Social Media – Page 2 – David Meiselman

Brand and message control is an illusion…so your product and service had better be awesome.

The current rush by companies to implement a social media strategy is interesting to watch, but often misses the point. Too many marketers are still thinking in a uni-directional way…asking “how do we use social media to get our message out?” Even some savvy marketers who recognize that social media enables easier dialogs with their customers are missing a big piece of the sea change that is going on here.

Your brand/product/service is already being discussed and you have very little ability to effect that conversation just by having a social media strategy. Don’t get me wrong, it is HUGELY important to be involved, responsive, and real as a human voice in social media, representing your thing. But while you can help around the edges, the real conversation will be dictated by what you do, not by what you say.

Is your product amazing? People will talk about it. Does your customer service suck? Believe me…people will talk about it. They always have. It’s just that they used to talk to a dozen of their friends and that story might have spread to a dozen more if it was remarkable.

Social media today gives people a VIRAL MEGAPHONE to reach a lot more people. And you had better hope you don’t piss off someone who is really creative…witness the video below. This is a (very funny) customer complaint that at last count had reached 2.5 MILLION views…I saw it over the weekend in a few different blog/Twitter streams that I follow.

Seth Godin has been saying this for a long time. Develop something remarkable and people will talk about you. Today they just might reach millions of people talking about you. You had better hope it is for the good you did and not the bad…

Image credit – taken from United Breaks Guitars video by Dave Carroll

You don’t need to yell your sales pitch through a bullhorn.

Social Media is not simply another platform for interrupting people with your sales pitch. Don’t get me wrong. There is nothing wrong with selling stuff, and to do so takes a pitch of some kind. But, even I, the sales and marketing guy, get turned off by the direct, no pleasant introductory conversation, dive right in and get it on type of sales come-on, whether it is face to face, online, or in any other medium. Social Media extends that rule and even amplifies it.

I like people. I like getting to know people and I like learning what makes them tick and hearing what it is they have to say. This is at the heart of the concept that many refer to as AUTHENTICITY. We all have a bit of the voyeur in us (in a good way…). This is why we see our news filled with personal interest stories. This is also why many of us like when people add tweets about their personal life or what they are currently doing to their supposedly business focused online persona. Sure it is a bit like a soap opera, but it makes us feel connected to those people with whom we have a mainly one way relationship of listening.

So your voice – how you blog, tweet, post, update – has a big effect on how people will perceive you and how they will place value on your stream. As I start to follow more and more people on my personal twitter account, this is being driven home very clearly to me.

I pay closer attention to those who tweet in an authentic voice like a real person. This is even true with those tweeters who represent a company or brand as opposed to an individual, especially those who mix personal remarks and commentary with the content of their tweets to go beyond business announcements and attempts to get people to click on a bit.ly link. As my stream gets more cluttered, some people will get a larger piece of my attention…the authentic ones.

So, be a real person. Write in a real person’s voice, not in marketing copy. Be a helpful netizen. Don’t just focus on your company’s content or products. Join the conversation. Post things that are relevant but have no benefit to you. That way, when you do post a “pitch” or a product message it will be resonate and have a much greater effect with people who actually want to listen to what you have to say.

Photo by adriaanverstijnen