Social Media Marketing

There are many ways to implement a social networking marketing campaign, but not all of them are equally effective. Here are some typical missteps:

• The biggest mistake is to try to apply “old media” approaches to the new ecosystem. For instance, simply splashing a banner ad on someone’s MySpace page is not social networking marketing. While social media can provide companies with many new opportunities to monetize content and associated brand assets, consumers will reject such approaches as intrusive and opportunistic if they are done in ways that seem out of touch with the conversational dynamics of the community.
• A common approach to social networking marketing is to actively promote and monetize the brand through existing mass aggregation social media channels, such as Facebook, MySpace, and YouTube. The problem with this strategy is that a company runs the risk of diluting its brand and relinquishing brand stewardship to a network that may not share the same values. It may target the wrong demographic or encourage activities that conflict with your brand identity. Most existing networks offer some tools for monitoring, but these are often quite limited. Even if the network does represent a good match today, nothing is stopping its operators from introducing features and/or messaging that conflict with your brand.
• Some companies choose to build their own social media site, but end up with a branded “microsite” that emphasizes one-on-one interaction with the brand rather than fostering true consumer-to-consumer communications and synergy. This is a safe but often ineffective approach that is unlikely to produce true network effects or derive significant consumer insight.
• Companies can also go wrong by failing to offer anything of genuine value or interest to the consumer. Many “so-called” social networking marketing sites are so focused on promoting the brand that they have forgotten that the message will not be shared unless it is seen as being intrinsically valuable to the consumer—it must be genuinely useful, funny, entertaining, or educational.

To provide genuine value to the consumer, companies must build a genuine community, a place where people will want to spend their time. True social networking marketing is based on encouraging consumer-to-consumer conversation and creativity, and providing an environment in which people are eager to engage. This approach provides an ideal platform to promote the unique value of a brand and a means to monetize brand assets through a combination of advertising, subscriptions, or purchases.

A company’s hosted community must provide a place for visitors to be entertained and to engage with other users via interesting content and structured activities. Properly moderated online contests and polls, for example, can be particularly effective ways to generate new brand messaging and entice consumers to become more active participants in the brand experience.

A branded community must also provide information that is comprehensive, accurate, and up-to-date so that consumers feel like they’re getting reliable information, which builds their trust in the company and its brand. Finally, it should provide the structure for a genuine and honest conversation that extends across the web and beyond. It can include a presence on existing social media sites, traditional media, or even sponsored offline activities.

For more on the right way to do social networking marketing, download our white paper, "Building Online Communities in an Economic Downturn."