Ever get the feeling that marketers don’t really understand social media – or at least don’t effectively utilize it?
That’s the premise of Steve Rubel’s article on Forbes.com, and he makes an important observation worthy of discussion. Rubel is a well-known member of the digerati who is Director of Insights for Edelman Digital, the digital division of the world’s largest independent PR firm.
Rubel says marketers are making a massive shift to Facebook, Twitter, and YouTube, sometimes to the exclusion of mentioning their own corporate websites. He wonders whether the corporate URL is a dying breed.
But Rubel sees the potential for this strategy to backfire. He says consumers could “perceive corporate real estate on Facebook as a lame attempt to appear cool and hip.” “Many brands are just using their Twitter and Facebook presences to spew out updates, without any thought to how consumers will benefit by essentially opting in,” says Rubel. And most important, he says, “very few businesses treat social networks as personal, conversational spaces. Hardly any feature real employees. And a scant few aim to advance shared interests.”
I think Steve Rubel has given voice to something the big traditional marketers are missing – something savvy online marketers surely understand: social media is not just another channel for ads. As I mentioned in my post about Twitter going commercial, ads on Facebook and Twitter need to be a good fit with those platforms for them to be viewed as authentic.
In fact, authenticity may be the real issue here. Rubel’s observations point to the fact that some big marketers may be viewing social media in an entirely wrong context. Their quick fix answer is to muscle their way into Facebook, Twitter, and YouTube – but once they get there, they have no clue what to do. Think of it as a bully on the basketball court who has no shooting skill. He may be able to take the ball away from the other kids, but he’ll have a heck of a time scoring a basket.
I’m reminded of a time when marketers wanted to convert their messages to another medium called direct marketing. It was a sometimes painful transition: The marketers had to speak in a different voice that put the emphasis on “you” instead of “me.” That’s not easy when you have a corporate ego. Marketers had to learn that direct marketing was at its heart a correspondence relationship. The promotional approach had to be engaging. Copy had to be loaded with benefits, not just features. There had to be a compelling offer. And marketers had to have a strong call to action and numerous response paths – they’d get nowhere without asking for the order and providing specific ways to respond.
In the same way, marketers can’t just stumble blindly into social media. They need to learn the same kind of lesson they were forced to learn when they embraced direct marketing.
Social media is a different animal. Marketers have to engage in a two-way dialogue with consumers to make it work, and they have to be willing to expose themselves to possible negative feedback and open criticism. They have to budget and staff for social media. They need people whose responsibility includes engaging, responding to, and following up with consumers.
All of this takes a commitment to using social media on its own terms. If you want to play on someone’s field, you have to use their ball. Sorry, but social media doesn’t fit into that comfortable little box called traditional marketing. When you look at the way some marketers are approaching social media, you have to wonder if they will ever understand its potential.
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Do Marketers Understand Social Media?
