Thursday, 14 May 2009
Social Media Is a Mirror
Many marketers are struggling to understand social media, its applications, its potential and how best to use it. They wonder how this tool can be used to eke out a few more sales or cut marketing costs. How they can use it to boost their search engine ranking or get a few thousand more hits on their website.
They’re missing the point.
When we peel back all the jargon, social media isn’t that complicated. It’s simple a channel, a new medium through which you can speak to existing clients and potentials ones too.
But it’s also like a mirror, it reflects back the true image of its user. If you’re less than upstanding in the real world and you’re selling a product that’s sub-par, that’s what will be reflected back to you.
The companies and individuals that have successfully used social media don’t owe their success to technical prowess alone, in ancient times the people behind these companies would have had the busiest market stalls in the agora. They are people that are genuinely attentive to the needs of their customers, passionate about their products and honest about the suitability of their products for the right users.
If you don’t have this, social media won’t help you much. You can’t game it, or fake it, there’s no social media airbrushing tool.
The forced smiles, pressed suits and the sterility of conventional marketing won’t protect you here, so before you gaze into the lustrous depths of social media marketing, make sure you’re ready to see what gets reflected back at you. You might not like it!
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