On the surface, Google Places ...
Social Media is No Holy Grail
Social media is hype.
At seminars and workshops you can hear the phrase bouncing around, Twitter is flooded with the term, and new job titles frequently appear that are based on it. But is social media the holy grail for the marketing and communications industry? Is social media THE solution for brands who cannot reach their customers anymore?
No…
Social media, or social marketing, is a strategic direction for brands to follow. But it is not the only right way to go in the current Zeitgeist. There are other strategies to communicate messages to your target group and obtain a position in their evoked set; even in times like these when it has become hard to reach them.
Social media isn’t a strategy
I often hear companies say they want to do something with social media, without realizing what they want to accomplish and forgetting to set goals. A lot is written about statistics, underlying systems and techniques of successful examples to discover principles. Much of this is based on volatile information, because tomorrow there is always a next big thing. Rarely is social media addressed from a brand perspective. What does social media mean for my brand strategy?
Also, social media often is confused with strategy. Literally, social media relates to means. And means have nothing to do with strategy or strategic directions. Social marketing would be more appropriate in this context: facilitating social needs of target groups from a brand strategy perspective.
Think of questions like: What kind of social needs do my customers have? Can my brand play a role in fulfilling these needs? Which needs match my brand values and communication goals? Is my brand plausible to fulfill this need of my customers?
These kind of questions should be answered first before creating that new cool social platform.
Social media is sometimes undesirable.
A social marketing strategy can be powerful, but isn’t always the right way to go for brands. Maybe the target group isn’t characterized by self-expression, or doesn’t want to socially interact with each other, take for example some business-to-business markets. And it is this need for social interaction that is essential for creating a successful social platform.
Also, sometimes the social needs of a target group can be too different from the values of a brand. Specifically, the link between social need for interaction and the brand values is essential for a successful communication strategy. In other words; The target audience must be able to comprehend the relation between the fulfillment of a social need and the brand, otherwise a preferred place in the mindset of your target audience cannot be accomplished.
Furthermore, for an organizational point of view, it can be undesirable to choose a social marketing strategy. It’s hard work to facilitate a successful platform for a social need. A lot of time, energy and commitment is needed to be successful. Social media isn’t a fully discovered area of interest and a pioneer and flexible attitude is required. And not every organization wants to allocate sufficient budget or time for this.
Should we stick to the old model?
No. One thing is for sure, the traditional way of advertising isn’t good enough anymore. Buying GRPs and trying to repeat your message as much as possible doesn’t work anymore. Consumers are fed up with meaningless advertising and cheap marketing. Brands have to show in their communication why a consumer should give his or her attention.
How?
With communication that is relevant and meaningful to your customers’ life
Appealing to only an emotion or a domain isn’t sufficient anymore for a brand to be distinctive and memorable. Due to media fragmentation and the internet, consumers have more power regarding the information they want to consume. Think for example of banner blindness or zapping away behavior during TV-breaks. According to Nielsen research (http://www.slideshare.net/PingElizabeth/nielsen-trust-and-advertising-global-report-july09) people only trust 14% of advertisements. They have seen enough cosmetic and superficial advertisements from insurance companies that proclaim freedom, breakfast producers claiming happy families or car companies that appeal to successful living, without really proving it and being valuable.
Brand communication has to offer something more for a consumer, in order to be receptive for a brand. By offering something that makes the life of your consumer nicer or easier, brands can stand out from the clutter and get the required attention and even loyal customers. Communication should focus on the needs of a target group to get engaged and loyal customers.
As Trevor Edwards, vice president Global brand & category management Nike, puts it:
“We are not in the business of supporting a media industry, we are in the business of connecting with customers.”
Advertising and marketing should focus more on the social needs of the customers’ lives instead of creating that perfect print ad or optimizing that last bit of their banner strategy. Or put in a different way: advertising should focus on servicing instead of promotion. This kind of communication requires new skills for the marketing department and ad agencies. Not only is the know-how of marketing required, but also knowledge of innovation and an understanding of psychological and social needs.
