The emperor’s new social strategy
When it comes to social marketing, it seems that small businesses in the UK just don’t get it. Despite all the buzz surrounding social platforms such as Facebook and Twitter, a recent study by the Forum of Private Business discovered that many SME’s are struggling to see any real value in their inclusion in the marketing mix.
According to the survey of 5,800 small to medium-sized businesses in the UK, around 21% of them rated social networking platforms as “not useful”, whilst 6% claimed that they were “useless”. So is social marketing really just a box of nail-holes, or are UK businesses just doing it wrong?
Historically, most disciplines within marketing and advertising have been preluded by a plague of charlatans and self-proclaimed gurus peddling one-size-fits-all solutions to marketers under increasing pressure to keep up with the Joneses. Social media is just the latest in a long line of shiny phrases that generate a frenzy of excitement over opportunities that are rarely quantifiable.
The fact is that most small to medium-sized businesses just don’t know where to start, and feel under immense pressure to innovate in a world where they barely grasp the fundamentals. It’s all too easy to be spellbound by a concept that has worked on a huge scale for ubiquitous consumer brands, but that doesn’t mean it will work for everyone else.
Effective social marketing is often complex, time-consuming and resource-hungry, not to mention downright risky; social screw-ups are by definition extremely high profile and potentially damaging for all involved — just ask anyone at BP or Habitat. But social doesn’t have to be all smoke and mirrors; like any part of an effective digital strategy, it’s all in the approach:
1. Some businesses are better suited to social than others
It’s a fact. Some markets are perfectly positioned to exploit social channels, and others are not. Often, the success stories you read about are the big consumer brands who have sufficient collateral behind them to gain incredible momentum. Which brings me neatly onto my next point…
2. What works for them may not work for you
If I had a pound for every feature request I’ve received over the years whose sole rationale was “Amazon does it that way”, I’d be sitting on a luxury yacht right now. What works in one market probably won’t work so well in another, so be sure your ideas are founded on a bedrock of market research and good old common sense, rather than simply imitating the biggest players.
3. Remember that social is not a broadcast channel
This might sound obvious, but many people still have trouble getting to grips with the dialogic nature of social dynamics. Marketing and advertising have followed a one-to-many broadcast model for more than century now, so it’s only natural that it will take a while for the industry to get it’s head around a new paradigm.
Social marketing is about creating and maintaining meaningful conversations and light-touch relationships with your customers. Spamming your audience with marketing and sales messages will likely drive them away, or worse, instigate the kind of savage reprisal not even censorship can suppress.
4. Mistakes can be costly
Social discourse by its very nature thrives out in the open, and so any infraction of trust can leave you vulnerable to highly conspicuous criticism — a reality to which Barbara Streisand can attest. Worse still, there is nothing that motivates the mob more than a good old public flaming, only amplifying and exaggerating any collateral damage your brand and reputation sustains.
5. Select appropriate platforms
Facebook may boast the largest community of habitual users on the planet, but that doesn’t mean it’s the most effective platform through which to engage your target audience. Make the effort to find out which social platforms your customers frequent and why, and make sure the platforms you choose offer the quality of engagement you need, and not just the quantity.
6. Understand the technology
Effective social engagement can be extremely resource-intensive, requiring constant attention, monitoring and reciprocation to build momentum. By taking time to understand the technology and the tools at your disposal, you can automate a great deal of this leg-work and free up valuable resources.
This doesn’t mean you should sit back and let the code do the talking, however. Working smarter, not harder, will free you up to be more responsive to your audience’s needs; the first and most essential component in any successful marketing strategy.
