A few days ago I blogged my thoughts on the shape of the social media marketing ecosystem as we enter 2010. The key aspects of the system from my perspective were:
- The lines have truly blurred. It’s becoming increasingly difficult to draw a line between different forms of communications, especially when considering the online space.
- Successful communications programs need to integrate owned, earned and paid media to achieve their goals.
- Two-way communication is increasing. Wherever you look, previously one-way information flows are becoming two-way. Mainstream media feed off social media while also driving it. Advertising drives attention but also content strategies.
The line between public relations, advertising or social media is artificial – the overlap between the disciplines is becoming greater and greater. While I doubt the disciplines will ever completely merge, the ‘Venn diagram’ of communications disciplines is moving closer to being a single circle at a rapid pace.
When we talk about integration and lines blurring, it’s easy to head down the thought path that you need to excel at everything. I’d argue it’s not that simple.
Public relations agencies (for example) don’t need to shift to pitch pure-play advertising accounts. However, agencies of all disciplines do need to hire or train people who can think media-agnostically when developing communications strategies. I’d argue they also need to be able to execute the integrated tactics that sit in the grey areas between disciplines. PR firms won’t suddenly start producing TV ads, but they may start to roll online advertising campaigns into their service portfolio.
As always, it comes back to:
- What are the objectives?
- Who are the key audiences?
- What are the key considerations?
- How do we best reach those audiences to accomplish the objectives, and how do we measure against that?
Is this new thinking? No. Is the urgency for a shift to integration increasing? Yes. It’s a long road to travel to build those skills-sets, but the need is pressing.
Instead of differentiating by marketing vertical, we may need to approach our strategy from a different perspective – whether we’re marketing our clients or our own agencies. To fail to do so raises the risk of fragmented, ineffective communications and sub-par results.
The question is, what form do those strategies take?
Related posts:
- Who Wins the Struggle for Social Media Control?
- The Power of Social Media meets the Press Release
- The Role of PR in Social Media: A Podcast with Doug Haslam and Shel Holtz
- Integrating Social Media with Marketing and PR
- We Are Still Learning Lessons When It Comes To Social Media
Tags: communications, Marketing Strategy, PR, Public Relations, Social Media
Dave,
I think your account is accurate – marketing is networking, advertising is knowing people; whether this happens on or off-line.
Generally, I do think we’re shifting in how we access information. Anyone can be a trusted resource/expert if they just blog enough – and through that truth, we’re learning to sort through the bad to get to the good content everyday.
I think the main strategy has to be focused on WIIFM from the customer’s perspective. For your patron’s to participate with your brand, there needs to be a reason behind why they’d want to, and moreover why they’d want to consistently participate.
Take a clothing store for example – offering coupons through email/facebook/etc is great – but if you never give them a reason to visit your website or your store unless it’s to make a purchase then you’re not giving them enough motivation.
We need to focus on what they want, and centered around that, how we close the deals.
Maddie
@maddieweber
Hi Maddie,
Great points. I remember Ferg Devins from Molson at the Mesh Marketing conference last year, saying something along the lines of “we can try to have conversations as much as we like, but some people just want the coupons.” That means several things to me:
1. We need to use a variety of different means to reach people;
2. We need to remember that different people want different things – we therefore need to meet their different needs to serve them.
Cheers,
Dave
Great insights !! I agree Online advertising will definitely account substantial part of advertising budget. The beauty of an effective PR would be integrating top three channels i.e. Main stream + online + mobile
Great diagram on the Social Media Marketing Ecosystem.
Thank you for sharing some of your insights. For our business and product lines, we’ve started integrating some of the social networking media into our software based on what our customers have told us they want and need.
Having said that, there are many customers who don’t know what they want from social media, and some are just afraid of all the unknowns. One thing is clear with all of this: we can’t stick our heads in the sand when it comes to social media. That’s why I completely agree with having objectives and strategies. And having the guidance of either a marketing firm with that knowledge or allowing individuals within your organization who are “social media savvy” to market your business is key.
Some organizations dive head first into this arena without any knowledge or plan. “Learn as you go” could do you business more harm than good. So observing and planning are key. And for our business, we have scaled down on some of our “traditional” print advertising, only so that we can do more online. That’s where taking advantage of the social media networks can have a greater impact on your marketing without breaking the bank. But you have to consider the right mix for your prospects and customers as well as your business.
One thing is for sure. All of this is exciting and it will be interesting to see how all of this continues to evolve.