So here’s the thing I’ve been dying to say but haven’t known how to just. say. it.
An alarming number of people I’m encountering through leading training sessions and through everyday contact, both in person and online, seem to think that Social Media is this new, kid-friendly way to broadcast your message. And true enough, many are treating it like that. It’s like everybody has an old fashioned microphone and is struggling to create their own TV commercial or print ad online and couldn’t be bothered to connect like real people at least 80% of the time they’re getting their message out there.
Brilliant.
Not.
The thing I have so say here is that the whole Social Media revolution is about PEOPLE connecting with PEOPLE, not dumb sheep or imaginary mindless, zombie consumers!
Since when have you ever enjoyed being hollered at by somebody who didn’t even listen to you or pay attention to anything about you, except that you might have some potential use to them? Icky. Ugly. Not cool. - At all. And yet, millions of people who are probably otherwise polite and considerate in person are doing this very thing every day. I’m gonna lay this on you because you deserve to know the truth: Social Media Marketing isn’t about riding some old fashioned broadcasting concept into the future. It’s something completely different and won’t net any notable progress beyond a few lucky hits over time. Relating to people does. Just ask Gary Vaynerchuk.
Social Media really, honestly, truly is about relating to others. Remember those lovely words our elders taught us? “Please, pardon me, thank you, your turn?” Whomever decided that we were no longer to be polite to one another online just because it’s not face to face must have been a troll. The rest of us are better than that and need to remember that when we’re engaging with others online. When I follow you on Twitter I want to know more about you and what you’re doing online through your tweets and maybe a little something that tells more, not an informercial in 140 characters or less. Don’t you feel the same way? Does anybody here really want to be assaulted by a hard sell when they’re catching up or researching online? Hmm?
(insert audio of crickets chirping here)
I didn’t think so!!
So – please – Ditch any old fashioned, outmoded ideas of using Social Media as a microphone to propel you into the next phase of your marketing. Social Media isn’t a one way broadcast. It’s a discussion between two or more people that creates a new understanding and connection that wasn’t there before. It’s relationship marketing, how about that for a new term?
