Social Media: The marketing miracle!
June 3rd, 2009 | Author: Beth Harte
Back in April, Mack Collier and I had an interesting conversation about social media campaigns and how they are ineffective. I said that I was going to write a post called “Social Media Campaigns are like Crying Wolf” (but never got around to it until now…). In response to our conversation, Mack wrote a great post about how social media isn’t a one-night stand, but a relationship.
Why are social media campaigns like crying wolf? We all know the famous fable about the little shepherd boy who entertained himself by crying wolf just to get the villagers attention. Well, eventually the villagers stopped coming when he cried wolf and when the shepherd boy really did encounter a real wolf he was left alone to battle while it ate his flock.
I think if you replace the shepherd boy with “company,” the villagers with “community,” flock with “customers” and wolf with “competition” I think we might be able to draw a conclusion as to why social media campaigns aren’t effective. The moral of this new fable? It’s never wise to use the social community for attention seeking or self-serving needs.
However, that said, after much thought I think some social media campaigns are less about crying wolf than they are about approaching social media as the last bastion of lead or buzz generation hope because all other marketing is failing…the social media miracle. And, unfortunately, it’s a miracle that often ends in failure.
Social media isn’t a marketing miracle by any stretch. But a lot of marketers (client- and agency-side) look at social media tools (Twitter, Facebook, MySpace, blogging, podcasting, etc.) as vehicles for self-promoting (or crying wolf) to be just that…a miracle that recreates the lead generation and buzz they once had. And social media just doesn’t work that way. For social media to be effective, a long-term commitment to community relationship building is required…as Todd Defren calls it, uncampaigning.
Shel Holtz also has a great post on organic social media vs. marketing campaigns in which he states that ‘organic engagement in social media will have greater long-term payoff for an organization, and can even bolster shorter-term campaigns.’ That’s the key to social media campaigns being successful because they aren’t one-off, they are part of an on-going, organic relationship.
For companies out there considering a social media campaign, ask these questions before you expect a miracle:
- Do I have an established community that wants to hear from us?
- What does the community want from us?
- How does this social media campaign affect the long-term relationship with our community?
- Will this social media campaign be scrutinized by the community or others?
- Is this social media campaign a quick fix to combat competition?
- If I hold a mirror up to this campaign, will I like the reflection (i.e. are you engaging in social media in response to detractors)?
- Are we doing this social media campaign just because it’s cool or we think it’s buzz-worthy?
- Why is my agency pushing this social media campaign (or why is my client pushing this social media campaign)?
- How are we going to measure the success of the social media campaign? What are the objectives?
- Do we have a contingency (or crisis) plan in place for this social media campaign?
Your turn…do you think one-off social media campaigns work? What’s been effective (or ineffective)? What else would you add to this list of questions?
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Beth,
Think you’re making a valid point in this post, and really like the list of points to consider. I would say that social media as PART of a campaign is a different approach than social media as THE campaign…. which I agree does feel like digitally yelling, “Look at me, look at me…I’m on Twitter!!”
As you note, if you have a community already engaged and who does want to hear from you, social media can be a valid, effective additive to a marketing plan. I think the key word is “plan” as opposed to the one-off Social Media Miracle. Thanks for sharing your thoughts on the subject with your community… glad I’m part of it.
Here, here! All too often our clients are expecting us to perform miracles and give them overnight fame just by setting them on a social media platform. These companies need to realize that communities are not built overnight. They will not start to see positive results until they make the time and energy commitment to their social media campaign
Gloria Bell’s last blog post..SPARK!
Way to nail it. Social media is part of the bigger whole. Without other parts of your company functioning at full capacity…social media is just going to put a big old microscope on your work. If anything…it will likely make you look worse.
Stuart Foster’s last blog post..The Importance of Titles
Social media campaigns are like a limited-time offer to communicate with the customer. Just when they realize you are trying to reach out to them, you kill the effort and move onto something else.
Which is why they almost always do more harm, than good.
Mack Collier’s last blog post..First impressions: Thesis
Excellent Points Made, Beth! There is No Social Media Magic Bullet – It’s a Hot Topic, Sure. But Making it Out to Be Anything More Than a Communications Tool is Just Plain Wrong.
And Just Like Any Other Tool (like a Sledgehammer or a Bandsaw), If You Don’t Use it Properly, You Can Get Hurt.
With That in Mind, I Would Add One More Question to Ask Yourself:
* Am I Ready to Commit the Time/Money/Energy Necessary to Making This ‘Social Media Thing a Success?
Narciso Tovar, Big Noise Communications’s last blog post..Commitment To More Cowbell
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I get this thrown at me A LOT. In fact, I’d have to say that the vast majority of my clients that come to me think that they can get on Twitter or Facebook or whatever suddenly all their problems will be solved and money will fall from the sky. I agree with Mandy’s example above in that it’s like digitally yelling “LOOK AT ME!! I’M ON TWITTER!!”
Um, no. Doesn’t work that way.
