Turn Avoidance Into Engagement
Why is social media so scary for traditional marketers? Because social media acknowledges that consumers are getting smarter. Smarter consumers means that marketers have to get smarter. Not a comfortable thought for the people who are currently considered marketing pros.
It is no longer enough to get your product in the right place for the right price with the right promotion. Of course those things all help (a lot), but social media gives the ability to join the right conversation. Consumers have been doing their best to avoid marketing messages for quite some time now, but the goal of social media is to provide a forum in which consumers want to engage. It doesn’t take a leap of faith to agree that engaging consumers is more beneficial than shoving a message in the face of an unwilling listener.
Another scary aspect of social media is that it often includes a waiting game. Consumers do not want their lives (conversations) intruded upon, but they do welcome answers when they pose a question. Prior to even pitching a social media plan, you have to listen to, analyze, and track conversations about the product. After you’ve listened, you better become the expert, because you need to jump head first into the communities that discuss your products. By “jump head first” I do not mean START SELLING! I mean be a member of the community. Add value, answer questions, be transparent.
Perhaps the most difficult aspect of social media for traditional marketers to grasp is the idea that (before engaging) they must ask whether they are contributing to the conversation or selling. Selling is going to lead to avoidance, contributing value will lead to engagement. Transparency is one of the keys here. People will talk about your brand (both positively and negatively) whether you are there to hear it and engage in it or not.
The difficulty that comes with engaging customers is what draws me to social media. It’s an art of sorts. If traditional marketing is a blacksmith (forcing metal into unnatural, yet strong, forms), then social media marketing is glass blowing (strategically forming glass into an organic form with intelligent persuasion). Like blown glass, no two social media plans are exactly the same.
Agree? Disagree? Like to add? Looking forward to your comments.
I agree 100%, Scott. The blacksmithing/glassblowing comparison is a solid metaphor, and I think it’s all just a matter of people understanding the points you discuss and doing what’s best for their consumers, not doing what’s best for themselves (although, really, doing what’s best for your consumers basically is doing what’s best for yourself). Although certain marketers and upper-level executives may not want to accept that fact, the ones who don’t are in trouble.
The ones who do accept that fact, however, end up doing great things. Kind of like this guy – http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-rTzIAWI4Ms. (That’s Barry Judge, basically personifying your point exactly…)
Good post with great insight as usual, Scott!