Brad Rourke

Why Be In Social Media?

Any new trend generates jargon. It’s necessary in order for people to talk about the ideas embedded in the trend. Pretty soon, the people who follow the trend use so much jargon it loses its meaning. We’re about at that point with this thing people are calling “social media.” Amber Naslund suggests a good thought experiment in which we need to describe social media without using certain buzzwords or catch phrases (e.g., “You need to join the conversation.”)

Photo of The Conversation by Edouard Vuillard is by Flickr user cliff1066
Photo of The Conversation by Edouard Vuillard is by Flickr user cliff1066

People in organizations need a clear understanding of the value — to them — of pursuing social media. Unfortunately, many of the people who are most excited about and evangelists for social media put everything in a kind of gee-whiz, the world’s changing mode. To anyone older than thirty-five, this holds painful echoes of the way people talked about the “new” economy in the late 1990’s.

The argument amounts to this: “You need to be in the social media space because it is new, and many people, including me, see it as cool.” Why? asks the organization leader.

At that point, many will trot out statements that make no sense but that are meant to sound smart. They will say that a brand is “a conversation,” or that people want to be in a “relationship.” Both are silly things to say. I do not want to be in a “relationship” with my bank; I want easy access to my money and I want it all there when I go to get it. Similarly, I may have a conversation about a brand, but as a consumer I understand that a brand is simply a way of conveying in shorthand what qualities I might expect from a given product, service, experience, or cause.

The thing that is missing in so much of this is the key element of why an organization might give a fig about social media. So here it is: the decision. As an organization, I want to influence people’s decisions so that they decide to do what I want them to (examples: buy my product, attend my school, go to my theme park, support my cause, trust my brand, view me as a thought leader).

So, I would make the case for social media in those terms:

  • People make decisions based in large part on recommendations from peers or trusted figures. Increasingly, these recommendations are passed along through social media tools.
  • The key characteristic of social media that makes it different from other media is that the contributions, comments and other responses of users are seen as intrinsically important.
  • To influence people’s decisions, we need to monitor and play a role in these user responses.

For these purposes, important social media tools include: blog posts, comments on blog posts, user forums, email lists, reviews by consumers on shopping sites, and online communities like Facebook, Twitter, and Flickr. Each of these is a channel in which user responses and activities are key. They are all areas where an organization can seek to gain a presence.

But if these attempts don’t have a fundamental connection to the decision I want people to make about my brand or my organization, it’s just wasted time and energy.

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10 responses to “Why Be In Social Media?”

  1. Leo Dewey

    This is a very interesting exchange going on and I hope my post doesn’t kill it as it seems to have in the past. I was struck that the first stumbling block was the definition of the term “social media”, which always seems to be the main obstacle on the subject. With such an ambiguous predicate, it’s no wonder it took so long for the substance of your article to be gotten at. Better to call it “interactive media” to spare all the preliminary debate. Although, come to think of it, Letters to the Editor in print media or call in radio shows might qualify as interactive media too, so there we go again…

    I would observe that companies and causes have always relied heavily on customer interaction and feedback, often doing so in background by soliciting comments from its customers and using them to refine their product or publicizing favorable ones. I agree with Linda’s observations about personal relationships with a company/cause and with your conclusions about how to sell “social media” involvement to them. People like to hear from other regular people who have had to make choices similar to theirs and value their recommendations, whether they are made in person, on the Web, or letters to the editor. It just makes sense that they do. It should be an easy sell if it weren’t for the ambiguous term: social media.

    Thought provoking article, Brad, as usual.

  2. Caryn Martinez

    Oooo! Oooo! Semantics! Can I play?

    1. I want to have a good relationship with the manager of my local Wells Fargo branch. HE has a relationship with Wells Fargo, the institution. I don’t want to have to contact Wells Fargo, the institution, at all. That’s what the bank manager (or his underlings) are for.

    2. If I WERE “in a relationship” with my medical insurance company, I would sell all its old baseball cards and put sugar in its gas tank. This is not the sort of outcome my medical insurance company forsaw when its “social media guru” told it that “having a relationship” with clients was a good idea.

  3. bradrourke

    Linda, those are excellent points. Thank you.

    I am only partially convinced, however. I believe:

    1) Consumers are better off if they have a relationship with the brands they use (if only to complain to @JetBlue)

    2) I am better-disposed toward the brands I feel I have a relationship with (I like buying from CDBaby, or did until they got swallowed by DiscMakers)

    BUT, I am not convinced that those two things add up to me wanting to pursue a relationship with a brand. In other words, I am not convinced that telling me (as an ordinary consumer) that I can have a relationship with a brand will make me better disposed towards it.

    YOU know I will like the brand better if I have a relationship, but /I/ don’t know it yet. (Again, I am being an ordinary consumer here.)

    The reason this matters is that it then doesn’t make sense to pitch social media as a relationship builder if the targets don’t yet know they want relationships.

