Social Media’s Impact On Marketing – Part 2: Re-Focusing Marketing Activities

Yesterday, I talked about social media causing marketing to shift from messages to experiences. Today, I’ll take a closer look at how two very typical marketing activities—PR and advertising—have fared with the advent of the social web and how such developments underline the need to re-focus marketing activities.

Public Relations

PR is exactly what it stands for: Public Relations. It refers to people, relationships and a long-term commitment to building reciprocal value. Despite developments in the PR industry and a number of worst cases, the underlying premise of PR has never been about creative spin, email blasts with press releases or begging for publicity whenever a new product/service is launched.

In fact, the negative spiral in which some parties find themselves in will be detrimental to them. The increased levels of transparency and interactions spurred on by social media will force these parties to change their methods of working as “broadcasting to” becomes “interacting with”, “message” becomes “experience”, and “audience” becomes “conversation partners”.

True PR has always been about being a subject matter expert and being able to establish relationships with influencers based on that expertise.

Social media strengthens the principles of PR even more because PR professionals have access to more tools and platforms to share relevant content and establish relationships. Furthermore, PR does not merely deal with mainstream media anymore. Everyone can be the media these days and this extends the possibilities for PR even more.

It is up to PR professionals to identify and cultivate a community of presence and influence that caters appropriately to each relevant member segment. These member segments can consist of members of mainstream media, (niche) bloggers, consumers, et cetera. Each segment will have different needs and expectations, and each segment also has its own community.

To achieve this, a number of actions are required:

• Devise an approach that relies on continuous engagement rather than publicity spikes.
• Craft a communication and content marketing approach that offers the most relevant—and thus valuable—information to each part of the community.
• Prioritize the communication approach that efficiently and effectively increases awareness, drives empathy and inspiration among advocates, from the top down and/or bottom up.

I’m calling it communication because it should be about the whole interaction process. The message should no longer be the sole focus. Instead, the experience becomes a more dominant aspect as it becomes obvious that “what one says” is not as important as “how one says it”. The interaction has to be so compelling and inspiring that people—whether they are journalists, bloggers or consumers—are enticed to act on that information.

Advertising

Increased media involvement by consumers has also affected advertising. Advertising has always been a one-way medium that tries to hit home a message to an intended audience. However, advertising is not the most trusted medium by consumers. Numerous surveys and researches have pointed that out. Nielsen’s 2009 Global Consumer Survey shows that many advertising methods are less trusted than, for example, consumer opinions and editorial content.

<Img Nielsen>

Nevertheless, advertising shouldn’t be disregarded because it still plays an integral role in many business models. Websites where free content is offered or social networks that users can join at no cost in exchange for displaying (targeted) ads are examples of such business models.

Re-Focusing Marketing Activities

Organizations are just as much a part of the social web as consumers. Organizations will increasingly have to surrender the interpretation and distribution of their messages to individuals on the social web. On the other hand, they also have an opportunity to create content and listen to these conversations about their company/brand/product/service or their activities. Therefore, organizations might lose some of their control in the transmission and the dissemination, but they also have a certain degree of input and insight in the conversation.

It is up to organizations to leverage the various marketing activities in play to establish their presence on the social web and to gain value from participating. Marketers will need to understand how each activity contributes to their goals and define a purpose for each activity.

Tomorrow, I’ll elaborate on this through the “Online Value Framework”. For now, the comments are yours.