You Social Butterfly

"There’s a new brand experience and it goes by the name of social networking. Are you ready for it?" said the animated gentleman in the bright sneakers to his associate at the bar. My ears were pricked.

"Facebook, Twitter, they’re going to change the way you sell your products. Forget about bricks and mortar mate – the future is all around you. Millennials are in the aisles right now – ready and waiting to browse and mingle. No more reps, just friends, referrers and influencers doing it for you. You'll thank me for this in 12 months and understand why it’s your shout tonight!".

I like to call these people Social Butterflies – an associate once coined the phrase ‘SEO Cowboys’ and I’ve been looking for one ever since. We should really worry about people using social networking and brand experience in the same sentence.

Social Networking is not Social Marketing. Planning to market within the Social Network requires genuine insight. Done right, you’ll be able to identify Social channels that will best suit your brand’s consumers. These channels can create additional reach, allow you to mingle with your consumers, and generate some real value and influence.

Let’s say you’re currently a brand NOT using Social Media, let’s say you are channel 9 on free to air TV. Now let’s say you’re a brand who IS using Social Media, lets say you’re the 9 network in the freeview digital age and you have added channels Go! and GEM to increase your reach. Now if this is making sense to you without a keynote slide in the background, you’ll understand you can’t just duplicate your content across all channels – there’s no point running the news at 6 o’clock on all three channels. You need a relevant approach to how you talk to each segment.

Ok, now we’re getting somewhere. Look to the social network to identify some social media channels. Choose the right channel for your strategy, don’t just follow others, draw some relevance but find where your type of consumer is mingling. Explore some more. Tailor content for each channel and the type of influence that works best for your brand.

Now that your new social media channel is up and running with the right strategy, the right content, the right levels of commitment, and some followers, how do you gauge success?

The strength in digital marketing remains. Analytics, insights and monitoring are available in the social network. The ROI can be effectively measured. Along with the measure, comes the support and drive from the development community and technology vendors, meaning more applications and seamless convergence across desktop and mobile. More reach!

With all this reach and now Hollywood’s take on the social network showing on screens, the medium is well and truly immersed into our lives. Will the Academy become a fan? Who knows. The one thing we do know is social marketing requires a lot of commitment  – once you start, you aim to increase the 7 billion minutes per month currently captivating users. And unlike a blockbuster movie, get it – unlike :), you can’t just walk out.
So before you plan your marketing metamorphosis, get social and flap your wings, think seriously about social media.

Do your Research,  Understand your potential Reach, Commit to content that will Resonate, Establish an ROI.