Now here’s an interesting topic, but not necessarily in the way it’s supposed to be discussed. Of course social media is all about relationships and social media marketing involved all the important things in a relationship like listening, understanding, respect and give-and-take.
However the impact of social media on our real relationships is too important not to mention. Great video that illustrates this:
Back on topic, I think the key challenges facing social media marketers are sincerity to the brand, being interesting without overstepping the mark, turning their work into real value for the organisation and engaging with corporate social responsibility.
It’s a real challenge for social media marketers to be sincere to the brands and organisations they are working for. Particularly if social media marketing is outsourced, those responsible can be removed from the organisation and have little understanding of their culture, their customers, market, products and services.
All to often, social media marketing is becoming cookie-cutter stuff that simply chases superficial engagement – likes, comments, shares, retweets and so on. For some of the worst examples, check out the Condescending Corporate Brand Facebook page. This is where you don’t want to end up.
A quick scan of the Condescending Corporate Brand Facebook page shows just how many brands seem satisfied with superficial, generic social media aimed at engagement statistics rather than real engagement. It’s depressing reading, although some of it is so bad it’s also amusing.
I’ll come back to discussing the use of analytics such as Facebook Insights on another topic, but it’s already clear that measuring social media strategy needs to be about more than just the numbers.
Whether embedded in the organisation or acting as an outsourced contractor, social media marketers need to really understand the organisation, their culture, customers, markets, products and services. A social media strategy should make these elements clear – what is our voice, how do we respond to different possibilities and how is the strategy creating value.
Chasing likes, comments, shares, retweets and so on doesn’t build a relationship on its own.
As well as being sincere to the brand or organisation, social media needs to be interesting without overstepping the mark. What is the mark? This will differ for different organisations. Obviously, social media for a church will be different to a tattooist for instance. If engaging in a social media campaign, both of these examples need to be interesting, but they will have different boundaries and therefore will have to maintain interest in different ways.
For example, take a look at the difference between the Hillsong Church Facebook page and the Cherry Bar in Melbourne. Both are sincere and interesting to their market, which of course means they’re very different.
Finally, corporate social responsibility must be considered. If an organisation builds relationships with a large number of people, what is the responsibility that comes with that reach and power. Is it really power? Can an organisation use their reach to do positive things without alienating their customers?
This is a topic worth further discussion, but here’s an interesting example for discussion. Perhaps Kraft/Vegemite think they’re doing a good service while also promoting their brand and building engagement, but Condescending Corporate Brand page saw it differently.
