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Making Sense of Social Media
Every year seems to bring with it a hot new social network. First MySpace, then Facebook and, now Twitter, initially thought of as strictly more a micro-blogging platform than a “traditional” social networking site populated with user data. Exactly what impact these large networks will have on the online industry is still to be determined.
Some marketers have used the advertising platforms on these networks with varying degrees of success. Profiting from super food Acai berry, dating and grant information type CPA offers has never been easier, but what can more traditional retail focused marketers and merchants get out of them?
Let’s look at the makeup of useful social networks:
- Mass: The bigger, generally the better. With a larger market you’re able to poll a large, statistically significant audience, particularly when it comes to gathering user preference and feedback especially for product development or marketing campaigns.
- Relevance: A network that is actively moderated with the culling of fake and machine-created user profiles and accounts will provide a higher quality user experience and likewise attract better quality users.
- Conversation: Is the network mere collections of user profiles or are users actively communicating and having active discussions? While the ability to post bulletins, broadcast messages and classifieds is a step above more traditional websites, the signs of an active community are discussion threads with responses being traded back and forth and more than two people involved in a conversation.
Looking at a social network as merely an aggregation of consumers, versus a community that you can build a relationship with, will make a difference in the way you engage the social networks.
Seeing a social network’s users as a collection of potential customers tends to predispose the affiliate to looking at user demographics and seeing the users as a one-time affiliate lead or product purchaser. The relationship tends to be short-lived, and once a “razed earth” situation has resulted, the marketer moves on to another social network in search of fresh pastures and leads.
On a long term basis, seeing social network users as a community one can build a relationship with can lead to a positive long term outcome. I see it this way: if you’re providing services to a specific demographic such as recent college graduates, you’re able to carve out a community of users with whom you’ve build a relationship and established trust and credibility. This is vital for doing business in the long term.
Relationships across a social network function along the same rules as their real world counterparts – they need to be nurtured and trying to game them might kill the proverbial golden goose.
The soft approach of providing advertorial content or useful information with strategic product recommendations goes down better with the community than an “in your face” direct marketing approach (think of the user backlash resulting from very direct “Are you feeling sad and lonely” style dating ads).
Social networks have their own set of rules. Successful social marketers need to understand those rules a number of which are network specific, rather than universal. Understanding these differences can pay off big dividends for smart social marketers.
Andrew Wee blogs about blogging, affiliate marketing and social traffic at Who is Andrew Wee.
Great article! For me all of the social networks bring an opportunity to communicate with people I wouldn’t normally have such a clear cut access to.. so its a great avenue to build relationships, learn, listen, explore — brainstorm and get feedback. I don’t use any of the networks as a way to “sell” – not directly. I do however use them for the “awareness” factor of marketing; the “did you know” side of what I do or have to offer.
I think sales and marketing in general are a relationship building processes, thus “social” processes — (unless you are selling a one time item that needs no support and you don’t care if your customer ever speaks to you again, let alone thinks of you). I think it’s truly important to be genuinely interested in what your customers think of what you have to offer — and try to make them as happy as you can, within your boundaries.
Thanks for the insight!
Great summary Andrew, I definitely see the power in social media sites today and I can only imagine how they will continue to grow. Many of my recent posts have been about my Facebook and Twitter addictions. I do view them as communities where I have come to share as well as learn from others. It’s an amazing way to get an insight into others everyday lives often experts at what they do. Normally, we don’t have this kind of access to others. I think as you mentioned it’s important to use these tools wisely by sharing what we think will be useful to others and yes marketing ourselves but not in an overbaring manner. I have gotten the word out about my blog and I think I owe a lot to my Twitter and Facebook communities.
I think you’re bang-on, Andrew. Users use social network to interact with other human beings, so they’re even more banner-blind than ever. Taking the time to actually build a relationship with them, could have some serious long-term potential.
Of course, you always have to consider how your target market happends to behave within any given social network. For example, twitter might be great for reaching out to consumer with your product offer, while Facebook could be a huge waste of time for that same promotion.