Your Customers STILL Don’t Care About Your Social Media Strategy – But They Do Love a Bargain
November 16, 2009
Filed Under: in Analysis, Marketing 2.0, Sharing, Social Media
Author: Chris Selland
Welcome back.
I noted a Facebook post and Tweet from my friend Paul Gillin earlier today with interest. To quote:
"Razorfish study says screw engagement; ppl want discounts from brands on SM.http://bit.ly/12eIAy. IMO, this question hard to study"
In turn, I posted on his Wall:
"I'm not the least bit surprised. Looks like they did a pretty thorough survey"
"Brand Engagement" is, mostly, a waste of time and money
I reviewed the findings of the Razorfish study and have to agree that it supports an assertion I've been making for some time - that consumers could really care less about your Social Media strategy and have little to no interest in 'engagement' or 'dialogue'.
Unfortunately, these initiatives continue to be cited ad nauseum by countless Social Media self-proclaimed 'gurus' and advocates as 'proof' of Social Media 'ROI'. And I continue to assert these initiatives are silly at best, and financially dangerous at worst.
I don't want 'dialogue' but I love a good deal
What the study does say, however (and uses well-known consumer brands including Whole Foods and Starbucks to illustrate) is that consumers will respond to a good deal. This is precisely what the oft-cited Dell social media 'case study' also illustrates.
I also have a personal dog in the hunt - no, I am not just a skeptic who is trying to rain on the Social Media parade. I am actually an enthusiast of Social Media for interpersonal networking purposes.
And I'm on the board of Snow Beverages, a consumer brand that - like all consumer brands - absolutely needs to build and consumer brand awareness. There is nothing I'd love more than to help Snow find a marketing channel that can deliver on the promise of Social Media - a low-cost, high-engagement channel of consumer communication.
Unfortunately, like many marketers are finding, at the end of the day we need to invest in strategies that sell product. We've actually had great success with live, in-person promotions - and we've even promoted them on Social Networks - but 'engagement' and 'dialogue'? Meh...
Using Twitter as the new corporate clearance rack or Facebook for handing out free samples doesn't sound nearly as sexy as 'brand engagement' and 'consumer dialogue' - but it's all about ringing the cash register these days.
Consultants or Cheerleaders?
Having known Paul for many years - back to when he was the editor of ComputerWorld and I was an analyst at Yankee Group - I also know that he's honest, practical and a very straight shooter. Razorfish also deserves credit for running this survey and speaking so honestly about the results.
Both Paul and Razorfish are doing what a good consultant should do - fostering a discussion upon which their clients can make smart and informed decisions on which strategies work - and which do not.
Unfortunately, I continue to experience that those characteristics far too rare - and too many of today's 'Social Media Consultants' aren't consulting at all, but are instead Cheerleading for strategies that will certainly make money for their agencies & career, but could very well be counterproductive and harmful to their clients & employers.
Companies are wising up - and the Social Media industry is overdue for a rationalization. Those strategies that don't sell soda, coffee, groceries, airline tickets or whatever else companies make money from are going to go by the wayside. If you're an enthusiast and advocate, you should really think hard about which side of this rationalization you want to be on.
I know where I stand - and until someone shows me evidence otherwise, I remain in the camp that 'engagement' and 'dialogue' might be nice, but they don't pay the bills. Companies will not make significant investments of resources in these initiatives until (if?) the numerous Gurus spouting these strategies prove otherwise.
As you know my opinion's Chris - we are so on the same page here. Most social media strategies are cheerleaders because the initiatives are all based in "mentions" ROI - that is an old PR metric like clippings. So most optimize on the wrong metric.
As I've been saying for sometime the new user behavior online where social media is relevent is:
Three core elements: 1) attention .. 2) discovery ... and 3) action
Most are only doing attention nothing else.
plus ça change, plus c'est la même chose 'member web 0.1 when companies poured unaccountable $$ into plain old websites with no perceptible ROI? And then the bubble burst...
Great post, Chris. While I supposed I'm one of those consultants who is occasionally guilty of cheerleading, I also believe that ANY business strategy must start with the final goal and work back from there. In many cases, the same metrics that apply to traditional marketing and PR work just as well in new channels, but the metrics and tactics are different. People are smitten with these new tools and will quickly hit Gartner's famous "trough of disillusionment" if they don't prepare themselves for the reality that marketing is hard and getting harder.
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Interesting article. I do think that social media is useful but it needs to be seen in the context of an overall digital marketing strategy, and that is where I think your point stands up very well. Most people who talk about strategies (whether social media or otherwise) are simply looking at tactics to grab people's attention. It is a few steps further down the line before that becomes cash in, but it is the first step and an important one in the journey so I wouldn't discredit it completely. I also wouldn’t hold it up as anything more than the first step either. My big issue with most digital marketing agencies is that they focus on tactics and don't see ROI in tangible terms, which is why I formed my own interactive marketing agency this time last year. It is my assertion that digital, across the various channels, is capable of delivering a strategy that begins with first contact and leads a customer through to regular and repeat purchase and that is where we should be focusing our attention. The big picture starts with a crowd that has never heard of your client and leads them through to cash in the client's bank account. The various sides of this argument are currently being had all over the web at the moment. There is one looking at how agencies need to develop of Forrester blogs and we posted our own blog post about digital marketing strategy needing to grow up earlier today. I think that everyone is going to end up in the same place and realise that digital marketing isn’t about tactical disciplines like search, web design, email, social media, display ads and analytics. It is about providing a mechanism that enables customers to purchase and leads them through that journey online.
Great comments - thanks all. As a few of you (John, Paul, Aaron) have said, it's not that having a Social Media strategy is a bad thing. It just needs to connect to something beyond 'attention'.
It's impossible to connect ALL of the dots, but one way or another, Social Media advocates need to find a way to connect their strategies to revenue. If they don't, they shouldn't complain when their employers & clients are less than enthusiastic about funding them.
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