Social media is very different than “traditional” online media, but the core principles are the same. In a sense, it’s simply another channel in the growing pantheon of online marketing approaches, and an incredibly important one. I don’t need to regurgitate Facebook adoption rates or Twitter growth again for you, though. So I won’t.
My start in Internet advertising (AKA online marketing), was in the world of display advertising. At that time, the elements of traditional advertising held sway (and they still should - even in social - and I’ll get to that). The banner ad was your chance, in 468×60 pixels, to get your message to your prospective customer. Your invitation was simple: Click here. The goals were, and are, equally straightforward: Get the user to notice, and then, ultimately, click. What works? Clear, relevant, eye-catching messages.
Now the costs of creating a banner and successfully finding appropriate media to run it on (including your own site) and analyzing how well it’s performing are not the same as those required to create a television ad and run it during the Super Bowl. However, I have never, EVER heard a client say “I don’t really care what the banner looks like.”
Similarly, in e mail marketing, I have never heard of a client investing time and effort into marketing to, in this case, their most loyal customers, and being ok with having limited control over that email’s content and layout.
When it comes to social media, however, it seems that many serious brands and marketers are still ok with letting Facebook decide how their posts look…or letting a free third party click counters capture their user data – valuable data that is freely viewable by anyone and held with no contract. Why should we spend a lot of time and effort on creating the perfect banner or e mail, and then think that a tweet or Facebook wall post is just something you can do on a whim? Or worse - scheduled for a month down the line? That’s like socializing by delivering a monologue at a party.
If anything, your Facebook wall message or tweet is more important than your banner ads or your e mail messages. You are communicating with your most loyal customers, and these customers have allowed you to invade the same space they use to hang out with their friends, and they probably don’t want you to embarrass them. In other words, you’ve been invited to the party. Once you get in and start clinking martini glasses, don’t you want to look good?!
Something else that surprises me about social media is that some marketers are less concerned with their Facebook presence and communication strategy than they are with how they handle discussion about their brand outside their walls and outside the parties they have been invited to attend.
The value in understanding conversations and trends around you brand is vital, of course. But I’d suggest to any marketer to consider that throwing a party (or being invited to one) is quite different from running around eavesdropping on other parties, then leaping through windows when you think you’ve heard your brand mentioned. Now, it IS the Internet and users should expect that public comments are, well, public. But isn’t there something creepy about the guy in high school who wasn’t invited to the party, but shows up anyway, and whose only concerned is to fit in?
Now THERE’S the difference, right? Social media is social. That’s why you need to worry about how you handle the parties you attend and how you deal with the parties you don’t. On the other hand, while It’s no longer just the banner ad, it doesn’t mean you shouldn’t be very attentive - and methodical - with your messaging.
When it comes to social media, we should learn from the tried and true methods that breed success in other forms of media - including print or television. But we also need to be able to make the right strategic decisions about how we play with others, and how we can be the ones getting the eye from across the room at the party we’ve been invited to!
