I’ve found there to be some common threads across many (I believe the majority) of the discussions about the “right way” to use social media. You might recognize some of them – it’s about conversations, not broadcasts; it’s about engaging with people, not trying to sell to them; you need to humanize the brand – it’s about people, not logos. Rare is the person that will stand up and say “actually, a brand doing nothing but broadcasting themselves and trying to sell stuff can actually work!” But I think it can.
Now don’t get me wrong – I’m not saying the points being made aren’t the correct way for many people, and companies, to approach social media in various circumstances. It’s just that I strongly oppose the notion that there’s one “right way” to do it, particularly when that “right way” implicitly believes that everyone wants to participate in this ongoing, engaging exchange of information, in regards to every product, service, and company in existence. I’ve talked to a lot of people that find it quite annoying, and what they want in many instances is relevant, valuable information that they can use – and will reward companies that give them what they want. And I think there are more than a few examples that can back this up.
Consider, for example, @amazonmp3. This is a twitter account offering “Daily deals and special sales on DRM-free music” from Amazon. The vast, vast majority of the tweets are not conversations, they’re not engaging, and they’re certainly not humanized. They are, simply, what they say they are – links to special deals. Some would have you believe this approach is all wrong – but note that the account has 1,064,334 followers, and gets some decent re-tweet action. I think, and I imagine a lot of those people think, @amazonmp3 is doing it exactly right. Again that’s not to say that perhaps other amazon accounts should be more conversational, etc. But there’s a place for the non-humanized, logo and broadcast driven approach within the social media space.
Coming at it from the other side, take @WholeFoods. It’s different than @amazonmp3 in that it’s conversational – but it’s not really humanized, and its still “a logo”. And of course, it’s the most popular “regular” company on Twitter with some 1,334,441 followers. I think they’re probably doing something right. And their @WholeRecipes account – an automated feed of the latest recipes from Whole Foods – has almost 12,000 followers, and I believe it’s also doing something right. Now I’m not a follower of the account myself (given I don’t, well, cook), but if I was I wouldn’t want endless chatter around the recipes – I just want the recipes I can use. Plain and simple. I don’t think I’m alone.
I could provide many more examples, but I think you get my point. One of the beautiful things about “social media”, and particularly Twitter, is that it can be many different things to many different people. And I think the mistake that many people are making is that because it’s called “social media”, engaging with it requires entering this conversational, human driven mindset no matter what you are trying to achieve. In some cases this approach makes sense; in other cases it doesn’t. Just like every other business and marketing decision, you need to sit down and figure out what your customer(s) might want, and deliver it. And in some cases, if you’re lucky, you may find the good old one-way, broadcast delivery model not only works on social media – it can work better than it works in other channels.
For more on the different types of approaches, you check out the stuff I’ve posted about the Twitter brand engagement matrix (here, here, and here for example).
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Excellent post, I thoroughly enjoyed reading it for a few reasons:
1) Because I happen to completely agree with you, as well as take a very similar stance as you seem to on the topic of social media in general.
2) Because I also just happen to like reading blog posts, so the enjoyment was to be expected, however, this time the process was considerably even more enjoyable than normal. So thank you for taking the time to post it.
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