Social Media

When looking at our current state of Social Media, I think the majority of questions, polls, and other devices used to gain attention and “likes” are generating poor data.  Companies seem to be concentrating more on generating “likes” or something similar in order to tell their bosses or shareholders that they have X number of “likes”, which “typically” translates into Y dollars.  Instead, they should be working at generating affinity and showing them how to “like” their page—because generating somewhat fake numbers doesn’t drive sales in the same way as an organic “like”.

American Express has done a great job of integrating their social media with my life, and I believe that is a way to be successful.  They have made it easy for me to save money by integrating Facebook with my credit card, and they are using data from my Facebook page to help determine where I might like to use that credit card.  Companies must find ways to make it easy to use—people will not continue to come back or share with their friends (which is obviously the biggest key in a social network) unless the benefits are clear and easily realized.

Things a company should know about my social media use in order to help their brand:

•          How often I post
•          How many friends I have
•          How often my friends “like” or comment on things I post (i.e. if they read them and if my posts are valuable)
•          What brands I identify with
•          How much money I make
•          What my shopping habits are like
•          What affinity groups I am in
•          What types of events I attend

Extracting this information probably isn’t all that difficult.  To me, the more difficult problem is using the information effectively.  I think companies have much more of a problem interacting with people in a way that is social, personal, and brand-building at the same time than they do figuring out who to interact with.

Social Media has obviously been an exploding field over the last 15 years or so.  In that relatively short amount of time, the ways in which people have interacted with and engaged with the different social media outlets has changed dramatically—from online forums to Six Degrees to blogging communities to online gaming all before the ones we think of today (Friendster, LinkedIn, MySpace, Facebook, Twitter, etc.).  Since it, as a field, is something that is based on emerging technology, I expect that trend of change to continue.  Therefore, we should not expect social media, over time, to become stagnant—even in terms of a channel or method of use (though it is certainly tempting given Facebook’s massive market share and popularity).

This idea has numerous implications.  First and foremost, companies currently dominating the market (Facebook, Twitter) must constantly innovate—even more so than a typical technology company.  Startups, for the most part, are not trying to duplicate Facebook’s model and beat them.  Instead, they are trying to find the next great social outlet and beat Facebook to the punch.  For example, I don’t think Social TV necessarily has the ability to become a dominant, life-changing outlet in the social space—but if a company like Miso is integrated with cable set-top boxes (as it has already started doing), and if those set-top boxes begin to control entire living rooms or households, the story could very quickly change.

Additionally, marketers must determine whether this constantly evolving technology is something that will be able to appeal to the masses over time or not.  It seems like social media is something that is more often associated with younger groups—at least early on in a platform’s existence, and at least in some of its more sophisticated uses.  If technology constantly changes the way we interact with social media, there is a chance that we continue to freeze out older populations to these new channels.  Typically, the older people get, the more resistant to change they are.  With TV and radio as the typical advertising outlets over the past 75 years or so, we haven’t had to deal with changing outlets and that effect on the general population.  It may help keep slow-moving social media companies in business (i.e. if Facebook is slow to adjust), or it may counteract the evolving technology directly and work against the need to innovate.  Platforms may need to stay a bit stagnant in order to be attractive to the masses.

Third, marketers must not put all their eggs in the current social media basket.  That is, their marketing strategies that use these different social media outlets must be adaptable to vastly different ones that may come up in the future.  Or, if not, they must be prepared to scrap ideas that may currently seem invincible in favor of new, untested ones as new technologies emerge.