Social media is the answer to life, the universe and everything
Who here is fed up to the back teeth of hearing about how utterly brilliant social media is? Did I here that Facebook signup has plateau’d and Twitter is diminishing?
Image credit: Milk & Honey Band
Don’t be fooled my friends we’re going to be hearing a lot more about it for the foreseeable future; there was even talk around the studio that traditional websites now have a shelf life. Oh, and by the way email is on the way out too.
Those of you in favour of old school or more traditional methods of advertising and marketing would do well to stay awake, because tomorrow the rules will change and we’ll want it faster, better, in pink (very web 2.0) and if you don’t we’ll find someone else who will – Clearly social media is not the answer to everything, it’s not likely to be either, however:
Two interesting points – traditional websites have a shelf life. What was meant by this applies to the current trend in newspaper publications – the fact that readership is diminishing, we’re getting our news online, we’re not looking for it, it comes to us (via email, rss feeds, facebook group posts etc…) apart from thankfully the weekend, when I can think of nothing better than finding a quiet corner with a mug of the best brew and my Sunday papers surrounding me – I digress. Traditional websites suffer from a lack of interaction, they don’t produce content, they sit there like a brochures getting dog eared and dusty through a lack of TLC. Due to the search engines loving blogs and Twitter posts when we search or are doing some research into a particular product or service they are at the top, and because we’re largely lazy, we only look at the top few items. So all of a sudden that website that you spent the best part of £30k on with a monthly retained fee to Mr SEO is all of a sudden going to become redundant… No of course not, but you know what, it’s going to have to work a hell of a lot harder to get the attention you deservedly think it should get.
You’re thinking, “Oh God, that means I’ve got to get a blog and start Twittering or something… but hell that means people can comment and I can’t control the content or comments, and the commitment – I just don’t have the time; a rock and hard place come to mind.”
For those of you worried about protecting your brand or negative product or really bad customer service response times – guess what, it’s all over the internet already, your staff, your customers, your suppliers they’re already telling everyone they know and anyone who’ll listen. It might be personal and on LinkedIn, Facebook or their blog, but guess what, I bet it comes up in Google! So clearly the best thing to do is hide, no, go on holiday, appoint a fall guy… What you need to do is find a professional. Now get a social media strategy together that allows you to post all the billiant things you’ve done, the awesome results you’ve achieved, get testimonials, build your profile with positives, build your own fan base. What starts to happen is that your fans look after your brand for you – they come to your help; time and again I have come across this. Your business has got some passionate followers out there and you need to give them a voice. How do you start, what do you do, hell it can’t be that hard, all these tools are free, this should be a peace of… no wait, what am I going to say? As I said find someone that’s been recommended or someone you trust that knows what they’re doing, at the very least check them out. Always be suspicious of someone that calls themselves an expert or a guru; social media is a moving feast, look for longevity with actual or personal case studies under their belt.
Ok, so social media has a role to play but it’s not the answer to everything. Rory Sutherland pointed me to an interesting article in the FT back in June 2007 which decrees a necessary spend in advertising. It reads: “For advertising is not the only way to promote a product. The money that manufacturers are forced to save on advertising may, for example, be diverted into research and development: ad-banners might inadvertently be helping to create even more irresistible junk… Or the unspent advertising budget may simply be used to cut prices – and cheaper, unadvertised junk… may sell in greater volume.” The full article can be read here: “Spread the word about the benefits of advertising” by Jamie Whyte.
My other, I thought, interesting point – email is on the way out. And I’m not talking about Google Wave. I guess I’ll leave that point for another post.