Since launching ME Consulting last month, I’ve been reading and talking a lot about social media, and the impact it’s having on how businesses communicate, market and sell their products and services.
There are a few things that have been particularly striking. One is there’s a tremendous amount of talk and enthusiasm about social media. It’s the online world’s new “It Girl” – sexy, attractive and fascinating even if many peopled don’t have a strong grasp of what it involves beyond a bunch of well-known tools.
Second, most companies want to embrace social media or think they need to embrace it because it seems that everyone else is doing it.
When I talk to companies interested in social media, I ask them three questions: Why do you want to do social media? What do you want to get out of it – e.g. traffic, branding, sales? How much time/money are you committed to make social media happen? If they have good answers or, at least, solid thoughts about each question, then they’ve taken an important first strategic step.
The third – and perhaps most interesting – issue from talking to people are the myths surrounding social media. If you look at the list, it goes a long way in explaining why so many people are so excited but need insight and strategic/tactical help in doing social media.
1. Social media is free. This is based on the fact many of the tools available to implement social media are, in fact, free such as Wordpress, Facebook, YouTube, Twitter, LinkedIn, del.icio.us, Digg. The reality, however, is while the tools are free to use, it takes time, effort and resources (aka a dedicated employee such as a community manager) to implement and operate social media programs. It’s not just a matter of setting up a few accounts, and trying to automate as much as possible. To do it well and properly, social media takes time and money.
2. Social media is easy. Among the leading social media myths, this is perhaps the biggest one. To be honest, doing social media well is far from glamorous. It takes a lot of time and involves a tremendous amount of blocking and tackling on a daily basis. Unless you hit the social media lottery (e.g. Zappos), a successful social media campaign consists of working it every day and making small, but constant, gains. It means hours of effort to monitor, track and engage with people on dozens of platforms.
3. Social media is about the tools. As mentioned above, the tools mean nothing if you don’t have someone to leverage them. The tools are cool but even the best tools are worthless without a clear goal of what and how they should be used.
4. Social media is a standalone activity from a company’s marketing, communications and sales activities. Wrong, wrong, wrong. Social media is a not an add-on or an accessory but it surprising to see companies suggest they need to add some social media to the mix. In other words, it’s not a widget that can easily be plugged in when needed. To be successful, social media needs to be part of and aligned with a company’s brand, messaging and strategic goals.
5. Social measure is difficult to measure or get a handle on return on investment. There’s no lack of tools available to track, monitor and measure social media activity, many of them free. At the same time, increasingly more sophisticated and value social media measurement and analytics tools are being created that will provide companies with amazing insight about what’s happening within the social media universe and who’s doing it.
The myths about social media aren’t necessarily a bad thing because it illustrates how the social market is still in the early stages of its development and maturity. Over time, these myths will start to disappear as companies and people get a better appreciation of what’s really involved and how social media fits into the strategic schemes of things.
More: B.L. Ochman has a story in BusinessWeek that debunks six social media myths.
Technorati Tags: myths, social media, twitter
20 Comments
Mark, well put and so very true!
Good points all. I think that putting a better profile on how easy it is to track and audit (#5 is a good means to tackle the problem of getting social media as a primary consideration for integrated marcom and sales (#4). Interestingly that is part of the focus for an upcoming conference of web analytics professionals in Toronto next month. http://www.emetrics.org/toronto/2009/
Mark,
Fantastic post, and one that I hope many companies read. I’m especially excited that you pointed out that social media takes hard work, and that it needs to be aligned across the organization, not shut in a communications silo. In truth, these practices are affecting customer service, product development, research, and myriad other areas of the business.
And I’m thrilled that you brought up the idea of measurement and analysis. Finding the information across the web is one thing, but collecting, analyzing, and acting on it is another. We’re pleased to be helping establish some best practices in this regard, and always look for compelling feedback from people like you to understand what businesses need to keep their social media endeavors manageable and measurable.
Thanks for a great discussion.
Cheers,
Amber Naslund
Director of Community | Radian6
@AmberCadabra
Great Points! People think they can just setup accounts and they are doing their parts but like you said it takes time and effort just like anything else.
Mark,
Nice post, much more than a Top “x” list.
It’s essential that corporations/organizations ask and answer the questions of “Why do we want to do this?” and “What are our goals & objectives and how are we going to measure our efforts/results?”
Best of luck with your new firm!
Jeff
@socialmedia411
I see this evolution of marketing and media first hand. I’ve done work with some companies that fear it and I’ve worked with companies that thrive on it.