I’ve got an email in my box right now from a guy with a nonprofit that says (I’m paraphrasing), “I need a Twitter campaign, I need a Facebook campaign, I need . . .” and I always ask in return, “Why do you think you need this?” Every answer I get is usually to the tune of they “keep hearing they need to” and I ask from whom but I never can find any names except maybe “CNN” mumbled under their breath.
I like Mack’s analogy that campaigns are a “limited time offer.” I don’t like the idea of a “social media campaign” at all, because the word campaign signifies that there is an end. If you’re going to get involved with social media, you can’t jump in the water, swim a few laps to impress your spectators, and then get out. You’re expected to say in the water, learn new strokes, make new friends, have fun, and become a regular at the pool. If you “do it right” it becomes part of your lifestyle, something you incorporate into everything you do. If you’re the equivalent of the fat kid that does a cannonball just to make a big splash, that’s exactly how you’ll be known — that obnoxious fat kid who made a big cannonball splash that one time. How obnoxious.
Stacy Lukas’s last blog post..Tweeple: Pwease stop tawking wike Tweety Bird
My favorite bullet is when you mention, “Are we doing this social media campaign just because it’s cool or we think it’s buzz-worthy?”
Unfortunately, many do it without asking questions but because everyone else is doing it.
Ari Herzog’s last blog post..When the Highest-Paid State Official Tossed Transparency
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Beth,
Good comments. There are no magic bullets in marketing, period, let alone social marketing. That being said, there is an opportunity to engage in conversations with our customers and prospects in ways we could have never done before (at least at this scale). The key, as I believe you state above, is intention. If the intent of your conversation is to promote, fuggetaboutit. If the intent is to share your experience, your authentic self and (most importantly) listen, a lot can be gained.
Doug Kreitzberg’s last blog post..Management Communication and its Disconnects
Perhaps social media isn’t about marketing at all– except to the extent that marketing needs to have an increasing role in customer service. Social media is the means to accomplish a long-overdue integration of customer service and marketing. Demonstrating interest in the customer’s voice is a public affair in social media.
Social media presents a great opportunity to understand the customer –not by talking– but by listening.
This is such a great post, Beth. I need to start spending more time here. Great analogy, solid tie-in with Shel’s point (he’s 100% correct), and perfect checklist. I am bookmarking this for future reference. Well played.
olivier blanchard’s last blog post..Who exactly is driving the Social Media bus in the Enterprise space?
Ditto on Olivier’s comments, a definite bookmark.
Beth, this is a fantastic post and a point that needs to be pushed, sent, discussed and kept top of mind because every day some marketing yo-yo starts calling it a campaign… again. Or better still some social marketing “expert” pushes the wrong mentality on too many naive audiences.
When we first realized that “friend” was a verb (thanks Eric Schmidt) and that it is a verb that implies actions that result in engagement that ultimately has a strong potential for increasing brand strength, (and thus revenue), we had the old marketers vocabulary. We used expressions such as social media marketing and social media campaigns to fit the new era into the vernacular we were already comfortable with. Now, Campaign=permanent engagement. It takes a while to catchup (especially for a 50+ like me), so please be patient as new words and new usages penetrate popular usage. I still put Social Media Marketing on my website, because I am not describing what I do for Beth and Mack and Olivier, I am describing it for average business people who never read our blogs (or perhaps never read ANY blog)
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@mthinker, I don’t think social media replaces marketing…it enhances it. But I totally agree with you, SM does present an opportunity to understand the customer better. And not just for marketers, but the organization as a whole.
@VictorSEO, I am not a fan of the term social media marketing for a lot of reasons…but one big one is because of the campaign issue. I think it’s a mistake for the average business person to equate social media to just marketing…partly for the reasons you mention.
Beth,
Just to clarify, I don’t like the term social media marketing. As New Gen peeps move into corporate roles, they will already “get” that marketing is a relic of the industrial revolution. Most grey beards will call it marketing, no matter what. That’s not a mistake as much as it is tradition (and simple lack of understanding). Tradition dies slowly, and understanding propagates slowly (thats changing for New Gens, but not grey beards). A good place to start would be for the CPAs and the forms companies to change that line on their spreadsheents to some name other than marketing – have you seen that yet?
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@VictorSEO…marketing isn’t going anywhere. And that’s the misunderstanding most folks have about social media. Social media is about tools and conversation and it doesn’t replace marketing, it only enhances marketing, just like it enhances other areas of business like HR, Customer Service, Sales, etc.
Too much for a comment…I’ll write a post instead. Thanks for prompting it.
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I believe any organization or company would be better situated if they stopped thinking of social media like some sort of quick guerrilla warfare campaign, and started thinking of it as an exercise in “try”.
Thinking about the times we tried something new. Tying our shoe, learning to ride a bike, learning a foreign language.
Most often success did not occur overnight. It took time to accomplish your goal, and a long the way you may have tried different things to succeed.
So the same with Social Media.
DaveMurr’s last blog post..The Undercurrent
Agree with much of what you say. But the big point is that the emphasis should not be on the word Medi-JA but the quality of communication.
Media and its meaning is mediated to the point in this context that it has no meaning.
The real story is the strength of the quality of communication between people.
And current thinking around advertising and Social communication is like mixing oil and water, which is why advertisers and brands fail so spectacularly.