Social media: A cocktail party

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So Im on Linkedin and someone I should reask a question about social media tools. the question was: What are the best practices and available tools in the social media marketing space?” and what are the methods to measure them ?

One of the first responses I received was from Rosemary Reilman in which she said:

This is the $64 Million question. And whoever has all the answers could probably make themselves very rich.
As far as the best available tools – I’d say the ones that your audience are going to. There are so many sites it really depends on who you’re trying to reach. If you’re trying to reach high school kids or college, probably Facebook or MySpace. If you’re looking to reach Tech-Savvy Professionals, then something like Twitter or LinkedIn might be the route to go. I think it just involves some research on who is where.

As far as best practices, I went to a really good workshop with the AMA and a speaker Jim Tobin of Ignite Social Media gave some common mistakes (which I guess is the opposite of best practices but still helpful) I had a link to his blog below. Also my thoughts on the presentation as well.

I think the most important thing to remember with SM is that it’s not the same as regular marketing campaigns. It requires not just pushing out a message but allows for your audience to talk back.

Those are some of my thoughts on your question!

Great answer, so I went to her site and actually one of the links on her site referring to social media as an online cocktail party in which she provides great insight into a workshop she attended  called the Social Media Marketing workshop. her synopsis of what went down was cool, but I had to give my 2 cents of what I thought marketers thought of social media marketing, since there seemed to be some lively discussion of what exactly it was that we, them, they do and think. Here is essentially what I wrote:

 

I’m not sure where to begin Rosie, well first thanks to the response on Linkedin which led me here. Your post was great, it brings up a lot of things and I’m not sure which one should be addressed first. Well, let me start by saying that I think marketers stick with what has worked for them in the past regardless of the medium. Be it, email, tv, radio, print, event, whichever worked, they have taken it and honed into their craft.
Now we are all abuzz and all are talking about this phenomenon. This new way of doing it. Talking to the customer… And surprisingly it’s not necessarily a new way, it’s a new means. Marketers have wanted to talk to their customers for years, and for some they knew if they did, it would give them more insight and sales etc. But they always relied on older mechanisms for reaching out, i.e feedback forms, but what social media has done has allowed them more ways of connecting. Its not like all of a sudden we’re cavemen and we discovered fire, its that we’re cavemen and someone gave us a lighter. and the word has spread from cave to cave that someone has dicovered, not the mystical and powerful properties of fire-we get that, it’s that someone has something that can grow, sustain and spread something virally that we all need, want and desire. In this case, customer interaction on steroids…

 

 

 

What do you think? Am I right? Partially right, sorta right? or am I missing the point?

2 thoughts on “Social media: A cocktail party”

  1. First of all, thanks for the shout-out.

    To answer your question, I think you’re right. I think what we’re doing with social media marketing is very, very old. We’re communicating like people did hundreds of years ago. We now just have tools to make these conversations happen efficiently across the globe, which we never had before.

    And we’re still a little like cavemen in that we have to re-learn that, because “mass marketing” taught us a series of rules that doesn’t apply to this space, and we’ve built infrastructure in our companies around those old rules. So some shifting needs to be done.

    My two cents.

    ~Jim

  2. Jim, mass marketing has taught to be passive listeners spurred to a call to action. A very reactive if not antiquated way of still driving and getting business.

    I know from expereince that in the DM world that the old guard is talkng the talk but when push comes to shove, they fall back on tried and true marketing practices which they know they can measure and that they can wrap their arms around.

    The forward thinking marketer will be poised to reap the rewards of the efforts and mistakes they make today. And their peers? Will be left scratching their heads saying, “I thought it was a fad”.

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