There is one big difference between what I would consider “traditional marketing” and “social media marketing”. It’s love. Or perhaps more precisely, it’s passion. Mixed in with a bit of love. And as there are a bunch of posts on the love theme this Valentines Day week, I thought I’d climb aboard the love bus.
Now, if you are a brand marketer, you might love what you are doing, and love what you are creating through your brand, but that’s not the sort of love I am talking about. When you pour your professional creativity into a new product or service and stake your professional reputation on its success, your interest in the brand/offering you are building can consume you. And while this takes a huge personal commitment from you, there is no one else who will love what you are doing quite like you do. I know, and I’ve been there.
And even if you are tweeting from the dark side of the focus group mirror, or blogging on the behind-the-scenes tour, this is not being a “social marketer”. It’s sharing your passion. Sharing your love. Sharing your work. But ultimately, it’s sharing your brand. It is good brand marketing practice.
The social marketer, however, starts from a different place. As Michael Brenner suggests, it’s about feeling the love.
For the social marketer:
- The brand is a means to an end. The brand exists, the people exist – we don’t need messaging, but a tune to dance to.
- Marketing is about bringing the brand to the people, not bringing the people to the brand
- The glare of the logo is a distraction and a barrier to forming relationships. What we need is a name and a face, not a 12pt white space exclusion
Sure, the social marketer cares about (and is probably even MEASURED on) brand awareness, recall and yes – sales. But they are by-products of the main game.
The social marketer is in the process of transforming the way that we all do business. You probably have one in the ranks of your company. There may be more. How do you find them? How do you join them?
I call it “The Social Way”.
There’s more to come.
I love this.
Just drop the “media” from it and we’re talking about the reasons why social businesses will succeed and traditional businesses will not.
Nice one, fella.
I fully agree! Social Media is an experience not a media or lead generation platform. My post elaborates more on this. http://pavankumarv.wordpress.com.
Would appreciate your views.
Thanks Clay – I see we are on the same wave length 😉
Hey man, thanks for riding the love bus with me and hnored that you shared this here. As trite as some of these posts might seem, I think it’s important to remember why we’re all doing what we’re doing. I couldn’t agree more with your points and thrilled to join you along “the social way”.
“The brand is a means to an end” – true enough, but many conclude that the end is, more often than not, sales and profit.
thumbs up. Where do you get time to write all this?? It’s getting back to basics isn’t it. Back in the good ‘ol days where you knew your shopkeeper and they got to know you. People want to feel valued-thats what is missing today.