15 Jul 2016
One of the key benefits of social media is our ability to access the public conversation. From a brand perspective, utilising the key conversation skill of ‘listening’ is an excellent way of understanding what the public sentiment is about a topic or product, getting incidental feedback about their own brand or their competitors and keeping on top of trends and current events.
It’s the type of information that only twenty odd years ago, most would never dreamed of being able to access without engaging the services of ASIO or similar.
But as anybody that follows any kind of political discourse in any country can tell you, this open door to public conversation has allowed the unmediated and unrepentant entry to the conversation for a number of groups of people that previously needed “permission” to be included. This includes, but is no way limited to, women, LGBTI, indigenous people and the young.
Their voices are exploding across the world in ways that are transformative, articulate and challenging.
It’s exciting. Unless you are a person or brand that finds change intimidating. Particularly rapid change.
The introduction of these valid voices are shifting the structures of communication, impeaching on our inherent marketing and advertising prejudices, shaking our inbuilt sense of privilege, and renouncing our very sense of what is ‘right’ and ‘proper’.
It IS extremely confronting to have to rethink propositions and positioning from everybody’s point of view. It is a paradigm shift to recognise that what was acceptable even a year or so ago, is no longer. But that is the beauty of education – it shifts the goalposts for everybody on the field so that we can all play the game. The more people scream about ‘Political Correctness’ gone made, the more you can be assured that at some level they are now aware that they are going to have to change if they want to keep playing.
Social media may provide the platforms for groups, but the issues are not new. Challenging the accepted practices of those that go before us, or indeed surround us, is at the heart not only of revolution, but evolution. To survive we must adapt.
And like all the long standing cultures that exist, it is the stories that are handed down from our elders, it is the evolution of accepted practice and the continued education of successive generations, that allows us to remain relevant.
The story of a successful brand, will always be at heart, reflective of humanity.
Ace huh?
9 Jun 2016
Really. Forget about the numbers!
I was listening to Jonah De Vries talking at #LikeaBoss last week about how he got to over 1 million followers on his Twitter feed. It’s not even a full time job for him. And he said something which I wanted to bottle and hand out to every single company using social media.
“I haven’t done anything unusual, I just stayed true to myself and what I stood for.”
He also is consistent, very affable and incredibly positive which is no doubt why he has built a loyal and committed following but he never looks at the numbers.
Why?
Because the numbers aren’t why he does it.
If it wouldn’t have been incredibly weird I would have marched up to the stage, thrown myself at his feet and proclaimed him KING.
I wear myself out some months telling clients this exact thing.
You need to be using social media for the right reasons. And the numbers ain’t it.
Social media is a means of communicating with people. Real live consumer type people. It is a way of actively demonstrating your brand, what you stand for and listening for feedback. Your numbers are irrelevant.
Sure, it’s nice to see the numbers ticking over and finding out that you’re gaining traction. However, if you are not regularly producing quality content that is relevant and engaging, those numbers are next to useless. If you are not acting on the feedback you are receiving from your customers, those numbers are next to useless. If you don’t treat the customers you reach through social media with the same respect that you do those that call you, those numbers are next to useless.
People buy products and services. We can talk all we like about B2C or B2B, but ultimately people are making the decisions and they will look for evidence that your brand and your business are all you saying. And how do they do that? By checking out your online interactions.
I recently did some work with a small business who was looking to turn their numbers into a community. We wrote a strategy, they worked feverishly at producing quality content, we played around with timings and content types, checked audience demographics and all manner of things, when during a casual conversation she mentioned that she’d paid somebody a year ago to get her more followers.
Of the 5000 odd likes she had, about 4900 of them had been farmed. The numbers were useless because they weren’t real. We could post all the quality content we liked but it wasn’t an audience that had been built on a tangible and sustainable connection.. They were just numbers.
Brands quite often gain a lot of traction with campaigns that attract people to their site. Those numbers only continue to matter post campaign, if you continue to engage. Otherwise, you’re not going to get the reach, without the reach you don’t get the engagement, without engagement you don’t get the community.
It is better to have 100 people that love you and your business than 1000 that just like you.
So forget about the numbers. Focus on the people. Because without them, you don’t have a business.
