Buy because they screwed her on a return and these people sent Best Buy goodbye letters and let them know that they will no longer shop there. This is just a simple example of how word-of-mouth can affect even the largest of corps.
Thank you!
Businesses are learning: stay transparent or expect to feel the rath of your public. But those who learn how to use it can explode their effectiveness. I’m working now with a progress religious foundation which knows that it needs to get its message out to where the people are (and not expect the people to come to them). Ahhhh, progress!
Charlie Seymour Jr
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