Social Media - It’s all About the Principles, not the Tactics
Social media is ever-changing. In reality it’s the community ideals behind blogs, Facebook, podcasts, text messaging, micro-blogging and more, that are fundamental. The cool tools will evolve, change and disappear, but those ideals will always remain.
I really want to emphasize that tools change; however, principles stay the same. Let’s take a look at the principles behind social media and marketing, and tips for using these principles of community in action.
We’ve established that social media is based on the notion of community and relationships. That’s a huge departure from traditional corporate marketing techniques. It necessitates a new handbook, a new marketing operating manual and a new state of mind.
Geoff Livingston, author of ‘Now is Gone’, offers guidance in his writings on the new world of social marketing. He encourages marketers to ignore the shiny new tools the internet has to offer and focus instead on the universal principles behind their usage.
To guide our new marketing techniques in the world of social media, Livingston offers Seven Principles of Social Media Communications:
1. RELINQUISH MESSAGE CONTROL
Businesses survive on the things they can control, and marketers are comfortable when they can control what messages are going out. However, social media is about relationships, giving up control in favor of two-way communications. A relationship with only one person talking? That’s dysfunctional. This is what it would be like in social media if one party tried to control or dominate the conversation.
2. BE HONEST, ETHICAL AND TRANSPARENT
Just like a relationship between two people or within a family, trust is essential in social media. You’re trying to build a strong foundation for a long-term, mutually beneficial relationship. That doesn’t mean you have to share all your secrets, but it means you need to treat customers and users with this idea of relationship in mind.
3. MARKET THROUGH PARTICIPATION WITHIN THE COMMUNITY
So you create a blog, or set up a YouTube channel. Many marketers stop there, thinking that creating content is enough. That’s the old way of doing things, focused on one-way communication. With social media, companies must go further, connecting through comments, reading other blogs, interacting with users in community groups or social networks, and generally becoming part of the community. That’s the only way to develop respect and acceptance.
4. DON’T THINK ABOUT COMMUNICATION TO AUDIENCES, BUT WITH THEM
With social media, audiences talk back. Organizations must be ready to engage in conversations, not simply present content and move on. Again, thinking about relationships, communication is based on two or more people contributing, not one person controlling.
5. BUILD VALUE FOR THE COMMUNITY
By understanding the people you’re interacting with, you can better serve them with valuable information. That’s what content creation is about in this brave new world – creating something of value in order to build and sustain relationships.
6. INSPIRE YOUR COMMUNITY WITH REAL AND EXCITING INFORMATION
What is something of value for your community? It’s not corporate propaganda. It’s not a press release. Great content is providing answers to your community’s problems, acknowledging and addressing concerns, and fighting for their interests.
7. INTELLIGENTLY MANAGE MEDIA FORMS TO BUILD A STRONGER, LOYAL COMMUNITY
Part of a good relationship? Consistency and accessibility. Make sure your community can easily come back, can always access your content and your contact information, and get their expectations met or exceeded.
With these principles guiding marketer actions, you don’t need to be leery of social media. This change in perspective is indeed something to think about and get used to. It can ultimately enhance the quality and results of marketing, and create a customer base that will stick with you.
ENGAGING WITH ONLINE COMMUNITIES
How does a marketer put these principles into action, and engage with online communities in a meaningful way? The best way to start is to do your homework and then participate.
To really understand these social marketing principles and to see what the social media world is like, you need to do your research. Check out the blogs that exist solely to discuss your therapeutic area, or even your brand. Technorati currently tracks over 40 million blogs and estimates approximately 70,000 new blogs are created every day. A simple Technorati search can tell you within seconds what blogs exist in and around your therapeutic area. Even more telling, a search can reveal exactly what bloggers are saying about your brand and your company.
Just as with blogs, you need to explore other social media to see what exists in your therapeutic area, and what relates to your brand or company. An easy way to discover what’s new and relevant across social media platforms is a Google Alert. Signing up for a Google Alert on your topic, your brand, your company, or even a specific blog or name, can help you keep tabs on what’s being said, and who is important to communicate with.
