Advertising guru, Roy Williams likes to say “Advertising only accelerates the inevitable” today I would add that “Social media only accelerates the inevitable.”
The point is simple, if you have a good business, with strong values, a great product/service, that takes good care of employees and customers, advertising will help amplify your great story and your results.
If you have a lousy product, treat customers and employees without respect, with advertising you’ll soon be out of business (although some airlines and banks have consistently managed to defy this rule).
Used to be if you had a lousy business you could fool some people in to buying from you and word of mouth would eventually catch up with you as the expression went one person who would then tell twelve… But that was another day. Today one person Tweets, updates their status, creates a YouTube video, post a review or blogs and thousands if not millions might see it.
It’s All About Me, The Customer
Peter Drucker said the “The purpose of business is to create and keep a customer.”
Notice the focus on the customer, not the product or service. The point of your business should be to fill needs and create value for your customers. Too many companies still practice accidental marketing. They hope that social media marketing is their magic blue pill to great results.
An Apple a Day Keeps the Social Away
You don’t have to be social, but you do need to provide value for your customers. Apple is not a social company, it is not open to having a dialogue with everyone, nor does it need to. As long as they continue to fill needs and bring value to customers. Some die-hard social media “experts” will argue with me, but you can’t argue with Apple’s results. Being social is not part of their corporate metabolism and it doesn’t look like they need to change that anytime soon. But you are also not Apple.
The Social Values
The social media revolution though does signify certain cultural and societal values shifting. We expect a business to have respect for the customer, create good products/services (or we’ll review them negatively), have good customer service, and we expect some level of transparency and authenticity from the organization.
Being social is about values, beliefs and attitudes. Values and attitudes you have or don’t or would like to have. Keep in mind if you don’t have them changing attitudes and beliefs can be difficult, un-natural and you will resist it. As much as change is a constant, as humans we seek to keep the status quo.
You can’t fake social. Just because you post some YouTube videos, put up a fan page, start a blog or twitter account, does not mean you are “social.” If you are not prepared to walk the talk and align your values don’t believe the tactics will bring results.
Do not believe the tactics can replace the strategy. However, if you are prepared for real change starting down this path to social commerce can be transformative.
You can always put lipstick on a pig, but at the end of the day you still have a pig, although possibly a pretty pig.
13 comments
This post will be required reading for my clients. I've been saying much the same, but you have that great pig photo.
Marketing today involves listening to people in your marketplace. When you do, you'll be able to fix what's wrong, share what's new and delight them.
Listen and Love… It's as simple as that.
Great stuff. There’s a big difference between “doing” social media and “being” social.
.-= Jay Baer´s last blog ..New Twitter Killer Bans the Spam =-.
Agree with you Bryan. In addition to starting from grassroots up (and not just putting a makeup superficially), I think firms should also clearly understand what roles social media, PR, and advertising plays or should play in their organization. If you can streamline and create synergies between the three, it can be a force to reckon with – otherwise, one will run into all sorts of internal and external issues and will be wasting resources and time.
Apple does do it. We do it for them. Apple has changed several things b/c of outcry for its user base. Remember the rebate for new iPhone customers or free battery replacement for iPods?
Of course, if you’re Guy Kawasaki, you can fake social, build a business, and wait for the fallout.
Or accept that faked social can be done if you put enough energy into it.
You know . . . says me . . .
Jeff Yablon
President & CEO
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.-= Jeff Yablon´s last blog ..iPhone vs. Droid vs. Nexus One, From a Real Person =-.
It’s easy to fake social, hire someone to do it for you, or even automate parts of it as seen in trends. Good point that many ride the wave, hoping it makes up for their lack of advertising elsewhere. Even if someone adopts this “social commerce” some has to sell something, and that’s not done by being a professional conversationalist. The rest is good customer service.
.-= Steven Kennedy´s last blog ..steven_kennedy: @hittjw Thanks, that’s what a webmaster is supposed to do. =-.
Not so sure.
The AMEX open forum has some terrific articles on it, i.e. from Guy Kawasaki, but it’s not the most ‘social’ site in the world, even though Guy is telling us/them how to do it.
Oh, the irony!
My gut feeling is that this reflects a 20th view on broadcasting from the top mgt. i.e. let’s talk to them rather than building a dialogue. Terrible missed opportunity.
I could not agree more. The number of companies putting a hefty effort into using social marketing for their lousy products and services is actually diluting the effectiveness of many of the campaigns I see out there. Unles you have a brand name with plenty of recognition consumers are starting to get distrustful of social media campaigns as they have been repaetedly abused.
Hi Bryan, I’m a little late finding this post but I’d like to join the conversation. You make such a valid point about social media accelerating a good product if it is indeed a good product. I work at Think Big Online (Australia) and we meet up with small business owners who avoid social media like the plague. http://www.thinkbigonline.com.au/why-twitter-facebook-and-google-are-must-haves-in-your-seo-arsenal/ What we try to explain is that they have a good product/service (if we think they do) and therefore need to get into the social game. We also have no problem explaining to potential clients that we don’t think we can help them (if they don’t yet have products or customer service in place that social demands). Quality article. Cheers, Alisa