Focus With Your Social Media Marketing

Social media has been broadly embraced by the public for several reasons. But two stand out in my mind, as I relayed to attendees of the NEMOA Fall Conference in Mashantucket, Conn., Sept. 16-18, during my session, "Social Media Marketing — Separating Hype from Reality."

The first is social media gives a voice to the public. Blogs, microblogs (e.g., Twitter), discussion forums, photo sharing, etc., all give consumers the ability to publish content. While that may seem trivial, the late ’90s internet offered little of this — it was dominated by big brands and static pages. Today, if consumers feel strongly about a topic or have expertise in certain subject areas, it's a trivial process to publish that in blogs, among other places.

The second reason for consumers to fall in love with social media is “friends.” The ability to easily publish has created so much content that we need to be able to filter that content by “people we know.” Both Facebook and Twitter are built on this concept. In the case of Facebook, you're presented with a stream of news and photos shared by friends. With Twitter, the terms are “following” and “followers.” You can argue the trivial nature of the content, but you get to pick who your friends are.

Direct marketers need to exploit the reasons for the successes of these companies. Social media sites like Facebook and Twitter have the attention of consumers. Like direct mail, and even email, these are ideal venues for interruptive marketing. The tactics for doing this are simple: Participate in these social media networks, and allow your customers to “friend” or “follow” you.

Countless brands are setting up Facebook fan pages, Twitter accounts, YouTube channels, etc. Just as people wear T-shirts from their favorite brands, consumers are “friending” and “following” their favorite brands. The value to marketers is their content is now presented to their friends. But be mindful not to focus purely on selling or you'll quickly be “unfriended.”

Simple changes to a brand’s website also mean that links like “email to a friend” can be converted to “share this on Facebook.” In most cases, a dozen social media sites or more are offered, not just Facebook. Now your friends are sharing with their friends. The first tip I presented to the audience at NEMOA was “cast a wide net” by creating a Facebook fan page, Twitter account, YouTube channel and blog. They're simple tasks to accomplish and in many cases free.

I followed that up with another tip: Socialize your own website. Moving the conversation entirely to public networks will get “eyeballs,” but it'll dilute your own website. The conversation should be pulled back to your own branded site. This gives you a great opportunity for a focused message and access to more customer data.

Building your own branded community also lets you target a variety of uses, like executive blogs, discussions specifically to support your product, places for customers to share product ideas, and even collaboration among vendors and partners in secure areas.

That’s a big step for most, and certainly requires more planning and expense, but it's worth the effort. Compared to the expense and transition direct marketers went through to embrace e-commerce, this is a walk in the park. And remember, your friends will be by your side.

David Carter is chief technology officer of Awareness, a social media marketing software provider. You can reach him at dcarter@awarenessnetworks.com.