We receive many questions on whether social marketing is a ‘new age’ type of marketing. In our opinion, it clearly is not. Why may you be wondering? Well, in our opinion good business has had an element of the use being social since the beginning.
The only thing new in social marketing is the expanded reach that a business has in our new age of the internet, digital happenings.
Most breakthrough organizations aren’t built on a bundle of wonderment, novelty and new ideas. In fact, they usually involve just one big idea. The rest is execution, patience, tactics, and people. The ability to see what’s happening and to act on it.
The rest is doing the stuff we already know how to do, the stuff we’ve seen before, but doing it beautifully. You probably don’t need yet another new idea. Better to figure out what to do with the ones you’ve got.
I love finding brilliant social advertising creative that makes me wish I thought of it. And I especially love it, when it’s for a client that’s trying to make the world a better place.
That’s what social marketing is all about. And because it’s only “sell” is to try to get us to change our behaviors or attitudes about something, it can be powerful when done well.
Being social … what is social marketing?
Social marketing seeks to develop and integrate marketing concepts with other approaches to influence behaviors that benefit individuals and communities for the greater social good.
Although “social marketing” is sometimes seen only as using standard commercial marketing practices to achieve non-commercial goals, this is an oversimplification.
The primary aim of social marketing is “social good”, while in “commercial marketing” the aim is primarily “financial”.
This does not mean that commercial marketers cannot contribute to the achievement of social good.
Increasingly, social marketing is being described as having “two parents”—a “social parent”, including social science and social policy approaches, and a “marketing parent”, including commercial and public sector marketing approaches.
So what, exactly, is social marketing?
In Social Marketing Report, it’s defined as, “the application of commercial marketing techniques to social problems.”
It means to take the same principles used in selling goods–such as shoes, television shows, or pizza–to convince people to change their behavior.
So then, what is the difference between social marketing and commercial marketing?
It’s really summed up in one key point: commercial marketing tries to change people’s behavior for the benefit of the marketer; social marketing tries to change people’s behavior for the benefit of the consumer, or of society as a whole.
Why social marketing?
So what makes the concept of social marketing particularly important? Perhaps you’ve been doing your work quite effectively for years without ever even hearing the phrase.
That’s actually pretty likely; the phrase was only coined about 25 years ago, though the concept is ageless.
Every entrepreneur dreams of having that single moment of epiphany where everything falls into place. Many search for their entire careers for that one big idea that will make the difference between incredible success and frustrating mediocrity. Few ever find it and many that do end up crashing and burning along the way.
However, there are three major advantages which suggest that social marketing is worthy of your consideration:
It helps you reach the target audiences you want to reach.
It helps you customize your message to those targeted audiences, and by doing so,
It helps you create greater and longer-lasting behavior change in those audiences.
What then is the bottom line? Social marketing is a good idea because it is effective.
Being social … it’s all about building relationships
Like making new friends? It is becoming the most important element of social commerce.
Creating positive experiences for building customer relationships often will take some serious thinking. But hopefully not at the expense of the little things you can do to build customer relationships. Such as what you may ask?
Simple ideas on consumer engagement start with a foundation of little things that, when not done well, can make the more complex customer experience design actions a moot point.
Let’s examine a simple list of items for the best ways of being social that Digital Spark Marketing recommends to its clients:
Being social is important … acknowledge that I am there
You should do this as soon as you possibly can. Don’t make your customers frustrated by making them wait. If you are busy with another customer, inform them you will be with them shortly.
Smile and introduce yourself. Wear a nametag and personalize it to help create a meaningful conversation.
Be knowledgeable
Know all about your products and services. Always assume they have done their own homework and product research.
If you don’t know, DON’T BLUFF, but do offer to do some research.
If you don’t have a product or service that can solve their problem, recommend someone else’s product if you can. You should always be looking to solve their problems.
Advantages of being social … don’t sell
Use your knowledge and experience to help customers decide. Help them in their search. Pushy sales pitches turn customers off.
But personally relevant and interactive conversations switch them on.
Help them save time
Time is the customer’s most valued passion. Help them save it. Avoid seeking other help, or ‘handing them off’.
Be easy to work with
Exceed expectations whenever you can. If your business doesn’t have what the customer wants, offer alternatives, including other businesses.
Be honest
If you don’t know say so. But use that question to research so as to be prepared next time. You don’t want to be saying you don’t know often.
Being social … alwaysdo what you say
Do what you say and keep your promises. It is not an option to ignore follow up.
Follow through promptly
Keep them informed until you can close. Remember time is of the essence.
These are not things that we do not already know, of course.
Yet these little things list simply reminds us of what we already know but may have forgotten.
Then it is up to us to put these lessons of building customer relationships into daily use through persistence and practice.
Meaning? The simple meaning is they believe that they need more attention to building customer relationships and trust.
From customer relationships comes to trust, the most important factor in a customer selecting a company with whom to do business.
The secret to building customer relationships is customer engagement and there are many ways you’ll need to engage customers.
Execute being a social campaign starting with a nice smile.
Stages of social campaigns
What is involved in the stages of social marketing?
In a nutshell, when conducting a social marketing campaign, consider the following:
Identify your customers
Whose behavior do you want to change?