- Google can find blogs, YouTube videos, Flickr pictures, and even some results from social networking sites, and send the links directly to your email.
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Other tools exist to search social media options and learn what’s being said:
- Use BoardTracker to get instant alerts from threads on discussion boards citing your brand or company name.
- Use Twitter Search to locate any instances of your name, brand, company, or topic.
- Use FriendFeed and set up a search. FriendFeed aggregates all social media tools - like Delicious, Twitter, Flickr and more. You can conduct searches on your brand or company throughout all these networks at once.
This homework will teach you volumes about your company’s reputation, what concerns exist in your therapeutic area, and simply how social media works.
The next step is to participate. To truly get involved in the community around your condition and brand, subscribe to the most relevant blogs you can find. Blogging platforms offer you an option to subscribe via email or RSS (Real Simple Syndication - which sends new content to a special viewing system, like Google Reader).
Familiarize yourself with the bloggers and their content, but don’t stop there. The most powerful portion of blog reading is the ability to leave comments. A well placed comment that asks questions, or otherwise adds to the conversation, can put you in the position to learn more and to slowly build respect in the blogosphere.
As you find relevant results through Google alerts, Twitter searches and more, your goal should also be to participate and engage with the community. Tweet replies to Twitter users asking questions about your brand. Join the discussion groups in which your therapeutic area and/or brands are being discussed. Identify Facebook users that are interested in your topic or brand, and make connections.
The goal with participation is to build a presence and begin to create the relationships upon which social media rests.
WHEN DOES SOCIAL MEDIA TURN INTO MARKETING?
You’re doing your homework, discovering the fascinating extent of the conversations and communities online, and you’re starting to realize the reason social media has caught on the way it has. But now the question is: Where does simple participation end and marketing begin?
This may be another reason marketers are unsure about social media. The rules are blurred in today’s online communities, and business and pleasure are routinely mixed. Marketers are uncertain when to simply chat with people online, and when to market their brands.
The answer? It all counts. Every activity you engage in with online communities acts towards building your brands. In today’s social media environment, users want the entire package with a product or service. They want an excellent product, but also expansive service; they want a knowledgeable expert, but also a human, understanding resource; they want options, but they also want customization and personal solutions.
That means that your social media activities must be about more than simply selling, but also about creating your brand persona. You are a company made of real people, and your brand is a result of that. Customers today want to know this, to know their preferred brand’s care about them because they understand them and relate to them. Through your social marketing, you can establish your brand as a very human and helpful resource, one that should inspire loyalty now and in the future.
Your social media participation always counts as marketing, building your brand in the following ways:
Humanizing
People gravitate towards doing business with people they like and, in the social media world, this is a hard and fast rule. Everything you do, even if it’s chatting with a connection on Facebook about the fact that you both enjoy football, goes towards establishing your brand as a relatable and likeable entity.
Understanding
Through your social media interactions, you are focusing on learning about the customer. This not only establishes the basis for individual conversations, but also encourages users to realize your brand understands them.
Establishing the Customer as the Focus
Through your social media participation, your focus on others and on creating interest and value for others acts to position your brand as customer-focused. It shows users that you know who is most important and will continue to treat them with the attention they deserve.
Softly Selling
No one wants to be sold to, and in online communities that is an unbreakable rule. Remember that communication must be two-way, and embarking upon hard selling tactics is a heavy-handed technique that smacks of control. Online communities will resist, and will even react through negative postings. On the other hand, if your social media interactions are focused on the customer, and softly selling when the situation calls for it, your brand is established once again as an ideal resource.
CONCLUSION
Your activities should work to build your brand as an entity that is relatable, understands users, and can be trusted. Stick with the principles outlined here and all your activities in online communities can work together to project your brand into the highest levels of success.
For more information on the why and how to use social media in your marketing strategy, contact Dr. Andree Bates on abates@eularis.com.