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Social Media Aint No Revolution

The fact is that marketing at its core is only concerned with one thing – audience. This is as true today as it was 100 years ago, and will remain true for the next 100 years. Marketing evolves, but its core remains the same. It exists to effectively communicate with an audience.

A message is nothing without people to hear it and your audience, your target market, isn’t a fundamentally different creature than it was before everyone got excited by Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn or any of the myriad other sites that make up the social web.

Now, it would be naive to assume there had been no change. The tools available to connect with people are immensely useful and to ignore them would be foolish. That being said, the fact remains that in order to convince your audience to engage with your product or service, you still have to do the same three things.

1. Grab Them

You need to get their attention. Without someone’s attention, your message doesn’t exist. It’s nothing. The fight for people’s attention is harder than ever, and to get people to notice you, you need get your message not just to wherever they are, but where they’re open to receiving your message. Nowhere are people more receptive to new ideas than in conversation. You have access to these conversations through the social web. Don’t ignore it.

2. Hold them

Getting someone’s attention for long enough to hear your message is one thing. Getting them to listen and take your message on board, that’s another. If you think that jumping on Facebook and getting a page up is enough to keep people interested, think again. Conversations are all about give and take. Provide real value through your social offerings and take the time to earn the privilege to take, or rather, to receive.

3. Convince them

Again, this isn’t anything new to marketing. There are probably a hundred companies out there offering the same thing that you offer. You don’t only need to be better than the rest; you need to offer people a reason to choose you over someone else. It will do you no good to shout at people telling them that your product is better than another company’s. You need to engage with them. Tell them your story. Tell them why you made a better product, not just that it’s better. Let them know your company and what it stands for. More importantly, know them. Maybe then they’ll tell your story for you.

Social media hasn’t flipped marketing on its head. It is simply a new tool to add to your existing communications strategy, albeit a very powerful one. You’d do well to keep this in mind.