The Selling of Social Media - intro

Just so you know where I'm coming from, there should be no selling involved.  Social Media principles should be integral to every brands' communication and marketing projects, programs and philosophies.    Period.  As intuitive as not spending 96% of your marketing dollars on TV commercials.  I'll assure you though, I'm still in the minority on both points

But, in an ironic twist Social Media is having a hard time with its brand.  What started as a participatory movement of the PEOPLE to publish their opinions, support things they like and reward authentic with loyalty continues to grow and thrive.  However, a very very very tiny few companies have embraced the idea(s) and reported success.  Certainly there are even fewer that have adjusted their brand style guide accordingly, retooled the corporate communications group, shifted considerable dollars and resources, and opened up to be more transparent.  Lots of talk and chatter, not much gettin' to it.

Now, Social Media is on stage - hit the big time.  All ears and eyes are waiting . . .

Here come the agencies!!!  "Oh client, we're here for you, we'll help you understand!"  Ad agencies sell the emotion, digital shops sell the increasing numbers of broadband adopters, pr sell reputation - credibility  - relations, and the holding companies sell the dream.  After hours of meetings and presentations from all of them, client goes back to their day, just as busy and nonsensical as it was before.  Social Media ain't really helping much.  It sounds really hard, there's a whole new vocabulary and nobody has any answers.  Nothing in it for them.

Part of the problem is that those that KNOW this stuff, get it, feel it, need it, want it, embrace it, are so damn excited that they can stop wetting their pants with the new stuff that comes out everyday.  Trying to impress the other KNOWERS that they KNEW first. 

Bit of advice, try understanding your audience before walking into a room and starting to sell the game-changing virtues of twitter, utterz, facebook, lijit, delicious, flickr, moveable type (the company, not the movement). 

Even though they (client) asked to get the 101, the audience in the room (CMO, Marketing Manager, PR Director, et al) barely knows how a website really works, much less what an api is, or how rss is completely changing how they should be doing marketing.  Jump to marketing as utility for their customers instead of just messages, and you have successfully ground your audience to pulp with jargon and crap.

Don't start by giving some context, and certainly not the participatory "fundamental shift" stuff from the Economist in '06 with references to Gutenburg (see, referencing something traditional - printed in a magazine is the opposite of the point).

Also, don't start with what Dell does, or WalMart did, or what Target wrote back to that blogger.

Don't say you were talking to Joeseph Jaffe, Steve Rubel, or David Armano the other day, and . . .

Don't lead with, now, you have to be listening to your consumer. 

I'd start with search, their terms, places they should own! (simple proof point on where and how people get information).  Yes, I recognize that the audience in the room has little or no knowledge or appreciation for search, so I hammer home that they should!!!  Then I say it again.  Then at the end, I say it again.  They will understand the sheer number of disconnects their audiences are seeing.  At XXX searches a day domestically in Google alone, you can imagine what could be.

Social Media Opportunity - use search a starting point to see results.  Pay attention to it every day!!!

I'd then ask, who owns the consumer/audience opinions.  CMO, call center director, corp comm???  Ask if they would share a few comments that came in yesterday, last week, whatever about their brand, products or services.  Nobody in the room will have any.  So then, I have a few of my own that I dug up.  My best guess is that you're getting XXX a day.  This is where I'd show the groups that have already formed for or against on various social networking sites.  Clearly, you've got people interested in what you have to offer, and they are predisposed to talking about it, publicly!

Social Media Opportunity - monitor.  Somebody own this!!!  Pay attention to it every day!!!

More to come.

Comments

[David Jones]

Mantey, this is great. It's always amazingly effective to show a client/potential client that there is a whole world of conversation going on around them that they haven't the foggiest idea about.

And while, most CMOs have never heard of Jaffe, they have heard of Google.

[Scott Monty]

Funny you should mention this. I was just listening to Joseph Jaffe talking about the fundamental shift to aggregators and widgets as the future of marketing... ;-)

This is a nice starting point. You have a much better chance at selling a concept if you can place yourself in your prospect's shoes. Or, as Cicero more eloquently stated:
"If you wish to persuade me, you must think my thoughts, feel my feelings and speak my words."

I always tell clients that people are talking about them - and have always talked about them. The difference is that now we have the ability to capture those mentions and make use of them, whether it's to engage directly by replying or to take what they're saying and put it into practice.

For any business that uses data to make decisions, this should be music to their ears.

[Matt Mantey]

Dave and Scott - Thanks for weighing in. Some big folks have been asking for these meetings lately. You know, '08 being the year of viral and all. Funny, when you start trying to boil some stuff down to salient points it hard to put in simple english.

[John Furrier]

Matt: great post. Social media is about integrated marketing.. and alot of folks blow their own horn too much rather than developing the implementation and methodology.

Problem is that alot of the effort and success has been done manually and that doesn't scale.

I think traditional ad agencies will be eliminated by a direct web business model...

http://furrier.org/2008/03/18/are-ad-agencies-dying/

[Ben Ayers]

"Part of the problem is that those that KNOW this stuff, get it, feel it, need it, want it, embrace it, are so damn excited that they can stop wetting their pants with the new stuff that comes out everyday. Trying to impress the other KNOWERS that they KNEW first."

So, so, so true. nice post.

[David Meerman Scott]

Awesome post. I want to send a link to every agency person I know.

Cheers, David

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