Are you stuck in a box?
A few weeks ago Jason Falls of Social Media Explorer suggested in a post that social media is the responsibility of public relations. My visceral reaction to that notion required an immediate comment [note: I am a PR practitioner as well]. And it didn’t end there; I spent the entire weekend thinking about the post. Come the following Monday, I went back for another comment to strengthen my position on why social media is the responsibility of marketing. In doing so, I noticed that Brian Solis of PR 2.0 posted a comment: “Truth is that Social Media is the responsibility of the champions that demonstrate how it will benefit the company and the brand.” Interesting.
In the spirit of debate, I then posted this topic on Plurk to see what the smart folks there had to say. Frank Martin of Marketing Magic plurked: “this debate is so old school it misses the point of New Media, which will cut across all aspects of companies: Marketing, PR, Customer Service. We need NOT to put it in a little box of yesteryear’s definition!”
In reading Frank’s comment [and others] I realized that I was indeed stuck in a “marketing box” and looking at social media through a cracked lid.
After some consideration, I’d suggest that social media is the responsibility of the revenue generators. How so?
- Customer Service/Technical Support provides support for purchased products/services
- Finance/Accounting collects payment for the product/service
- Sales sells the product/service
- Marketing Communications/Public Relations publicizes the product/service
- Operations/Manufacturing delivers/builds the product/service
- Engineering/R&D designs/tests the product/service
- Marketing develops the product/service
- Human Resources hires the people that develop, design/test, deliver/build, publicize, sell, collect payment and support the product/service
Before becoming a social media champion consider becoming, if you’re not already, a brand champion first. Doing so just might create the brand pride necessary to get employees to understand, embrace and champion social media initiatives.
- explaining that the value of a brand—first & foremost―comes from the inside-out and bottom-up
- embracing that the brand is a living, changing thing—it can’t be controlled
- understanding that all brand experiences affect revenue—positively & negatively
- respecting that a brand is owned in part by the prospect or customer
Are you stuck in a box? Do you think brand champions will help social media efforts? What other steps would you recommend?
[Photo: rustiman]
Even More Goodness! Related Posts:
Tags: Branding, Jason Falls, Marketing, Marketing Management, PR, Public Relations, Social Media, Social Media Explorer
6 Responses to “Are you stuck in a box?”
The Harte of Marketing by Beth Harte is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs 3.0 Unported License.
Based on a work at www.theharteofmarketing.com. [If you have a question about what you can use from this blog, click on the above Creative Commons link to learn more.]
Beth – fantastic post. I too have wrestled with the idea of “parking” social media somewhere, and I agree with your conclusion. It’s really a bit of everyone’s job. Brands are indeed organic, and the world is talking about you whether or not you’re talking back. In order for social media to realize it’s potential, it’s got to be embraced by anyone with a stake in building that brand. Smart conclusions, ma’am! Thanks for making me think.
Beth, I totally agree with this statement:
“Getting employees to embrace social media will be a daunting task if they don’t first understand that each and every interaction with prospects and customers is an opportunity to provide value by creating a positive brand experience.”
It is difficult to convince people that this is their responsibility if they do not inherently believe it themselves. You have to develop a whole internal marketing campaign and brand love movement with your staff before you can really move forward successfully on a large scale.
Great article. I’m reminded of Clued In by Lou Carbone.
Every interaction a customer has with a company or service has an impact on their perception of it. For good or bad. If everyone in a company is passionate, the customer cannot escape that enthusiasm – when they talk to the floor clerk, the manager or an employee’s blog their experience will be memorable.
Social media, in my mind, aggregates the thoughts and the views of all of the staff members through their own chosen mode (twitter, facebook, youtube etc). I think it’s the sum of those experiences that makes up a great social media push – check out Zappos’ YouTube page for an example.
While a dedicated marketing team may be able to generate a similar effect, it may not be as genuine.
Great article.
@AmberNaslund, thank you! I have been realizing more & more that some departments don't even know what their brand is or what others think of their brand. Without that important piece of the puzzle how can they know how their actions affect the brand experience?
@CaraKeithley, an internal campaign is vital, but only if it isn't seen as 'cheerleading.' I think it would be important for employees to learn what the brand is from the customers first hand.
@Joe, Zappos is the *perfect* example of employees that are brand enthusiastic! I would bet that helps them to implementing their social media initiatives easier.
Beth, Outstanding Post
We own and manage a small boutique apartment management company Urbane Apartments in Royal Oak, MI and we now exclusively use Digital Marketing and Social Media venues such as MySpace, FaceBook, Flickr, YouTube and now Twitter for traffic and brand awareness. We also have implemented the Urbane Lobby, a completely open forum for residents to connect and we have a blog, Urbane Reflections. But, to your point, we created a Brand and a Brand Following first, which isn’t that always how it must work, you cannot market your way to greatness, or at least you cannot hold onto the position without having something of value and remarkable, which creates the brand. Introduce Social Media and it gets cloudier, but when done right, as so many progressive companies are doing it can turbo charge your brand. Too, it helps level the playing field, because it is no longer who can out spend who and shout the loudest. And again, to one of the comments above for it all too cohesively tie together, it must be administrated from all directions of a vibrant company, not pigeon holed or labeled
@EricBrown, thanks for stopping by! You bring up some valid points:
1. you cannot market your way to greatness, or at least you cannot hold onto the position without having something of value and remarkable.
Agreed. And so many companies do NOT understand this basic concept.
2. Social Media when done right, can turbo charge your brand and level the playing field, because it is no longer who can out spend who and shout the loudest.
Very true! Engaging customers how they want to be engaged can lead to smarter and, sometimes, less expensive marketing.