All the talk in today’s marketing world is how an excellent Social Media Marketing (SMM) and Digital PR (DPR) strategic campaign will improve your online presence, brand and reputation with customers and trade alike, not to mention the benefits it will add to enhance your SEO and gain higher positions in the free natural search rankings.
Add to this the fact that SMM and DPR are measurable and it is difficult to understand why it appears only the proactive Marketing Managers are developing these strategies within their company.
For most Marketing Managers, they’ve heard of it but believe it is something their Web and digital department or their PR Agency should be covering for them…check again! SMM and DPR sit neatly between the two and, often, neither will take ownership of it. Most Web development companies don’t want to get involved in this sector and traditional PR agencies generally don’t have the necessary online skills in-house…sending a few stories to journalists by email does not constitute DPR or a SMM campaign.
For marketing folk SMM and DPR tools including blogs, forums, podcasts, photos and videos, widgets, social networking and business community sites to name a few. For most of these people, just thinking about setting up all those accounts and linking them is enough to turn them off.
These are simply just some of the many webtools we would use but what is vitally important is that you understand why you’re using them. The answer to that is simply “to engage with your consumers and clients in online sites that they are using and feel comfortable in.”
SMM and DPR is all about long-term, transparent and trusting relationships with online communities and future customers. It’s all about sharing your knowledge and, importantly for you, getting feedback, learning and understanding from people who use and want to buy your products and services, so that you can make future commercial decisions within your business.
This sharing of free information and useful content within these SMM and DPR campaigns also generates valuable links into your website, increasing your free natural search visibility and therefore enhancing substantially your online profile and branding.
So if engaging with your customers in a 21st century “word of mouse” world is essential to the future success of your business, you need to put some thought into a structured approach to Social Media Marketing and Digital PR.
5 Comments
The old method of advertising is interactive marketing. The term is misleading. Most people think it means that there is some type of interaction on the part of the person advertised to, and there is. But, it is not conversational. Instead, the advertiser wants you to interact with their campaign in a specific set of steps. Following the call to action and visiting a website for instance. It’s the push to make you do something. Live this image. Buy this now.
Social Media Marketing is just the opposite. It’s the pull of the tribe. The tribe already has your trust so the actions they take are ones you align with. On a larger scale, it’s the allure of belonging in the group as you take action together. “I am doing this so why don’t you do it with me?” On an individual level, the attraction is to behave the same way to get the same results that benefits your fellow tribeswoman or tribesman. “She looks hot! I want to look hot too. I want to go to her hairstylist” and you do. Social Media Marketing uses the power of attraction.
While advertising tries to use the same tactic, with a billboard for instance, of a gorgeous woman telling you the benefits of the salon, it doesn’t have the same impact because it’s pushing you to go. It is not pulling you in as a trusted friend. Your friends have your best interests at heart and advertisers do not. Social Media Marketing is based on building trust and that foundation will make Social Media a dominant player in Marketing.
Ian– I agree with you and have been writing with similar thoughts on my blog at
http://intrastand.blogspot.com
Communications is about interactions— listening as much as pushing your message down an audience’s throat.
New media (Web 2.0 technologies) are now enabling what I call “intrastanding”– a
multidirectional dialogue.
Connect. Engage. Ask. Share. Learn… rinse and repeat.
Keep the great posts coming.
Cheers
–Patrick Rafter (Intrastand, Boston, MA, USA)
prafter@intrastand.info
I think the whole approach of push and seduce is no longer appealing for most people. We are finding that a combination of expert social media marketing and brand-driven advertising, where ads are just natural expressions of the company brand identity, is significantly more effective than the conventional interactive approach.
I wholeheartedly agree with you. Traditionally, PR and online marketing agencies have been so caught up in maintaining their own piece of the pie, that they’ve completely missed out on the middle.
We are a marketing firm that does not handle PR in-house, and recently decided to team up with a Public Relations partner to cover this previously missed area. As we’re working together to build the stories and promote them online and through traditional media channels, we are both able to capitalize on each other’s efforts and deliver a much higher value to the client. It’s a win-win on all sides, and seamless for the client.
Thank you for the great post, keep up the good work.
- Melissa@discoverycomm.com
Hello!
Very Interesting post! Thank you for such interesting resource!
PS: Sorry for my bad english, I’v just started to learn this language
See you!
Your, Raiul Baztepo