I regularly receive free ebooks and webinar invites from a company called Hubspot. Hubspot is an online social media marketing platform and marketing consulting agency. Generally speaking, I find their stuff interesting and educational (I would say useful, but I honestly have no use for it right now).
This morning, however, I received an ebook whose title alone was enough to make me believe that they really don't know anything about social networks and how the average person interacts with them. The title was, "Google+
vs. Pinterest: Battle of the New Social Networks." Now, most people wouldn't necessarily see this as problematic. So lets follow my logic here.
How many social networks do you have profiles on? More than one right?
I have a profile on pretty much all of them.So, lets say I have 6, just for the sake of simplicity.
How many do you actually use?
Well, I spend the most time on Facebook, but I also use Twitter, G+ and Pinterest regularly.
If the assumption the above entitled ebook makes is correct (That all social networks provide exactly the same service and are in exact competition with one another) then why would I use all of these? Everyone I know uses Facebook, why do I need the others?
The answer is that I use them all for different things. Each does one thing better than another or is designed to fucntion in a certain way that the others do not. They have carved their own niches. People go to Pinterest AND Google +, not one over the other. Pinterest, for one, isn't as socially heavy. Google + is this weird blend between Facebook and Twitter that I haven't yet mastered, Pinterest is tumblr with less 13 year old and more housewife, less blog and more content. You go to pinterest to find cool things on the internet. You go to G+ to see if anyone posted anything interesting there that isn't on Facebook or Twitter already, and because that's where your friend's blog posts to. I use G+ because it's integrated with the rest of my Google things, and I can one click a post, while posting to Facebook from Google can sometimes be a hassle.These reasons, for Pinterest and G+, are not the same. They have no similarities in fact. So, G+ and Pinterest are not in a "Battle" of any sort.
And this is why I think I want to go into internet marketing. Clearly, these people need some advice from some digital natives.
It makes me really uncomfortable when marketing people talk about "leveraging social networks," or what have you. I always feel like the idea is to establish a social networking presence for advertising purposes, and that's both ineffective and devalues the service you're "leveraging" for all its users.
ReplyDeleteIf you have an existing community of interested followers, Facebook *might* be a good way to communicate with them (I find most "official Facebook presences" irritating, but maybe that's just me). But you shouldn't expect to use a Facebook page to draw in users -- if what you want is to advertise, you might as well just buy some ads.
The whole thing feels like a scam targeted at out-of-touch companies who don't "get" the web. Social networking sites are designed to be easy to understand and operate -- if you need to pay someone to handle "social marketing" for you, then the odds are very good that you don't understand what that means, what people use these websites for, and why the social web might be useful to you. And until you understand those things, your company probably shouldn't *have* a social web presence, anyway.
Well, the idea is in fact to establish a networking presence for advertising purposes, and it is actually proven to be extremely effective if done correctly. An example I can think of is twitter promotions. It's true that sometimes they really don't work and people ignore them, but last summer there was one that worked really well.
Delete@HydroExperience is a commercial Twitter account for Schick, and it promotes their Hydro line of razors. Last summer they initiated a hash tag (#haveablast) contest. If you're post got randomly selected, you got a free razor, a set of blades, and a bottle of shaving cream. If you were to win, you could try the product, and if you liked it, you're more likely to actually purchase it AND tell your friends that it's good. Social networking is all about connections, and companies need those connections too. To some degree, as consumers become more and more involved on the internet, it is almost imperative that companies have a social network presence.
I know that I probably won't go to a restaurant these days unless I've looked them up on Yelp. I know that I'm more likely to crave Starburst if I recently saw a post from their Facebook. I know that Sprite has really cool advertisements, because they post them on Facebook.
Companies like HubSpot (and trust me, there are a lot of them) exist to help companies that don't get the internet, get it. Companies NEED a social media presence these days, or else no one will ever see their stuff. It's about exposure. It's about you, as a consumer, seeing the stuff. Where do you look all the time? Your Facebook feed, so naturally, companies want to inhabit that space. I agree that most Facebook presences are annoying, but those aren't the ones that really matter. It's the ones that do it well, and the subsequent rewards they reap.
I'm getting the vibe you don't like advertising in general, which is totally fair. I used to feel that way. One thing that's important to remember is that advertising itself is benign. It's there to show you your options, rather than force you one way or another, it's still the viewers decision as to whether the ad has any effect on them. There isn't actually much coercing going on. Sometimes there is, and thats when I get rhetorically interested. Most social networking advertising though is just about attracting attention.
I think that an important concept to understand or think about is HOW companies or organizations are using social networking as a part of their marketing strategies. The "why are they there?" question is already answered... as Kiersten put it, "Where do you look all the time? Your Facebook feed..." Companies want to catch you where you already "hang out", obviously.
ReplyDeleteBut HOW companies are "leveraging social networks" is quite interesting. To be honest, you can see most companies offering free swag, provoking discussions, or contributing to their industry on social networks. To be honest, the direct goal here isn't to SELL, SELL, SELL. It's to get people thinking about their product, or to get people thinking "Gee, what an awesome company Schick is. They give away free stuff."
Which is brilliant, I think. Like you said, Tank, a lot of people just "get" social media. Chances are, in a huge company like Coca Cola or Target, someone up in management Tweets and Facebooks privately every day. They don't need to shell out thousands of dollars to train someone to use social networks. Furthermore, social networking is (for the most part) free. A huge company doesn't lose much, if anything, by having a team of 4-5 people update Facebook and Twitter, and occasionally hold a contest to give away 25 razors.
The point may not be advertisement in a traditional sense, but advertisement is not merely trying to land a sale. Overall, social networking for corporations is just a net gain. At the very least, you'll have someone slightly annoyed and choose to unfollow or hide posts. It's impossible to not get people annoyed with advertisements; it doesn't matter if they're on social networks or on the side of a bus. At best, your product/service is on the minds of hundreds of thousands of people at once, and they think your company is awesome. Did I remember to mention again that it's free? :P