What does social media mean to you? I’ve asked that question to hundreds of people and two words run through most responses: people and relationships. However, more frequently I’m noticing marketing campaigns that are being called “social media” where the relationship aspect is not to be found.
Today when I walked my dog Max, he stopped to play with a pooch that was a little of this and a bit of that. It occurred to me that marketers have created a hybrid of social media tactics that combines a little of traditional marketing where messaging is of prime importance; plus a bit of social media or Web 2.0 functionality that taps into the virtual and (hopefully) viral world.
While these, call them Hybrid Social Media tactics for want of a better term, may encourage digital engagement with the brand – the object – they don’t include connecting the customer with – the people – who are behind the brand. In the world of Hybrid Social Media building and nurturing relationships seems to take second or third place to the primary goal of driving traffic or increasing views. It’s a numbers not a people game. Exploring the idea further consider these …
4 Hybrid Social Media Tactics
- Videos – Leveraging technology to push messages on video communities like YouTube or blip.tv. FedEx’s current series on YouTube is an example. While there may be a social element in open comments, the conversation is not being used to connect the customer with the people behind the brand.
- Blogger Relations/Sponsored Conversations – Capitalizing on relationships/influence of others who are active in social media (bloggers, tweets, vloggers, podcasters, etc.) to serve your message to their community. The brand manager usually forfeits the customer “ownership.”
- Contests – Using Web 2.0 technology to engage your customer with a brand experience. Similar to video messaging the media many have social components but they are rarely utilized by those on the brand side of the equation to connect with the customer.
- Digital Idea Management or Viralsourcing – Soliciting customer suggestions on a platform designed to capture ideas to improve an organization’s products/service or company. Frequently there are social aspects from comments to voting that digg it up or down. Dell, Starbucks, Best Buy are a few examples. Similar to contests, virtualsourcing can be an engaging brand experience. How much and when to participate in the conversations with customers who are going beyond a comment card or even to say “thank you” seems to be a challenge for many companies.
Is this old marketing with a technology twist? Does referring to these tactics as “social media” mislead or is “social media” itself changing? Should we broaden the definition? What does social media mean to you?
Hi Toby:
You’re right – social media is often used to mean ‘not traditional media’, which obscures the notion of social media as a platform for facilitating conversations. But a social media strategy shouldn’t require the people behind the brand to speak; after all, in an effective conversation, there has to be listening as well, and sometimes that is all that is required. The challenge for the people behind the brands is to understand when to converse, and when to simply listen.
Hybrid social media is a good word for it. A lot of organizations are rushing towards social media while keeping one comfortable foot in traditional marketing and I think that’s to be expected. It’s a safe way to engage in social media (the tools) until social media (the concept) has proven itself. There is a comfort in being able to show numbers too… The number of YouTube views, the number of RTs, the number of blogger posts. And with all the talking around social media ROI, we are telling people that money spent/saved must be shown in a return (and numbers).
Giving up that comfort level of proving one’s worth to an organization or an organization’s worth to shareholders/stakeholders by being social without numbers isn’t going to happen overnight.
While I give people credit for trying social media tools as part of their marketing mix, the potential issue that I see popping up is that the community they are trying to reach (who may have bonded with each other) might reject the organization because they aren’t engaging or they are not engaging in a manner the community expects. Just like in your post about Dancing Deer (http://bit.ly/mUeNe). As a fan, you wanted to be a part of their community (on- & offline), but they weren’t engaging everyone on the same level.
The other issue is that organizations as a whole aren’t typically setup for social media (the concept). It will take a lot of mindset change, flexibility and agility for a company to truly be social.
Unfortunately, if companies keep in the hybrid social media path, I think we’ll start to hear a lot of “social media doesn’t work” in the coming years.
Great thoughts Toby!
@Beth – As always, I learn so much from you. I see your point. Companies that are accustomed to the rich metrics from interactive marketing often view social media as just another online tactic and demand the same type of measurement. At this point, call it “traditional”, social media may still be a walk on the wild side. Perhaps social media hasn’t tipped as far as we might like to think.
@Anne – Points well taken. I must admit that no matter how extensive the conversation is on a brand sponsored sm platform, I’m still disappointed when the brand people don’t join in. It’s like being invited to dinner where the guests are there but the host never shows up.
Great Post!
Great post. It seems the bigger the company the more tied they are to traditional marketing habits and thought processes. I met with a new client this morning and while the focus was on creating a social media strategy it was still tied to “traditional” experience and metrics.
Seems the biggest challenge is helping businesses look at social media in the unique way it deserves.
If we’re not successful in changing that paradigm we risk polluting a very powerful resource and who wants to do toxic clean up?
Hi, Toby! I’d like to bring a different perspective. Social media is new enough that some marketers want to experiment to see what works and what doesn’t. Using social networking sites to push out a message, without expectation of a dialog, is merely another use of this new space. Perhaps it will bomb, but on the other hand, it may prove successful for those who are testing it.
I don’t think we should become social media “snobs” and deem this new channel to be so holy that if there isn’t a two-way dialog, it doesn’t count as social media. Marketing is a creative profession, and doing things differently or “out of the box” (to quote a cliche) is a good thing. Otherwise, we’d all be following the leaders and there would be no innovation.
Good observation Toby.
I’d like to say the relative degree of media’s social-ness is a function of its potential for, and actually realized, dialogue.
Secondly, I agree with Elaine in her second paragraph. Two-way dialogue takes a lot of effort. For large-scale strategic planning, we as marketers should be looking at multi-channel integrated marketing. It definitely isn’t easy, there’s a lot of mapping of goals to capabilities to tactics. And we keep “social/care” as an underlying philosophy that gets weaved into every creative piece or effort
They may not be “social media” in the strictest sense, but the certainly lead to social media interaction …. and that’s the point.
The tactics you describe are mostly designed to generate buzz around the brand, product, service, etc. It’s the buzz that amplifies the opportunity to engage with customers and prospects on a more intimate level. The reason buzz is great at developing opportunities is twofold; (1) it is very cost effective, and (2) it compounds exponentially after launch. When one person talks to another the effect can be tremendous the on a product or services.
The bigger idea is that any strategy designed to engage the customer or prospect and get them talking to others can be effective at creating an opportunity to engage with customers and prospects through social media (or other methods). A few other marketing tactics and approaches that can work well and require little or no investment include:
1. Podcast
2. Speaking engagements
3. Community event sponsorship
4. Interactive banner ads
5. Direct mail
6. Promotions / give-aways
7. Coupons
8. web marketing
9. Push email
10. E-cards
Obviously, how a marketer would approach’s creating buzz as and engagement tool would depend on brand positioning and its goals or objectives.
Colin Hatch
I like the idea of hybrid social media tactics. Online video certainly has a great impact for marketing. Going with that strategy, I also think it would be really helpful to post a video to as many sites as possible, not just YouTube and blip, but Vimeo and AdWido as well, for example.