Social marketing doesn’t work?

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‘Why social marketing doesn’t work’ said the tweet, offering a link to follow. Of course I had to see what that was all about.

It’s an interesting piece in FT Magazine by Tim Harford, but I think the headline is a bit of an exaggeration. Fair enough—it did what the headline is supposed to do: got my interest and made me have a look. But the article is specifically about the chances of social marketing going viral, and while I have no reason to doubt its claims about how hard that may be, I don’t think it follows that “social marketing doesn’t work”.

Is social marketing only about going viral?

It would follow, if you think that social marketing is all and only about going viral. Clearly if marketing is about reaching as wide an audience as possible and having the desired effect on them, then a campaign that goes viral will do that (as long as it does have the desired effect, and not the opposite effect to that intended). But you can reach new people without going viral. Not as many, not as quickly, not as publicly, maybe; but does that mean there’s no point?

Refusing to engage in social marketing without a guarantee of going viral seems to me like refusing to advertise unless you know that the ad is going to be the award-winning one that everybody talks about for years. Surely we all agree that advertising can deliver a good return on investment even if it doesn’t win awards?

Why repetition in your marketing is important

Let’s also not forget that good marketing uses different methods and media to reinforce your message. Looking at any piece of the mix on its own may underestimate its influence. Don’t ignore the possibility that somebody reached in another way may look for your social networking presence before making a decision about you. If you’re not where people expect you to be, doing the things they expect you to be doing, you may lose out.

Use social marketing to strengthen existing relationships

Finally, even if you never win a new customer through social marketing, what about maintaining relationships with the ones you already have? Or with other targets for marketing activity: partners, for example, or the press? Marketing isn’t just about creating new relationships; it’s as much about strengthening the ones you already have. That’s surely where social networking comes into its own. Especially if that’s how those you’re trying to communicate with want to engage with you.

Why? The most valuable word in social media

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Don’t get me wrong. I can see the worth of social media sites, like Facebook and LinkedIn, as much as the next man. I get that you have to get involved or risk missing out. For example, when having lunch with a girlfriend last week I could sympathise with her situation: she was miffed at not knowing about another friend’s new baby born weeks earlier. My only advice was, you guessed it, ‘to get a Facebook account’. And the more advice like this that gets dished out, the more we feed the social-media fever. No bad thing perhaps, but it’s vital that all that advice remains connected to the need it’s given to address: that’s the ‘why’.

In my friend’s case, there was a community on Facebook that she wanted to be part of. Does your business know where its communities hang out? If that’s Facebook or LinkedIn or somewhere else, that’s where you need to play. It’s exactly the same consideration as choosing to visit a certain exhibition or advertise in a particular magazine: will people you want to influence see you there?

3 in 1: social networking

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The emergence of the personal brand | Is corporate social networking the equivalent of embarrassing dad dancing?| What’s the future of online privacy?

After a long period of social networking news being dominated by stellar valuations of Facebook, recent days have seen many reports about a flood of funding going to their competitors. So what’s turned the tide? Bebo is shutting down and Twitter’s 3000%+ growth has slowed to double digits. The answer is not external, it’s Facebook’s own hubris and failure to appreciate their members’ privacy concerns.

No doubt Facebook’s management are very well aware of the cautionary tale presented by MySpace. It was the dominant force in social networking and their position seemed unassailable too. Back in 2005 they were bought by Rupert Murdoch for $327m. Last summer it was forced to lay off a third of its staff after failing to meet the audience figures in an advertising deal with Google.

Privacy issues aren’t new to Facebook, they’ve had several past indiscretions. Over the years, Facebook has opened up access to more and more of its users’ information (see this fascinating infographic). The problem is that social networking isn’t just about your friends anymore. We’ve all seen the stories of people being caught out when they’ve claimed to be ill, or saying something derogatory about their company. And who would want their gran to see those photos from that big night out?

Social networking has created the personal brand. A great example of the dangers is the parliamentary candidate the Labour party ditched during the election due to some crude tweets sent as a student. I’m glad it didn’t exist when I was a student! But there are good examples too. Columnists such as David Mitchell (@RealDMitchell) and Victoria Coren (@VictoriaCoren) have become publicists, promoting their own work and by extension the publications in which they appear – the Guardian and Observer newspapers in this case. And it’s not just those in the media, tweeters and bloggers like Allen Kelly (@AllenKelly) of VeriSign mixes news on the security products offered by the company that he works for and personal opinions and updates.

And that’s good! Too many companies have felt obliged to have a social networking presence, but instead of learning the new media just mechanically churn out dull updates linking to their staid press releases. If you want to make a success of social networking, you have to have a genuine commitment to engaging with your audience. This has to have executive support as social networking needs to be timely, it can’t be subject to a laborious approval process. You can just tweet/facebook links to your website, but that’s no more than an RSS feed. Give your presence a personality, have an opinion, and you’ll see much better results.