Read Find a Marketing Technopolist from the WSJ or Making Meaning from Nathan Shedroff, both very insightful.
Is relevant and meaningful communication something new?
No, not really. Being a relevant and valuable brand isn’t something new. Some brands choose to be relevant in the pre-internet era. Think of Michelin and their restaurant reviews, being THE authority for exclusive restaurants. Or what about the second most sold book worldwide after the bible: Guinness Book of Records, created by the Guinness beer brewery. Companies have tried to be relevant and meaningful in their communication. But because of the media dominance of the last century, companies could buy their reach on TV, print and radio and were able to be sure enough people saw their ad. Therefore, their communication didn’t need to be really valuable, they got their reach anyway.
Despite the fact that relevant and meaningful communication is not really new, the internet gives a new dimension to this way of advertising. Think about word-of-mouth, communication- and sharing tools, these improve the impact of relevant and meaningful communication and also create new innovative opportunities. Also the costs for servicing decreases significantly because of economies of scale principles. Think of how expensive it would be for Nike to help runners with their training techniques and progress without the Nike+ platform. Take into account the rapidly decreasing results of push advertising and you will see that relevant and meaningful communication are or will be on top of the brand manager’s list.
How does social media relate to meaningful communication?
So, marketing and advertising should be more relevant by servicing customers’ needs in order to get their attention and loyalty. But how does that relate to the social media phenomenon?
Well, social media facilitates social needs between people and therefore it is relevant and meaningful in this context. Think of Linkedin for business networking or 43things (www.43things.com) for setting and sharing life goals. Also brands can be a relevant participator of facilitator in these platforms. They can facilitate social needs of their target group that match with their brand values.
But there are other ways for a brand to be relevant and meaningful without focusing on social needs. Besides social relevance a brand can be functional or contextual relevant.
Social relevance
The best known type of relevance is social relevance. Brands can be socially relevant for consumers by adopting a social marketing strategy. The focus lies on facilitating social needs.
Think of the well-known Nike+ running (www.nikeplus.com), which helps runners practice their sport by facilitating experiences with each other and strengthen the competitiveness value of the brand.
Also think of other specific interest groups, take for example CFvoice (www.CFvoice.com) initiated by Novartis, an online community for people living with cystic fibrosis and connecting with each other. This platform makes Novartis a more caring and evolved brand, it also gives Novartis valuable insight in the lives of people living with the disease and their cares.
Functional relevance
Brands can be functional relevant for consumers. Providing a service that is useful makes a loyal customer, this concept is also known as branded utility or brand utility.
Take for example the Ifood Iphone app (http://www.kraftfoods.com/kf/iFood.aspx) from Kraft; It helps customers to find recipes for inspiration during shopping and create a shopping list based upon it. The Dutch Iphone App “Appie” takes this service a step further, they are going to create shoppinglist that is based on the routing of the supermarket nearby, so you walk the most efficient route in your supermarket with your online grocery list.
Another example is the Teamlink application of the Dutch beer brewer Amstel. The application helps amateur football players with managing their team. It provides statistics of matches, it has an attendance list for upcoming matches en players can tell who is responsible for doing the laundry or will drive to the next away game. All this lies in line with the friendship and fun brand values of Amstel.
Contextual relevance
Context is becoming more important. With the internet and mobile we can create more valuable information because of the context or location. Mobile applications such as Foursquare or Layar take contextual relevance to the next level.
An example of contextual information I worked on is the social platform Iederzijnrol (soon to be launched)for the City of Rotterdam in the Netherlands. The social platform is based on a Google Maps application where participants can deliver suggestions about where and how to improve their council. They can discuss en judge ideas as well. It also provides the city a platform to show what they have undertaken in each council. In this way, residents can participate in the safety of their council and can see what is done by the city in their particular neighborhood. This context of neighborhood makes it more relevant than the general and often meaningless ads on a city level.
Summing up
Brands that are relevant and meaningful, have a sustainable relation with their target group. That’s something really valuable in times when you cannot buy the required attention of you customer anymore. In which way a brand wants to be relevant or on what level depends on its strategy. Internet is often an important facilitator for this relevance.
