One of the sentences that I always use in a social media pitch with a new/prospective client is, ‘Social media engagement is not rocket science’. And I go on to explain why so, and why they still need an agency if it is not rocket science.
Let me try to articulate the crux of what I usually offer as explanation.
There are 7 things one needs to remember about social media.
1. Social media is a one-to-many communication option.
That is quite simple to understand. You (one) get an opportunity to talk to many people, at the same time.
As a brand owner, that should excite you, terribly. It adds to your roster of communication tools to reach a large number of people – relevant or otherwise, along with television, print and radio.
But you should also ask, why should I invest in social media separately? Why can’t I let the current agency that handles communication in television, print and radio handle social media too? That brings us to the next point.
2. Social media is 2-way communication.
That is not so simple to comprehend, since we are used to broadcast platforms like television, print and radio. Social media is 2-way vastly unlike conventional broadcast systems. It allows for many people to be connected on few/many topics at the same time.
But you should also ask, why can’t television, print and radio offer 2-way communication? After all, people can call and be connected with television and radio, and can write, via email or snail mail, to stay connected with print. That brings us to the next point.
3. Time, on social media, is highly subjective and personal.
Real world time is not the same as social media time. In the real world, we adhere to time set by clocks. So, the 2-way communication enabled by conventional broadcast systems like television, radio and print adhere to real world, clock-based time, whereas, social media time is set by the convenience of people who inhabit the many platforms online.
What does that mean? It means time extends – as and when a person sees your brand online, he can communicate or respond to it based on his/her time preferences. There’s no clock ticking to force him to do that. As a brand, you get that liberty too…to enter the conversation when you are ready.
But you should ask, why should I even enter that conversation? Is it really necessary to do so? Won’t people forget it eventually? That brings us to the next point.
4. Social media is permanent.
Permanence is not so much about being there forever. It is more about being there when people demand it – the essence of Google’s business model and success. Conventional broadcast platforms enable content too, but they are not permanent in the hands of people. Neither are they available when people demand it. Content on social media is both.
How does that affect you, as a brand? It impacts your brand image over a staggered period of time – bad news is supposed to travel faster than light (according to…who else…Douglas Adams, the patron saint of this blog), but on social media, bad news also travels far and wide. And it stays there, for people to dig it up, time and again. The same applies to good news too, but just consider the potential of what such traveling can do to your brand’s reputation, again and again and again, all through the year.
But you should ask, what the heck can I do about this…don’t people have such conversations and opinions in real life too? We don’t care to reach out to all those people, do we? Next point, as usual.
5. Social media is on-demand media, for people and for you, the brand.
Traditional media platforms are owned and operated by a few groups of people. Social media is collectively owned and operated by all the people who inhabit it. That simply means, if you think you own something, you do, until someone disputes that assumption. The point is to proclaim ownership without offending a large group of people (inviting a dispute) and to do it as convincingly as possible.
Having cleared the ownership issue, it naturally leads to the fact that social media is on-demand, to anyone who demands it, at any point in time. It is like the television program you own, run and manage, which people could turn on anytime they want and see what you want them to see…and enter into a conversation with you. The beauty is, if someone else turns it on tomorrow, they’d see the same thing too, along with your conversation.
And, of course, you should ask, how can I ensure that my content (television program equivalent) is interesting for people?
6. In Social media, you’re as good as the content you generate and the content others generate about you.
They say content is king and it rings brilliantly true on social media. When you want to communicate something via television, who do you reach out to? The experts, I suppose! When you want to have a conversation with a leading media publication, who do you choose, within your organization? Your CEO/CXO, I suppose. So, when you want to communicate something online, on social media, who do you go to? An intern? Of course not – you go to an expert again, based on their understanding how communication is handled on social media with a firm grip on the 5 points above.
So, the content you generate should be interesting/appealing to a large number of people, given social media’s one-to-many’ness. You are literally speaking out to the world and hence it is critical to understand first what may interest at least that section of the world that means something to you – your existing and prospective customers.
It needs to stand up in a conversation and you, the brand custodian, should be ready to support any such conversation. You also need to monitor conversation threads arising out of such content over a staggered period of time and be there for people when they demand, by creating a consistent and manageable time-to-response by striking a balance between what seems convenient for the brand and what may be acceptable for your audience.
On the other hand, there is content about your brand, depending on the kind of space you are in, already present on social media, generated by people who are either interested in your space or your brand, specifically. This is content not owned by you, but you do have an opportunity to join and eventually harness that content too, to your advantage.
But you should have said by now, ‘Boy, all this is going to take a lot of time!’. So, final point!
7. Scaling up social media conversations and content needs smart people and a lot of time.
A social media enthusiast employee within your organization could perhaps start managing conversations and creating content as a part-time task, but to scale up, you need a lot of people with dedicated time, depending on the kind of space/industry your brand is in. Scaling up such content and conversation may require external help and that’s where we (agencies like Edelman Digital) come in. Eventually, though, you should warm up to the idea of being a social organization, where all/most employees are social media friendly/open. They do not work in isolation of who they are dealing with…customers – they work for them. So, social media content and conversations should, in the long run, become part of the organization’s extended communication.
Gone are the days when a specific team handled communications on behalf of the entire organization. Or at least, such a notion is being challenged every single day, currently. The role of a communication team, and an external agency, subsequently, may be more about creating a larger theme for communication that makes best sense for the organization, propagating it within the organization so that everything going out from any employee seems consistent with that theme and help in operational tasks like getting information across to the right people at the right time for them to use it to the organization’s advantage.
I do understand that the above is rather basic, but you would be surprised at the number of pitches I’m forced to reiterate these basics even now!
Photograph by DHDesign, via Flickr.