Refrain from Bringing Old Skills to a New Game

In a recent post, I offered some advice on the first step in starting a social media program.  To complement that first step, I want to address an equally important concept that many companies fail to understand. 

In executing a social media program, you need to refrain from bringing old marketing skills to a new game.

Many marketers stepping up to embrace social media are bringing their old “push strategy” skills to a new “customer pull” reality, making a critical miscalculation.  The social media phenomenon is not just a new set of communications vehicles for your company to broadcast its value proposition and messaging to a target market.  It is about customers wanting and needing relevant information to make better decisions and to share with others.  Over the years they have become jaded by the packaging and spin that typifies most marketing and advertising campaigns.

Customers, whether B2C or B2B, want the straight scoop on relevant information, and they want it from a trusted source-primarily their peers.  When the customers control the story line, marketers inevitably lose some control of the message.  But that does not diminish the capability of good marketers to communicate effectively with their target customers and their influencers-in fact, it can create a significant competitive advantage.  It just takes a different approach.

Marketers need to see themselves not as owners of market share, but as members of a community, and their communications not so much campaigns as conversations with the community-customers.  To join in on the conversation, you need to listen to what is being said by the community.  No one likes being talked at, but everyone is interested in talking with.

Many typical marketing programs are event driven and begin to wrap up when a campaign or a product launch is pushed out the door.  Social media is an ongoing process that starts the discussion long before the campaign and really kicks in after the launch.  It’s all about authentic communications with the community, not just during lead-generation and loyalty campaigns.

To encourage new skills and thinking, social media should not just be a silo within the marketing department; it should become a separate but equal partner that interacts with the entire organization.  Making a real change in the culture of the company is necessary to meet social media’s demand for more openness and less control over conversations with customers.  Developing these skills and way of thinking takes time and focus.  This is why every marketer should be moving into social media to start the process of building the skills and making broad cultural changes needed to make social media work.

In my next blog post, I will talk about clarifying your company’s positioning and key message points.  For all the novelty of social media, successful execution invariably hinges on an age-old fundamental-a clear and consistent value proposition and message points across all business touch points.

Tags: B2B social media, B2C social media, best practices, Bob Maples, maples communications, marketing, marketing communications, orange county, PR, public relations, social media, social media best practices, Steps, strategy