Finding and proving to be relevant and to be compliant with the values of a brand and strategy takes requires a new set of skills. Not only communication skills are required, also knowledge of innovation and an understanding of social needs are of importance. Ad agencies that foster these three areas can be of great value, but are still scarce. But being relevant and meaningful for your target group can be really profitable; Having a sustainable relationship with your customer makes a loyal customer and that creates a great competitive advantage.
Interested in more social media news and discussion? Join TNW Social Media on Facebook and Twitter, or grab our RSS feed here.
Discussion - 29 Comments/Pingbacks RSS feed for comments on this post
-
Besserwerberblog • Marketing für Besserwerber
Experten unter sich…
Social Media ist keine heilige Kuh, sagen sie.
Social Media bestimmt die Kommunikation der Zukunft, sagt er.
Social Media ist ein Halluzinogen, sagen wir…. -
Nothing’s permanent, not even death. – The Buzz Bin
[...] Should a social network be obligated to allow a user to vanish? It can be simplified as who owns the content. The article 10 ways social media will change in 2010 expounds on the idea that a battle over content will erupt is a very real concern. And a social network profile is really just content, albeit juicy content for advertising impression research and trends. [...]
-
Avalon Consulting LLC Blogs » Social Media is a means not a strategy!
[...] van Beek wrote an excellent article entitled “Social Media is No Holy Grail” on TheNextWeb that effectively elaborates on these ideas. Put the strategy first and you might be surprised at [...]
-
מדיה חברתית: לא בכל מחיר | חורים ברשת
[...] Social media is no holy grail [...]
-
The Next Web’s Weekly Recap: Twitter Features, Apple Event and Google in China
[...] great discussion on social media marketing strategy and its place in [...]
-
Bithalter 030′10 | Webzeugkoffer Webdesign
[...] Social Media is No Holy Grail [...]
What an amazing article. A lot of the points covered in here should become the standard for marketing companies both young and old. Good to see some more thought being put into this topic. Definitely sharing this with as many people as possible.
Thats a great piece of typing. Calculating the importance of social needs determines a success or failure business
I really like your examples of relevance – the Teamlink idea is pure genius.
This is a very useful and interesting article. There is so much hype about social media and marketing. Your post cuts through this with great clarity to get to the point of being relevant and useful to your customers first, and use social media if it suitable for your customers. Thanks.
Unfortunately I had a hard time reading this article. Social media and social marketing are not remotely the same thing, even though you equate them early on. You then continue to mix terms and metaphors. When you say either, you 'seem' to be referring to social media marketing (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Social_media_marke...) and that's different than either of the other terms.
You make some good points later about understanding context, platforms, relevance and audience behaviour and habits.
For clarification (and you do alude to this but I believe it's muddled due to a lack of clarity in the writing), social marketing is an approach to communication to affect behaviour on social issues, social media is a type or category of technology to which many specific technologies belongs. The two may or may not be closely related, depending on a third element, which is the strategy you employ and the tactics you use to employ it.
Thanks for the insight. Yes, social media is no silver bullet and beware of social media snake oil salesmen. I like your focus on skills. I do believe that social media has added new skills to the list of what is needed for basic knowledge workplace competency. http://www.dynamicalsoftware.com/internet/skills goes into more detail such as community management, profile management, choice of communication medium/writing style. These are skills for all knowledge workers and not just the advertising/sales department.
Today,Basic communication skills is an absoloutely important factor.Social websites are now making their presense felt.Every third person have an account on these websites.This is because these websites provide timt-to-time information on major issues.The communication skills adopted by these websites are very easy and understandable.Effective communication always help to attract customers which enables their work force maintain better interpersonal work relations.
Thanks for your comment
Hi James, thanks for your comment.
It's a bit of a semantical discussion. I define social media as means and social marketing as strategy. So with a social marketing strategy you can choose to deploy social media.
Therefore I find the term social media marketing confusing.
Thanks Will for your positive feedback.
