This week I came across two articles that helped clarify an issue I’ve been pondering for many months: why is it hard for so many companies to make the leap into the new world of social media?
The first piece was on the art of digital small talk (social media discussions) in the Wall Street Journal. The second article was about the futility of selling via social media platforms, by John Dvorak.
These two articles have nothing to do with each other. But together they help me think through The Question from a little different angle. The answer revolves around the mindset in which we approach social media in corporate America; in short, we’re trying to sell and market when social media is about people, not products.
Social media is all about giving, engaging, connecting–and yes, small talk. But our typical corporate management style clashes with this. How can you fully engage with an individual when your total focus is on meeting “deliverables,” adhering to processes and showing results?
Small talk is a great example. It’s usually glossed over in most companies. Sure, we use it to break the ice in starting meetings and smooth over working relationships.But for the most part its value is far less than in the social media world, which is fueled by small talk.
That’s too bad, because as the Journal article stated:
“.. small talk is actually serious business. Small talk is a form of social insurance, explains John T. Cacioppo, the director of the Center for Cognitive and Social Neuroscience at the University of Chicago. “If I’m going to need to rely on you, then if we stay in touch on meaningless things, we can eventually work effectively together,” he says. “It’s like team practice …. a basketball team has to practice together to win.”
I see small talk as a sort of barometer of how far we’ve come with social media–or not come. Many companies are still trying to shoehorn social media into existing marketing paradigms. This often means “driving messages,” or trying to employ social media platforms as PR or marketing tools. In other cases, companies are trying to drive their sales using platforms like Facebook and Twitter.
There are exceptions of companies making money via social media platforms and sales models based on selling to friends and relatives are as old as the hills. But I’ve always been leery of them, and believe they actually backfire in social media.
Dvorak estimates that, out of his 55,000 followers, he’d be lucky to get more than 0.4% to buy something, or 1/5th the results of a typical direct mail campaign.
As he says, “For some reason, people always want to associate social networking with the ability to sell something when we should take all social networking at its face value. It’s about socializing, not about selling stuff to your friends.”
Of course, companies are different than individuals–or are they? Actually companies need to also walk a fine line between spamming customers, media and employees. They also need to create conversations and provide real value.
This means giving first–providing real value to your customers, employees, partners, etc.
Blogger Dosh-Dosh captures this nicely in his post on giving:
“Give them helpful free content. Give them answers to their questions. Give them a freebie. Point them to tools they need and things they should know. Give them tips they can instantly use in their lives/business. Give them pleasant surprises. Give them interaction. Give them promises you can keep. Develop a history of giving. Be known as a giver.”
Small talk, in a sense, is giving–giving advice, giving your ideas, giving your time. Ok, much of it is just chatter on Twitter and Facebook. But at its best small talk can build bridges and strengthen relationships, something most companies desperately need.
I’ve been impressed with big companies like Cisco, where CEO John Chambers has regular town-hall type meetings with employees and people are free to blog and express their views. Other companies have made strides in breaking down the walls that separates them from their customers and employees. But these examples are few and far between, and much work still needs to be done.
At the end of the day, social networking–and success in marketing going forward–will always be about people. The only difference now is they’re in the driver’s seat.
Think people. Think small.
Some really interesting points here. We are always looking for the best ways and methods to market our products. But once we get the word out in what ever forum, there still needs to be the way of tracking what we did and with whom. Customer relationship management is more than marketing, it includes the follow ups including the small talk, the continued efforts to keep your product in front of your prospects and customers without becoming obnoxious. Check out some CRM solutions – get to know your customers.
Bill Q
IMO it’s difficult for companies to embrace social media for several reasons:
1 – They are comfortable sending messages, not sending messages and then getting feedback bounced back at them. The conversational tone of social media scares them because they aren’t used to having a conversation and interacting with their customers.
2 – They don’t know what they will get from their efforts. This is where ’social media evangelists’ are really failing, and it could be the mid-level manager trying to sell her boss on using social media, or it could be the consultant/agency. But the LAST thing you tell a skeptical boss is that ’social media is all about the conversation’. That’s the fastest way to get thrown out of the boss’ office. Show them real numbers and real benefits from using these tools that they understand, and you’ll greatly increase your chances of getting the buy-in.
3 – It takes too long to show ‘good’ results. This again is where you need to track everything. When the boss finally caved and let you start a blog, 2 months later when he wants to know ‘what the hell are we getting from that blog thingie?’, you again need to be able to show him some numbers. You need to be able to show what has changed since the blog launched.
4 – Companies buy into the hype about social media and think it’s some wierd alchemy that they can never understand. Social media is simply a set of communication tools. That’s it. The rules that govern effective communication with other tools, work just as well with social media.
Interesting post and comments!
Spot on – and very current.
I would like to point you to another blog post (one of mine – apologies for the plug, but it’s very relevant).
I recently wrote about the “strength of the weak tie” as described by Malcolm Gladwell in “The Tipping Point” and coined by Mark Granovetter in 1974.
Good Twitterers are masters of the weak tie, ie they hold good small talk and engage with their ‘followers’ – companies can learn a lot from that, as it is a very powerful skill.
But as you rightly point out – it goes against many people’s (corporate) instinct. I think nowadays there is no excuse anymore though, for not understanding that this development is a necessity.
You can find the blog post here: http://levcribb.wordpress.com/2009/06/20/good-twitterers-are-masters-of-the-weak-tie/
Thanks for the article! Will be referring back to it soon.
Very well-written post. I whole-heartedly agree. Most businesses that I work with are uncomfortable with the small talk aspect of social marketing. In many instances i have found the sales people within the organization to the be some of most effective participants in Social Media (over the executives or the marketers). I think you may have put your finger on the reason behind this. They understand the value of building a relationship over time…and they are generally extroverts. Thanks for some great thoughts to ponder.
Lovely post, and a topic I’ve wondered about before, though in a more general sense: Why do some *people* find it so difficult to embrace social media? Conventional wisdom suggests it is “older” people who just don’t get it, while “younger” people embrace it. But there is so much more to it than that: I know many, many people who are 40+ who are intense social media users (and who understand why it is critical on a strategic level) and plenty of Gen Y’s who can’t seem to get past IMs or text messages. The companies that embrace social media now are the ones who are lucky enough to have a few people who are advocates for and users of social media; those individuals are the ones who propel the rest of the company into the future.
If Mark wrote this article he must have a viralheat invite. Please send me one!
Does anyone have a viralheat.com invite? If so, send it to me!!
I have been searching for this type of material before. I found a lot of useful information from this post. Awesome postt! Not that I’m getting down on your other posts, but this is easily my favorite post from you in a while.
Great post.I found some useful points from your post.Which is very helpful for my business.Thanks for you help.