Social Media Marketing: You Fear, You Fail
A few weeks ago a company I work with lost an amazing opportunity. We gave them the idea to create one of the best brand blogs I've ever seen.
They said no. Instead, they decided to create a social media strategy that was boring and dictated by legalities. Just imagine a blog that doesn't allow customer comments. The campaign not only offered zero value to customers, but in the end it ignored them by turning the blog into a press release platform. Ultimately, the brand decided to trash the project and walk away from social media.
This is guest post was written by Samir Balwani, an emerging technologies strategist at Morpheus Media. You can follow him on Twitter
The biggest reason most social media marketing campaigns fail is fear - fear of jumping into something new and trying a social media marketing strategy.
Social media marketing doesn't always guarantee short-term results, could be risky and doesn't always work. But what most brands don't realize is that doing nothing may be even riskier.
Engaging consumers online requires a brand to stop worrying and become personable. The scenario where a brand image is forever ruined is such an anomaly that brands need not worry. The act of interacting with a customer inherently humanizes the brand, which protects it from potentially brand-shattering backlashes. Consumers are more likely to support and champion a brand that they feel connected to.
Remember Motrin? Didn't Thinks So
Even the most well-known social gaffes are quickly forgotten. For example, Motrin's controversial YouTube ad caused little long-term brand damage.
The Motrin story starts with the release of what many mothers considered a controversial ad. When a number of mothers on Twitter found it offensive, Motrin responded quickly, removed the ad, and posted an apology. Shortly after an apology was posted, Motrin consumers stopped caring about the marketing mistake. They recognized that someone made a mistake, and the story blew over.
Although mistakes occur, the effects can be controlled with an understanding of online PR and proper online reputation management. The average consumers won't find a marketing failure unless they specifically search for it. A Google search for Motrin on Jan. 11, 2010 returned only Motrin product information for the first eight results. The 9th position is the actual commercial. However, even that can be remedied with online reputation management. Realizing that smart brands can engage in social media marketing with minimal risk can help overcome the fear of backlash.
In a digital world where consumers have a low attention span and news moves quickly, the fear of permanently ruining a brand by engaging online need not be entertained. At most, a brand will experience short-lived obstacles and minor backlashes as it grows to understand how to engage online.
The fear of error is a natural one, but it's not the only one that can cause a brand's social media marketing campaign to fail. Most brands tend to also be afraid of losing control over their image.
It's ironic that most companies are afraid to trust their consumers but expect their customers to trust them.
Next page: Define a Brand With the Push of a ButtonLearn more about social media managment from experts -- check out the ReadWriteWeb Guide to Online Community Management. It highlights the hottest issues in online community management (Download a free sample of the document here), and you get access to a password protected online aggregator that automatically serves up the most-talked about blog posts concerning community management each day -- a great resource for ongoing professional development.
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Great article, the title alone is going to build a lot of buzz for this. I made this one of my three links for the day on my daily design blog "Design Thought for the Day":
http://designthoughtfortheday.blogspot.com/2010/01/11-15-smm-you-fear-you-fail-chrome.html
All the best, Ted
Good article.. Trust works both ways.
http://www.neuartist.com/
Nice post. I also think that brands need to view social media as an ongoing strategy, not a campaign, and subsequently fund it (and plan) accordingly...
I'm shocked with how many times you see a brand launch a product, build up a following, and then "walk away from the conversation" (and the community) once the campaign is over. Or, as you stated in your original example once they hit a little bump in the road...
Nice post. I've been struggling with a nice way to express this very notion, "You have to be willing to suck..." to have success in social media.
If the low-attention span public will forget your gaffes, won't they also forget your positive messages?
And, as anyone who searches the web for answers knows, the Internet never forgets.
And that's the reason you need to actively reach out to customers: you can remove poorly-conceived things from your web site, but a customer's negative blog post could potentially show up in search results for decades.
Great entry, and I've even found an example of a franchise owner who is using social media to build trust and even highlights his mistakes:
http://www.socialmediaexaminer.com/chicago-pizza-guy-creates-social-media-domino-effect/
If you watch the video, they've admitted they messed up and promise to deliver the WOW factor for their next order. And viral did this one ever go.
Cheers,
Drew
Hi,
This is really a fantastic article. People have to be interactive. Customers need human touch in this age of internet.
Thanks for sharing,
Darshan Kothari
i'm sorry, but i call bullshit, there are only so many times you can experiment and f*ck up, and the second time i don't think people will be so aceptive to a simple online apology. I also think that as more brands try sh*t and offend and offer cheap aplogy marketing cliches such as offered here and in tc and 37s etc, the value of each apology is less and less
Businesses that decide to survive and even grow have to unlearn as much as they have to learn.
It surprises me to see the "fear of sharing" that's prevalent with many small businesses.