There's indeed a lot of buzz around social media. It reminds me sometimes of the hype about Second Life. Though with social media there is an underlying shift going on; The relationship between brands and consumers is changing.
But is social media the holy grail for the marketing and communications industry? Is social media THE solution for brands who cannot reach their customers
Amazing Post
all points are pretty spot on, and you are absolutely right, especially when you summarize it up saying in social media it's about being relevant <—(Key) to your audience. it's all about building a community around your brand , and seeing a clear path on how you going do it, is important as well. Very much enjoy this post
Great insights! and very relevant to the current perceptions of the marketplace and clients.
Loved the post, and linked to it on our blog :www.feeddbindia.posterous.com
Hi Jan,
Absolutely simple but very insightful article. Context and Location is the key. I work for a leading augmented reality company, metaio, and would love to chat with you about augmented reality and branding experience in the new medium. Let me know if you are interested to have an informal chat.
-Lisa
While I agree with you on some of the points of this article I think your missing one of the major benefits of social media and its not the marketing aspect of social media though it is usually a very beneficial side effect.
I like to think of social media as almost going back to the old days of sales, where when you went to the corner grocery store the clerks all knew you, and your butcher knew your favorite cuts of meat. I'm no scientist but I think human beings in general like to feel like they can interact with the places they do business with. It give business a way to interact more directly with their clients and this has a two fold effect, on one hand it gains the trust of the consumer (which I believe is the most beneficial thing) and two it gives the company insight into how to make their products more capable of fitting their customers desires.
I believe that thanks to social media honesty, trust and brand loyalty are starting to creep their way back into our world,
I just read my response I will admit I went off on a little tangent, I do however see where you were going with the difference between social media and social marketing and how the two shouldn't be confused but most times are confused… BTW great post!
You are spot on, and it’s great to read something written by a digital practitioner that is in touch with what clients actually need. I get so mad at people who do not understand the difference between strategy and tactics in digital marketing. I think the biggest change in the industry is the demand for it to move away from an industry dominated by tactical solutions (such as search, web design, social media, email, etc) and for it to be based around an overall digital marketing strategy. In the UK digital spend (across all disciplines) has overtaken TV ad spend which means it is no longer a nice thing to have tacked on at the end of the marketing meeting, but a serious constituent part of overall marketing activity. Traditional offline agencies have the strategic and creative experience to deliver this but still don't seem to understand the medium which means that clients are not being served as well as they could be. Similarly most digital agencies are still stuck in their tactical silo mentalities and so are not able to deliver strategic solutions. When I set up Interactive Mix as a <http://www.interactive-mix.com“>digital marketing agency it was to fill this exact gap. We are now a year old and when I started people looked at me blankly but now people are starting to get it and see that we are offering a new way of doing things.
Social media is a huge part of that but clients can't simply measure ROI in terms of visitors it is about what you do with those visitors that counts.
Good article. Especially the part of being relevant to your audience. I think you are talking about relevant content (Michellin guide for example), hence Content Marketing. In my opinion you have to know what your audience is talking about and where. Than adapt your communication strategy and offer relevant information, discuss, interact and – important – keep monetizing. More on this topic on http://www.merge-media.com
Hi Lismurph,
Thanks for the positive feedback!
You can contact me at jan-willem.van.beek@greenberry.nl
Hi SGTMcClain,
I agree with you regarding the existence of mutual dependancy between brands and customers. I found the book 'The world is flat' really insightful in this matter. http://www.thomaslfriedman.com/bookshelf/the-wo...
Hi Aroon,
I totally agree with you regarding the lack of strategy when it comes to digital or social marketing. Too often the Forresters' POST method is used in reverse, instead of starting with analyzing the social needs of the target group.
In my experience traditional agencies lack in their knowledge of innovation (especially the creative elite in such agencies) and digital agencies lack creative capabilities and focus too much on online metrics instead of communication goals. I think a new breed of agencies which foster on both will be truly successful.
It is true that Social Media is not the holy Grail but it is rubbish.why peoples say like that.why?
hi Face book Applications ( I agree with u that Social Media is not the holy grail.that are thing is rubbish).mind it !