Comments on: Social media is not your marketing strategy

By: Lauren Fisher

Lauren Fisher — Mon, 23 Nov 2009 16:08:25 +0000

Hey Ruby. Better late than never. I’m glad you liked it – coming from you that means a lot to me

By: ruby

ruby — Thu, 19 Nov 2009 21:04:15 +0000

excelent post loz! sorry to be so late to catch up with it, but i really enjoyed reading. totally right about a move away from campaign thinking – but it’s so far rooted into agency process that it’s very hard to see how most oganizations can avoid it.

By: Social Media Agency UK: Qube Media: Blog : Baby badgers and the harsh realities of social media (5 of the best)

Wed, 18 Nov 2009 15:36:58 +0000

[...] Social Media is not your marketing strategy [...]

By: Michael Morgan

Michael Morgan — Wed, 11 Nov 2009 20:31:16 +0000

Great article, and well said. Too many people are out there preaching instant results and no effort. As you said, it is simply one piece of the puzzle, albeit a piece of increasing importance. Social Media is all about communication, and that includes both inside and outside the company!

By: Richard Hamilton

Richard Hamilton — Wed, 11 Nov 2009 17:48:19 +0000

Hi Lauren, Thanks for your reply. You’re exactly right about social media being a new kind of beast. It will take some out-of-the-box thinking to take advantage of it, and I think collaboration among a wide variety of specialties is going to be the key doing that.

I hope you do get the chance to read Anne’s book. It is available on Amazon, and you can get more information at http://xmlpress.net/conversation.html, including a sample chapter.

Also, I downloaded your ebook. I’ve just read the first few pages, but I think you make some great points. I’m looking forward to reading the rest.

By: Lauren Fisher

Lauren Fisher — Wed, 11 Nov 2009 16:42:48 +0000

Hi Richard, I agree with your points. I didn’t intend for it to come across that I only suggest using social media for PR purposes. Again, it’s a new kind of beast and needs to move away from traditional PR/marketing thinking.
You’ve hit the nail on the head by saying that social media needs to involve other departments, particularly staff. It’s no longer the reserve of the marketing team, as what social media enables people to do is to reach those real people in an organisation and get the answers that they need. It might well be the case that the marketing team for example are driving the social media strategy forward, but that they are not the ones doing the communicating.
I haven’t read Anne Gentle’s book but am on a bit of a literature drive at the moment so will try and check it out.

By: Lauren Fisher

Lauren Fisher — Wed, 11 Nov 2009 16:37:49 +0000

Hi Steven, I should be careful what I tweet! Dress thing going well so far
I empathise with you on the client situation. People like us have certainly set a sizeable challenge to convince companies to use social media in the right way and not to promise overnight success. The key is to keep that enthusiasm there by showing the immense benefits of social media, but it can be a hard task sometimes.

By: Richard Hamilton

Richard Hamilton — Wed, 11 Nov 2009 16:31:44 +0000

While I agree 100% that Social Media isn’t your marketing strategy, I would also argue that if your only use of Social Media is to support marketing/PR, then you probably won’t succeed. Customers frequently come to the Internet to solve problems, and in my experience, their grass-roots communities focus almost exclusively on questions and answers about using products/services. If your company comes into a community from a marketing perspective, when the participating customers are looking for technical information or support, they will probably be unsatisfied.

I’d argue that a successful social media strategy must involve your technical communication and support people. They can provide the kind of information customers are looking for, and at the same time help deliver a marketing message.

A good resource in this area is Anne Gentle’s Conversation and Community: The Social Web for Documentation (full disclosure, my company publishes her book). It describes how to incorporate technical communication with your social media strategy.

By: steven

steven — Wed, 11 Nov 2009 13:30:26 +0000

Excellent post Lauren. I am just on the edge of going mental with the next client we have that comes in to us with a look on their face like they have just discovered electricity and proudly proclaiming to us that they need to have a blog and a twitter account asap an that this will solve all their problems. On further discussion with them it becomes clear that they have little or no intention of maintaining or publicising the existence of either. They have heard about social media from somewhere and intend to operate on the ‘if you build it they will come’ principle. Once we start explaining that these methods are only useful if they are treated seriously, regularly updated with useful content (as opposed to just being billboards with the latest deals/offers) we can see the enthusiasm drain from their face, even after we explain how a little effort in these areas can reap large rewards. All of this and we don’t even tout ourselves as social media experts. I can only imagine how it is for ye. There is a massive misconception out there that social media is the magic lamp of marketing.

Best of luck with the dress thing too

By: Lauren Fisher

Lauren Fisher — Wed, 11 Nov 2009 10:41:19 +0000

Thanks Karen, I’m glad you found it interesting. I’d recommend listening to the podcast, it’s a very interesting interview.

By: Karen

Karen — Wed, 11 Nov 2009 10:31:28 +0000

Really interesting post, some good advice in there