Why companies are struggling to "get" social media

There is considerable talk among social media "experts" on how companies, particularly PR and marketing companies, are failing to utilise social media wisely - often getting it so wrong that they end up pissing people off. I think that we are currently seeing a change in how to communicate online which is both an evolution and a return to pre-internet values.

The first wave

The proliferation of online communication tools such as email marketing and electronic press releases created a new, more structured way for PR and marketing to be handled. The process of distributing and, to a large extent, measuring the effectiveness of releases was soon a mostly automated process. You write the copy, select a distribution list, hit send and then run reports to see how many people received the information - job done.

The big downfall in this process is that the measurement stops at the number of people who read the email or visited the landing page on the website, there is very little examination of the number of people who read the information and dismissed it without further thought, or those who were annoyed at receiving information that was useless to them and harming their perception of the company being "supposedly" promoted.

The next wave

Social media has given everybody a chance to have a public voice, and they are increasingly happy to use that voice when they feel as though they have been mistreated in some way. In order to really get the most out of social media, companies need to return to the old-fashioned system of talking to people and getting to know them.

If I get a simple email saying:

Hi Dave,
I noticed you were discussing product x on facebook the other day, thought you might be interested in this: [link to product website]
Jon Doe, community marketing manager, Y Corporation

It's going to be WAY more effective than sending me an impersonal, flashy, hype-filled email.

Stop shouting and start talking

Identifying key influencers and engaging them on a personal basis is the basis of effective social media marketing and PR. Talk to a handful of bloggers for instance - and by talk I mean build a relationship, not just email them and ask them to blog about your company or product. If they like you then they will write about you. The people reading their blogs will trust their opinion far higher than the contents of a press release and they may also blog about you. This "network effect" not only has the potential to create much greater awareness than an email campaign but the duration of the effectiveness is prolonged. Blog posts and other social media entries (microblogs, bookmarks, shared clips etc) hang around on the web indefinitely, long after emails (which are only visible to the recipients) have been archived or deleted.

Why is it so hard?

The reason companies are finding it hard to move with these changes are that in many cases, the corporate culture has become stuck in the inflexible processes of the "first-wave" of electronic PR and marketing. I see a few organisations finding people who understand the new models (and people who say that they do but obviously don't), but these people are still in the minority and have a difficult job ahead of them in bringing about the required changes. I wish those brave pioneers the very best of luck.

Labels: Opinion