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Finding Your Social Media Balance – Part 1

October 8, 2009 By 2 Comments

This is the first part in a two-part series about communicating on the social web. In this post I’ll be talking about four variables that come into play when you look to control the depth of your interactions and relationships with people on the social web:

  • Motive: The underlying motive(s) for your interactions/relationships
  • Focus: The people that you choose to communicate with
  • Resources: The amount of time, money and people allocated to communicating through social media
  • Value: The level of relevance you’re offering

Finding a balance between these four variables will allow you to communicate the right things in the right way to the right people.

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Keep Your Enemies Closer

August 25, 2009 By

Particularly in new media, marketing tactics aren’t always as proven and as successful. There is often a big difference in the tonality, the form and the audience of the content. Readers of a car blog aren’t necessarily the same type of people that read a car magazine, for example.

It’s always important to consider the value, the relevance and the timing of your message when marketing on the web. The danger in online marketing—especially with the advent of social media—is the backlash that can arise when a certain marketing effort is not to the audience’s liking.

Some companies will enter a confrontation with the audience, while other companies will ignore the audience. But either way, there’s a moment of contact that you can seize. The amount of backlash you receive is the result of the influence of the starter. Wouldn’t you like to be able to make use of that influence to your advantage? There are more benefits to be gained in repairing any bridges that may be broken than to burn them down completely.

Understand the value of your messages to your audience. When things do go wrong, embrace the naysayers.

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Killing The Now

August 13, 2009 By

Earlier this month, word came out of the Associated Press (AP) planning to introduce a “copy fee” for its content. What it meant was that people using five or more words of the AP’s content would have to pay for it. Copying content from the AP is what the AP considers to be “unauthorized use”. Does this behavior ring any bells?

To me, it looks an awful lot like the crackdown procedures of the MPAA and the RIAA on the movie and music piracy scene. It does signal the perilous situation in which these organizations and their business models are. They are looking to make money from a changed world in a way that only worked in the old world. They’re trying to change the world instead of changing their business model.

Copying of content, piracy of audio and video, and music services on the web are not bad. It’s even a form of flattery. Apparently, it’s worth using and consuming. Attacking these practices and services is essentially also attacking the one they should be aiming for, consumption. They’re running their business into the ground while under the impression that they’re saving it.

Protecting the future by killing the now doesn’t work.

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Dear Customer

July 28, 2009 By

Customers are an investment. Time, money and resources have been spent on reeling them in to buy your product or service. Once they’re in, your cost to get them to re-purchase will be much lower than the initial cost. Therefore, their return on your investment increases over time.

I encountered a great example of this the other day. My business partners and I needed new business cards and we had already established contact with a printer. There was, however, a miscalculation/misunderstanding that led to a price that was much higher than was originally quoted/estimated. Instead of pressing the issue, we settled on a compromise. The printer might break even or make a minor loss now, but they know that we would come back for more when needed. There’s also the additional business of letterheads, envelopes, brochures, et cetera. They understood that making this investment/sacrifice would benefit them over time.

Understand that your customer is an investment. Take the long-term return on your investment into consideration.

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Quid Pro Quo

July 9, 2009 By

This post is part rant, part case study. Lately, I’ve been extremely annoyed by two campaigns on Twitter.

The first campaign was by Squarespace. They asked people to use the hash tag #squarespace in their tweets. People could do this randomly and were encouraged to do it as often as possible. Squarespace would select a lucky winner every day and give that person a gift voucher for the Apple Store.

The second campaign was by Moonfruit. It was a similar campaign where, during a week, people could enter a competition to win one Apple MacBook Pro each day. People were automatically entered into the competition if they used the hash tag #moonfruit in their tweets and again, people were stimulated to do it as often as possible.

These brands have succeeded in getting their brand names into the social media space, but it’s been done in a dubious way. Moreover, they haven’t performed any true form of consumer engagement, which just means that they let people flood Twitter with their brand name without any proper context.

Don’t use social media as a cheap promotional tool. Use social media to genuine build relationships.

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