Respect Each Social Platform
Having a “presence” in social media ain’t enough.
Those of you who have read my stuff previously know that every time our company gets a meeting with a prospective client, our first question to them is: “Why do you want to make video?”
Currently, StoryFirst Media is perceived as a video production company, not a digital content & social media storytelling firm (we’re currently working to change this perception). Because we have a reputation for our video production skills, nearly all of our meetings with new clients get booked because they want to produce video content.
Great! It’s a conversation starter.
Here’s the rub: 85% of our clients seem to want video begrudgingly, as if they’re relenting after a long, weary holdout against devoting any time to social media. They’ve heard that having video is important, but they don’t actually respect the medium itself, and they see social platforms as more of a distraction from their business than the core of their outreach.
There’s a definite feeling of, “If we don’t do video, we’ll be left behind, so we might as well finally do this.”
When I say this is the feeling we get from 85% of our prospective clients, I’m talking about the companies as a whole. The individual CMOs and project managers are typically very interested an optimistic about the opportunities these platforms hold. It’s just that their hands are tied by the folks above them who would rather spend money on a TV spot or billboard than social media engagement.
The bosses feel that they need to have a “presence” on social media. A presence. It’s a word that’s thrown around so often, as if merely showing up to a party is enough to make everyone invite you back next time. If you don’t want your brand to be a part of social media, but you feel you have to do it in order to stay relevant, your lack of respect for the platform will show in the content you push out.
The cocktail party analogy is thrown around a lot when talking about social media, and I think it works here again:
Imagine a cocktail party. From afar, you judge this party as a total waste of time for the first three years that it’s happening. Eventually you notice that the attendance at this party is growing to a critical mass that you simply cannot ignore any longer. Now you feel like you are required to be there if you want to be taken seriously.
The day that you show up to this cocktail party three years late, and you’re the new face, don’t stand in a corner only talking about yourself. Anyone who would do that in a real life cocktail party would be immediately identified as a weirdo and scratched off the invite list for next time — yet this is precisely how most brands act on social media.
People are not on these platforms to listen to you talk about yourself. They’re there for either a) entertainment or b) utility. Learn what they’re there to do and join in on that! You can’t beat them at this. You must join them.
If you bring value to your audience in the form of either entertainment or utility for a long enough stretch of time, they will trust you when you finally ask them to do something (such as make a purchase or subscribe to an e-mail list). If you make the video with pleasing the company as the primary goal, no one besides the company will care.
Learn what each platform does uniquely. What works on Facebook won’t necessarily work as a podcast. What works for a podcast won’t necessarily work on Anchor. What works on Anchor won’t necessarily work on Snapchat. What works on Snapchat won’t necessarily work on Instagram… you get the point. (by the way, if you want to watch us experiment on these platforms, follow @StoryFirstMedia and @MichaelNeelsen on all of them)
Once you respect the platform, then you’ll be able to bring value to your audience (not yourself) with every piece of content you put out. This is how you build a brand in the 21st century.
