Trend cycles?   

Social media is one of the hottest, most hyped subjects (should I say fashions?) in marketing right now.

In fact, it feels a lot like websites circa 2000 when trendy companies just had to have a website. There were some grand visions, but in reality websites back then had no viable role in most business models. Consequently, they drained cash and produced little. That was why, at that time, I was advising clients not to build one.

Later, towards the middle of the decade, when the reality check of the dot com crash had settled, websites started to mature into a useful business tool. I began telling clients, you probably won’t make money out of the internet yet, but you need to engage and start learning.

Now of course I say, no website, probably no business future.

Social media is on the same kind of trend cycle, and it’s about in the middle: time to engage and start learning, so you don’t miss out and get left behind. Maybe you won’t make a decent return out of social media right now, but that time is coming.

For social media, the establishment cycle will probably take five years, not 10.

So it is time to get started with social media – cautiously.

What exactly is social media? 

There are lots of definitions. The core of social media is a conversation, some kind of exchange that is two-way and mutually rewarding.

Often in reality what starts out as a social media idea falters into a one-way message.

Your social media task is to engage your audience in a story about your brand, a story which they tell and extend.

Suppose you sell power tools to tradies. You might set up a Facebook page or a blog that interviews tradies about how they get a superior result for certain tasks (incidentally using your tools), regularly reviews new technology (even stuff you don’t sell) and answers technical questions. You might  add a competition and other strategies to add life.

If tradies find you useful and engage, then you’re on your way with social media. The strategies can get grander and more complex, but that’s the essence: engagement from giving value.

An advertisement is never social media, although it can be placed on a social media channel (and this is an option that is paying real dividends right now for many businesses).

A newsletter is not social media.

Facebook and Twitter are definitely social; friends and followers are a direct measure of engagement.

LinkedIn can be social media, or it can be promotion. Blogs with an audience are social media. Websites usually are not.

Successful social media is always interactive and engaging.  It’s always a conversation, or multiple conversations.

And social media cuts two ways: bad news travels faster than good news and negative opinions cause more harm than positive opinions create benefits. Banks don’t do social media. Social media won’t fix customer relations problems, it will make them more damaging.

The perception shift in social media: it’s not about you

In the good old days, advertisers used words like “bombard” – meaning inflict multiple exposures on a passive (think TV) audience.

There were studies to prove that annoying ads worked because they were remembered.

Intrinsic in this is that the advertiser controlled exposure.

In social media, the user controls exposure. If your audience doesn’t want to engage with you, every dollar you spend will be wasted.
It’s no longer about you and your product – it’s about them.

Just like you, people hate ads. Social media which is really just an ad will be rejected. Not only do users have control, but many of them actively don’t want marketers intruding in their social space. To get their acceptance, you really have to deliver them something they value, in return not for their purchase, but just for their attention.

Social media doesn’t sell, it refers

The most powerful sales use of social media is not a video that goes viral, with your name hanging around the edges of something entertaining, hoping to get noticed.

It’s a social referral, where someone who is thinking of buying a certain product asks advice from their social media context. This is real: buyers have always been keen to listen to the experiences of others and social media delivers it big time.

The sales strength of social media is in getting others to sell for you, through referrals and through brand participation.  Social media is actually quite poor at generating direct sales; it’s an opinion and awareness influencers that mostly works a bit back form the sales point.

Now there are three types of “search”

You may have heard commentators speculating on whether Facebook is a threat to Google.

Both host purchase related searches.

• ......................................On Google,you search what vendors say about their products, via websites.
• ......................................On Facebook, you search what people say about the product, via their comments.

Different searches, different types of information; no doubt they are complimentary so you should pursue both, but if I could have only one, I’d choose a good Facebook result over a good Google result any day. What someone else says about you is stronger than what you say about yourself.

Youtube provides a third kind of search. More searches are done on Youtube than on Google, yet marketers seem to understand less about the use of Youtube to drive sales than they do about Google and Facebook.

I think that ultimately Youtube may have a bigger business potential than Google or Facebook, acting right at the pointy end of product choice, providing purchase information that can be really emotive and packed with lifestyle values. And Youtube has an untapped post-sale role (that’s the space in which customers tell others about their experience and generate new sales – or sales death).

How 90% of social media decisions fizzle

“OK,” says the boss, “Let’s do it. We’ll do a Tweet every day.”

I confess, I made up the 90% fizzle rate, I think it’s probably 99%.

Two things go wrong.

First, the tweets or posts or blogs are boring, one sided and product related. The essence of social media really is engagement and exchange, where both parties are interested and getting value. So the real interest value of your content is critical.

Second, no resources are allocated to the task. It’s assumed someone will do it in addition to their existing work. It’s assumed to be easy to make posts, a low grade task. But high value content is hard, so very soon the posts get shorter and less interesting, then they become erratic, then they stop.  Takes a week to a month.

If want to be one of the 1% to 10% social media success stories, do whatever you need to ensure genuinely interesting content and allocate the additional resources to keep it happening.

Socials media requires a significant commitment, or else it’s not worth it. It is not a cheap advertising alternative, it’s an expensive additional channel.

How to get started.?   

Your four main media options include Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn and blogging, each of them with different strengths and weaknesses that need to be compared with your business and your objectives.

There’s no precise way to know which one will work best for you, except by trying them. What works for one business won’t necessarily work for another.

If you are already personally involved in on option, try it first. Don’t expect to make it work first time; most successful social media promoters will tell you they made several attempts with less than brilliant results before they got it working and that that they are still constantly experimenting and tweaking.

Don’t start by thinking what you want to say or do; start by asking what your audience wants.  Is their something they need that you can provide?

Giving is the only way into a social network.

Conclusion

Social media is a real business tool that will soon enough become essential (for some industries it already is.) If you haven’t dabbled, now is the time to give it a cautious try. Don’t expect too much at first; expect to have some false starts and a continuous learning process. Get started now and you’ll be in place and clued up when this difficult but potentially rewarding media hits its stride.