Paul Gillin eases us into Secrets of Social Media Marketing with the notion that “tools are
secondary.” He wants us to
understand that while something newer and better will always be on the horizon,
the customer is using something else already. So rather than waste time waiting, it’s a much better use of
your energy to focus on your goals and how you’ll accomplish them. It’s also important to note that social
media isn’t always the best medium for your product or purpose. Sometimes it’s better to stick with the
traditional. Social media is a
targeted campaign for a narrow demographic. While it is a narrow market, however, it is a very powerful
one. People are becoming more and
more desensitized to broad marketing and ignoring it in favor for what they
find among those with shared interests.
This is what makes social media such a powerful tool. Social media is all about sharing and
communicating with people like you.
So naturally it turns into a place for people to complain, brag about,
or otherwise comment on companies and their products. This is one of the most important things to remember about
this medium, it’s an opportunity for the consumer to be honest and for the companies
to listen to the feedback and embrace the honesty.
Unfortunately
social media can also be a tricky market due to the consumer’s nature to want
to share information with other people, but not with companies. This is examined in Chapter 6 of
Gillin’s guide. People tend to
resist the campaigns they see clouding their online communities as they’re
viewed as intrusive or invasive. Essential
aspects to successful social media include open enrollment, connection and
communication amongst members, personal spaces for information about the
consumer, and smaller communities within the network, amongst others. One of the biggest draws for social
networkers is the opportunity to keep in touch with people they otherwise
wouldn’t. For others, however, it
can also be for networking for their career, keeping up with trends, or just to
get a jump on the relationships to come.
In
the first chapter of Design to Thrive Tharon
W. Howard shows the importance of social media to the way people communicate
with each other and how that has changed over the past few decades. Here, again, it is noted that it is a
niche market and a powerful one, but that the engine itself is not the most
important aspect to success.
Rather it stems from the inclusion of “RIBS,” or “remuneration,”
“influence,” “belonging,” and “significance.” These four criteria are what account for a successful
marketing strategy in social media, according to Howard. Chapter two deals with the fundamentals
of a social network. As opposed to
an online community, a social network is comprised of relationships that
revolve around the individual; they are user to user. Also, a group isn’t always a community. These are nuanced differences but they
are important ones nonetheless.