It's like they are mired in so much cynicism that they're missing the whole point of the new media advantages.
Here they have this amazing opportunity to engage their customers and more importantly their potential customers in an open and helpful way that can generate sincere interest andthey are balking at it.
We have out work cut out for us in dragging them kicking and screaming into the world of today where media is concerned.
Or I suppose we can just let them crash and burn for failing to adapt, and choose only to work with, and for the ones who "get it", at least a little bit.
Samir,
Great post. I've recently had a similar experience, working with a non-profit agency, trying to explain to them why social media matters. They get it now, sort of.
There seem to be many organizations and companies out there that still don't though. (Kind of amazing, no?)
I recently did a blog post about Pepsi withdrawing their Superbowl ads and diverting those resources towards their upcoming Refresh Project, which --if nothing else-- is built heavily on social media. We'll see how successful it is. Personally, I have a feeling it will do very well for them.
(To read the post go to http://www.babblefarm.com/2009/12/29/pepsi-pulls-out-of-the-superbowl-44-the-end-of-broadcasting/ )
It may take awhile, but eventually all companies (and non-profits) big and small will realize that if they're not in the Game, the Game will move on without them.
Great article. I was just talking about this with a client. You have to be willing to try and willing to risk failing to achieve your goals and succeed.
Well Social media marketing is the process of promoting your site or business through social media channels and it is a powerful strategy that will get you links, attention and massive amounts of traffic.One of the important aspect of social media is quality back links from many websites. If your post become popular you will get back links from many social news aggregate websites and that will be benefit for good SEO and page rank.
Exactly. If you fear change, you will die. If you take too long, the decision will be made for you. If you sit on the beach and watch the tidal wave come in, you'll be the only one drowning when the wave hits.
Here is my contribution to the conversation, enjoy: http://taylormarek.com/2010/01/05/how-does-avatar-apply-to-social-media/
Some management teams of these companies completely befuddle me. They don't want to deal with the public at all. They want everyone to know about their business but don't want to have a conversation with anyone except a client, customer etc. They put a gag order on themselves.
This is a great post. Just a thought for business and humans, the future is not in the rear view mirror. Change is always uncomfortable and to be successful we must learn to live there.
Interesting post. I would pick up on the following point if I may:
Instead of realizing the truth that consumers are already talking about brands and republishing brand asset (remixing, as Lawrence Lessig would say), most brands act as if they can still exert control over what their consumers know and see.
Brands can surely exert control over their brand. Marketers understand that the brand perception is perceived in the minds of the people yet there are certainly 'things' that can be done to help influence/shape this perception. Its not like because of social media people are suddenly re-inventing how brands are perceived. People have always talked in the RW. So to me social media simply amplifies the voice of the public opinion of a brand perception that is deliberately crafted for good or worse. Right?
While your points are ALL very noteworthy ways of better leveraging social media marketing,
Business are (and should be afraid of social media marketing) as it is NOT the familiar one-way conversation, but the conversation is the market.... and that conversation should be anti-Advertising!.... rather the major objectives of this media are centered around... places where people get what they want from other people, versus anything too corporate - like the inner company blog... which means "No Advertising" - at least none that which is self-inflating.
This is the world of people getting support from other people, getting advocates of your 'cause' (technology, services as a category verus a corporate identity), giving helpful advise or criticism vs. just praises, and a willingness to just get down and be personal.
Likewise, it's important to see things from the 'defense' or 'necessary evil' perspective: People are talking about your business everyday - there is nothing you can do to stop it. They also expect you as a caring listening business to seek out their 'public' conversations, and respond.
Put another way, if you do hear a big griper and pro-actively respond and fix their problem, the likelihood is pretty good that they will also turn around and become one of your biggest advocates.... and those are the 'real' stories people want to hear about?
By contrast, if you do not respond, but they expect you to find them and do so, your 'apparent' lack of concern is a strike against you, from their point of view (and their followers also).
From another marketing perspective, this is similar to long tail marketing but with a 'twist' - that being that really social participants are typically aligned with 5-6 other networks, at multiple depths, and that 20% group also represents the highest level of influence.
+++++++++++
If you'd like to make better sense of social media marketing, Forrester (the market research R&D thought leaders) provides a very well structured approach that defines how these relationships work when analyzing the strategy from these parameters:
Social Media Technology:
- User Generated Content
- Social People Networks
- Collaboration-OpenSource
- Ratings, Reviews, Recommendations
- Tags, Sharing
- Anonymous publishing
Social Media Participants:
- Creators
- Critics
- Collectors
- Joiners
- Spectators
- In-Actives
Social Media Objectives:
- Research, Listen, Monitor
- Promotion, Participation
- Customers selling other customers - Customers supporting each other
- Customers adding new ideas
corrected identity
Nice post. You are right on we all fail because of fear!!!