The current marketing trend is all about transparency. It’s the age old adage “honesty is the best policy”. It seems like those who come across as most honest, humble, fun are the few who are going to win.
Those who try to sell, sell, sell using old marketing devices will be continue to be seen as fake and ultimately lose market share.
Good points indeed, although I couldn’t help but feel I’d seen them, say, 10 – 12 years ago. Only “Social Media” would have been replaced by “the Web”.
Great post Mark and number 3 and 4 resonate most with me. Tools are one thing, but I would also add that you need thoughtful and committed people using them in order to be successful. And for number 4, I’d say this comes up time and time again. Clients are often surprised to hear that often we must use the offline world to drive to the online world and it’s important to remind that social media must fall in line with an overall marcomm strategy.
Great points Mark. And I agree with Danielle too. It’s so important to integrate online and offline activities.
Would love to know what typical feedback/questions you get from your clients.
Found my way here based on a tweet from Eric (we work together at the PR agency, Porter Novelli, he in Toronto, me in London.)
Tend to agree with most of yr points, although I think myth 5 (“social media is hard to measure”) may be a little less mythical than you think. Just because we can generate lots of numbers doesn’t mean that sales have gone up. Ultimately, my clients and I are all about sales.
Faced with this challenge, I occasionally ask the question, “do you believe that social media can damage your sales in a measurable way?” (or “damage your reputation” depending on the circumstances.) In most cases, this is an easy question to answer. In which case, I think, the implied corollary must be that social media can amplify your sales.
But you just try measuring that!
There’s some data from a few academic studies that show (for example) that volume of buzz prior to an IPO or movie opening weekend is proportional to the closing price of the offer, or the first weekend’s box office figures.
But outside these studies, there’s very little that’s convincing (where “convincing” means something like “not obviously self-serving”)
Incidentally — re: @Danielle’s point — this article, 5 straightforward ways to integrate your communications activities might be of value (and continues the “5 things” theme
Thanks for your article.
Concerning point #5: do you have any tips for software or tools to measure ROI?
Eric,
There are lots of tools out there such as BlogScope.net and Socialmention.
Mark
Mark, thanks for beating the strategy drum. Just read this post now, but it looks almost like the script of a meeting I had Friday afternoon.
Regarding costs, one thing social media did do was avoid adding to infrastructure IT costs. Sadly for many, that was where you could get budget. (I always joked that I wanted to reclassify content as IT so I could get a better funding stream.)
I hope we will see a shift of some of those saved $$ from funding servers and building applications to staffing for community managers and analytics folks to better engage and meet strategic goals!
Myth #6 – social media is new. Actually, Internet tool that are commonly referred to as social media are new, but the activities are not (and companies have been using non-Internet social media tools for centuries). That is precisely why “social media” needs to be integrated into all marketing/communications activities. There really is no social media strategy; there is a branding strategy with social media tactics. There is a customer feedback strategy with social media tactics. There is a brand monitoring strategy with social media tactics.
While experiencing alot of front line work putting social media infrastructure in place, I now insist that top team leaders sit thru a tutorial where everyone is properly informed, and orientated so the noise around the tools is managed, and we can focus on real benefits. Secondly, but most important, as Mark and others have commented, clients need a champion with respect internally who is passionate about the brand, and is will to work hard every day to sit at the dashboard and get involved deeply in the conversation..
We are all learning together…..great stuff…
I think often people hear about social media and assume it is so easy, free and simple. Not true, thanks for bringing attention to these good myths to be aware of.
A well written and thought provoking article..The best part as I see it is in the advise and insight that ….”a successful social media campaign consists of working it every day and making small, but constant, gains. It means hours of effort to monitor, track and engage with people on dozens of platforms.”
Well said and very true indeed
It's the age old adage "honesty is the best policy". It seems like those who come across as most honest, humble, fun are the few who are going to win.
I liked what you posted about, but I was wondering if there was going to be a list of tools to use that would be of best use? If you know of one please email me. I would love to see that.
"Social Media is Easy"
Yep. Probably the biggest myth out there. Clients ask me all the time if they should get a blog. The short answer is no. If you're not willing to make it a second job then don't do it. It's very hard and time consuming and the results are always delayed and abstract. I known that sounds bad but I don't want my clients wasting their time with social media if they aren't going to put in the effort.
I wrote about it here as well:http://www.claytowne.com/beats-digging-ditches/so...
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