Through a social media marketing group on LinkedIn, Yasmin Ben-Dror, Vice President of Affect Strategies and owner of Marketing Matters Consulting, posted this discussion from her blog: Five Tips on Finding the Right Social Media Advisor or Agency for Your Company, by fellow blogger and colleague, Sandra Fathi. I found Sandra's tips to be pretty straight forward and I try to hold myself to those same standards as a PR professional who produces social media for clients. But it was actually a comment on Yasmin’s discussion that sparked this post. Read Yasmin and Sandra's blog here.
Ben jamin Waxman is a marketing strategy consultant and owner of Benjamin Waxman Communications. Benjamin’s comment:
Yasmin, I agree with many of your points and yet the odd thing about this and other posts I've seen to help firms evaluate social media options is this sense that everyone should go in whole hog. A couple examples from traditional marketing: just because you have advertising budget doesn't mean you put up the largest hi-tech billboard in Times Square or advertise in the WSJ. Just because you have a trade show budget doesn't mean you exhibit at your industry's biggest show.
Social media is a new tool in the range of marketing options available. If you want to be successful with any marketing tool, you use it the way that fits your firm, your goals, your budget. If creating a more robust online presence and using a few social media elements can help you meet your goals that's great. But just because it exists does not mean you have to enter the field; just because it exists does not mean you have to enter the entire field.
Manipulate marketing tools to meet your goals. You don't HAVE to engage your target audience in social media conversations. That option exists, but it may have limited value based on the time and budget required. And here's the controversial kicker: I firmly believe that for some companies (think professional service firms that grow based on their referral network) social media can be a new outgoing content distribution channel that their professional audience will appreciate - without the two-way conversation tools social media offers. The new wave of social media gurus seem to bristle at this thought, but for some companies, this is the route to increased referrals with minimal time investment.
What do you think?
His comment really struck me. My first instinct: chalk it up to another long time marketing guy who isn’t able to see the full picture. But, then it really got me thinking… This might just be an example of the difference between the mindsets of PR professionals and marketing professionals. To expand on Benjamin’s comment; this is what I think:
Social Media is ALWAYS Relevant.
I realize that I am still young to the industry and I value all the guidance I am privileged to receive from the veterans of our field. But I feel confident in saying there is no question of whether we enter the field; the only question is HOW we enter the field.
I don't discount that social media is one of many marketing tools. And certainly there are different ways to leverage the tool based on client needs. However, (and this is where many seasoned communications gurus will want to disagree) the social media site is a medium like television, radio and newspaper. Yet the difference is that, unlike print and broadcast media, social media combines journalism, video, audio, images and (the big difference) feedback, all into one medium. And each social medium has capacity to link to another social medium or a website that can be found in one place, the internet.
Several recent studies have indicated social media has overtaken pornography as the number one use of the internet. During a senate committee hearing called to discuss the recent demise of traditional news media, Senator John F. Kerry pointed out some startling stats. Boston Globe staffer, Susan Milligan reported his prepared statements in here story, News Paper Champions vs. New Media. I pulled a few notable ones for the purposes of this blog, but you can read Susan's story here.
"Consider this," he said, first pointing out Google's 2008 advertising revenue of $21.7 billion. He continues his list, "YouTube has more than 100 million viewers each day and about 65,000 new videos uploaded daily. Its ad revenue reportedly totals somewhere between $120 million and $500 million a year." He goes on to compare Facebook's reported $300 million in ad revenue last year at 200 million users and growing by the hundreds of thousands daily with the New York Times paid circulation of just $1.75 million. "Ironically," he explains, "on Facebook the newspaper has 447,926 'friends.'"
My point here is that if there are public relations, marketing or advertising goals in mind, social media is always relevant.
Be the Horse’s Mouth!
Sure, we don’t have to use podcasts and video on Facebook fan pages. We don’t have to maintain a company blog for someone to blog about our products or company. But we do have to realize that whatever medium (social media included) we choose; we are still bound to end up in other forms of social media. Newspapers and news stations put content online and have comment sections under their stories, any clips from television can be posted to YouTube, (if it is effective) a billboard will probably be captured by a camera and posted online in some form or fashion and almost certainly, someone will blog about the tradeshow or post pictures from it to a social networking profile.
Social media exists whether we like it, find it credible or think it is appalling that citizen-journalism is gaining credibility. And its not just about creating a more robust presence online, although (in many cases) we probably can’t compete with SEO unless we utilize it in some fashion. It is also about managing our reputation and image. If we want control over our brand/company/name/product, we will need to utilize social media. And why not? Social media reaches a larger audience, its faster, can be targeted to certain audiences and is less expensive. Plus, we can create content in whatever form we like and get quick, measurable feedback.
One is the Loneliest Number
Finally, there is no choice on whether social media is a two-way conversation. This is even the case in the example of an outgoing content channel for a professional audience to appreciate. If we put the content out there, there will be comments, it will be shared or posted for others to read and (here is the part that increases our professional credibility) emailed to colleagues and quoted or discussed in an industry blog. The two-way conversation in social media can be a call to action or simply just a forwarding of our credible and professional content, which adds to the reputation of a company. The fact remains that if content does not spark two-way conversation, it is not effective.
Different Minds and Different Times
So, Benjamin and I probably don't think of social media in all the same ways. Call me a "new wave social media guru." Me a guru? Stop it! That is so sweet! But in all seriousness, though not a guru, I do bristle at the thought of not using the two-way conversation function of social media. I think my qualm with this technique is that if you don't anticipate the two-way conversation, you are (1.) in danger of having less control over how the content reflects on you and (2.) wasting your time with a tool that probably won't be all that effective.
I also think there is a place for marketers like Benjamin in this business. He can express a very formulated understanding of all facets of marketing to a company. And I think what he would call using social media as an "outgoing content distribution channel," I would call using social media for publicity. Yet, many company decision makers are simply not ready to embrace all aspects of social media and Benjamin may just have himself a better formulated pitch for those guys.
Your thoughts?