    It is probably a semantic distinction but I suspect it may matter.

    Hope that makes it more clear. Perhaps it has only succeeded in doing the opposite.

  4. Linda Ziskind

    Brad, as usual, it’s a great post, but I will take issue with your point about relationships. Actually, you DO want to be in a relationship with your bank, or your airline, or your car company and here’s why: In the olden days, e.g., five years ago, if my plane was stuck on the tarmac for 16 hours, or some headache remedy company put out an ad totally offensive to women, or if a auto company sent me a cease and desist letter about my truck fan website, I’d be powerless to do anything but fume. I certainly wouldn’t have access to anyone of influence in the company and, unless I was an OpEd writer for the NY Times, I probably wouldn’t be able to generate consumer outrage. But the technology that enables social media has changed all of that. Now, with a few keystrokes, I can talk directly to Scott Monty at Ford (who interceded on behalf of the guy who maintains the Ranger fansite and got the cease and desist letter), or Morgan Johnston at JetBlue, or the Motrin moms.

    And what I find great about this is that companies don’t often get a chance to brand themselves through their employees. Brand perception is generally formed through our experiences with the product or service, its packaging, its emotional appeal, its advertising and marketing, and whatever we know or see about its C level staff – and these days, C level staff aren’t the best brand builders. So there is rarely a “human” face for a brand. But I think companies like JetBlue and Comcast and Ford have gotten it very right by not going into social media as a logo, but having real people represent them. People who will answer questions, escalate complaints, and, yes, form relationships.

  5. Caryn Martinez

    Guy — I can’t believe I made that mistake! It’s not like you didn’t give Fou credit right there, just before the quote!

    Well, I’m glad you pointed that out, because now I’ve read Fou’s original article.

  6. bradrourke

    I’d probably say this back to Fou:

    “Media” is really just another word for “way,” as in “the way things get conveyed.” Its distinguishing feature isn’t that it’s paid for, or available for purchase — just ask a political campaign whether they would rather have paid media (ads) or free media (press coverage). No, “media” is the word we use to mean the “channel” information gets conveyed.

    You could argue that some media can be bought, and other media can’t be bought. Social media can’t (easily) be bought. Similarly, journalistic media can’t (easily) be bought.

    I am totally with you on the ill-advisement of paying for social media mentions. :-)

    B

  7. Guy LeCharles Gonzalez

    I think part of the problem is definitely its over-usage, but as Fou notes, “media” implies something that can be bought, and in that context, there is no such thing as social “media”.

    People’s conversations are not media; they can’t be purchased as such by advertisers. In other words, people don’t talk whenever advertisers want them to and they won’t say whatever advertisers tell them to — so it isn’t “media” like TV, print, and radio.

    There are some prominent social media “experts”, like Chris Brogan, who support the commodification of social media via things like pay-per-post, but I vehemently disagree with that approach: http://loudpoet.com/2009/04/22/bursting-the-social-media-bubble/

    Thanks!

  8. bradrourke

    Hey, thanks Guy.

    I do have one quibble, or really a question. What’s wrong with the term “social media?” (Aside from over- and incorrect use, I mean?)

    There’s “print” media, whose chief characteristic is that it’s printed.

    There’s “broadcast” media, whose chief characteristic is that is is broadcast.

    Why not “social” media, whose chief characteristic is that it depends on user-generated content as an integral part of its reason for being? (That is, not everything that just happens to be online is social media, just a subset.)

    Seems to me that in a marketing mix, you would want to be able to track your performance in the “social” media space as well as in the other media spaces.

    Please know that, like you, I am totally irked by the over-buzz and hype, and sloppy use of the term. But it /does/ seem to have a place.

    Brad

  9. Guy LeCharles Gonzalez

    Thanks for the shout-out, Caryn, but credit where due, those points were made by Omnicom’s Dr. Augustine Fou in a must-read post at ClickZ entitled: The ROI for Social Media Is Zero: http://www.clickz.com/3633341

    Brad: Great post! It’s nice to see a rational discussion of social media that separates the hype from the reality.

  10. Caryn Martinez

    Excellent essay; I am forwarding it to Rob. But while we’re getting rid of jargon, let’s get rid of the nonsensical phrase “social media.” I agree with Guy LeCharles Gonzales in this article: http://tinyurl.com/dmkqzm when he gives these definitions:

    * Social media: There’s no such thing.

    * Social networks: The places where people go to socialize with friends.

    * Social actions: The things people do on social networks and elsewhere like talk, share, comment, review, recommend, rate, etc.

    * Social intensity: The rate and quantity of social actions. (See, “Social Intensity: A New Measure for Campaign Success?”)

    * Social marketing: What advertisers can do to stimulate more social actions in support of advertising and marketing efforts.

    He adds: The metrics of social actions can’t be compared to old media metrics; it is not social media.

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