It may be that you want to change the behavior of several different groups; in that case, you may want to influence them in different ways to bring them closer to the desired behavior.
Such groups are often separated, or segmented, by age, gender, level of education, or race.
Identify what behavior you want to change
For example, increase prenatal counseling among expectant mothers.
Identify the barriers
This is done through interviews, surveys, focus groups or other methods, you’ll want to find out what makes it difficult or unattractive for people to make these changes.
Do pregnant women feel uncomfortable at the area clinic, or are they made to feel stupid when they talk to the doctor? Is the clinic too far away?
Can they not take the time away from their jobs?
Chip away at these barriers
Define ways to make dealing with customers easier, more accessible, and more attractive. Can the clinic stay open longer hours?
Can physicians and nurses be better trained to discuss problems with women? This step might even be taken a step farther.
Your organization might provide incentives for making (and sustaining) changes. Mothers who come to the clinic regularly through their pregnancy might receive coupons for free baby food, for example.
Pretest ideas
You then need to apply what you have learned according to your results.
Show the benefits of change
You have to show customers what you have changed and why. This will help customers see the benefits in a way that will draw them to take advantage of your efforts.
Let people know what you’re doing to help them–the best program in the world won’t be used if people don’t know about it.
And of course, people need to understand the benefits of behavior change. A pregnant woman will probably want to do what’s best for her child, but may not know that she needs extra iron during her pregnancy.
It’s up to your organization to tell her.
And, although it’s not technically a part of social marketing, you’ll probably want to…
How are these beliefs shaped and decisions made? Well, generally speaking, the following activities need to occur:
Create awareness and interest
Change attitudes and conditions
Motivate people to want to change their behavior
Empower people to act
Prevent backsliding
Improving the social in social marketing
In truth, social marketing has been around for a very long time now, so it should be easy to figure out how to leverage it, right? Not so fast. New ideas?
Definitely not that new, but good refreshers. There are recommendations on how to beef up social marketing everywhere you turn.
How many times have you seen companies requesting people to friend them on Facebook? Like farming followers were the name of the game. Sad but true.
The truth is that social marketing tactics are really about cultivating relationships with potential customers. Fan ‘skins’, by themselves, are of very little value.
What is the importance of social marketing in your business? Dialog with customers for sure. What about reading your content and remembering?
Appreciating your help? Building relationships? We believe it is all of these things, but the bottom line end state is relationship building.
In the ever-changing landscape of social networking, you might be wondering if you are getting the most out of your business’s social marketing tactics.
Here we define social community engagement as the process of gaining website customer traffic, attention, interaction, and ultimately relationships through any and all internet sites.
In part it is true, but things get complicated by all the misinformation circulating about social marketing.
From leveraging tactics to tracking issues, you are bombarded with conflicting messages, including whether social marketing is worth using at all.
Here are 10 ideas we use most often to help improve social marketing with our clients. We believe they are the ones most critical to its success:
Listening to and observing customers
It all starts with knowing who your customers are and knowing as much about what makes them tick as you can. Without this step, most of the other steps become just a shot in the dark.
So spent a lot of your time on this action. Keep in mind that you can’t be everything to everybody and certainly remember not all customers are alike.
Choose the best channels
Once you understand who your target customers are, you’ll need to study which social media sites they use most frequently and to what end.
Social media takes a lot of time and energy, so you need to know where your time will be best spent.
Share unique, helpful content
Your content goal is simple, be as helpful as you can be and/or be entertaining, or else be ignored. If you are going to put in the time and energy, you don’t want to be ignored.
Listen and engage
Listening comes first and foremost to understand what customers are saying about their needs and perhaps about you.
Once you have heard, then engage in as near real-time as you can.
Your personality and voice
This one is pretty simple, but takes lots of practice in the beginning. Be YOU and be consistent.
Remember customers deal with people and not businesses.
Don’t be a robot
As we said previously, social marketing takes a lot of time and energy. There many good tools in existence that will help in the workload.
But keep this in mind, customers take note when it seems they are dealing with a robot. Don’t be that robot.
Be part of the community
Remember you are dealing with consumers that are part of a community not part of the audience.
Pay special attention to adding value in that vein.
Being social … commit to a plan
If you don’t know where you are going, any road will get you there, as the saying goes. Know your objectives and establish the best plan to get them accomplished.
Remember this plan needs constant attention, iteration, and adaptation.
Emphasize friendly
One of your key business objectives is to build relationships with customers. That end game results in customer advocates and trust.
This process takes constant attention to being friendly on a very consistent basis.
Measure results
This entire social marketing process is a constant iteration.
Establish a few key measurements and pay attention to how well you are doing.
Analyze, correct, iterate and learn
Analyze your measurement results, and continuously make corrections, iterate, learn, and most importantly, adapt.
There are a lot of misconceptions about social marketing. Just because you read something in a blog post or hear something from a credible source doesn’t mean it is true or true for you and your business.
Always do your research, and continually try to improve.
Social marketing is here to stay, and it can drive a lot of business for you, assuming you are leveraging it correctly.
The bottom line
In this article, we’ve explored a multitude of creative ways to use social marketing to increase engagement and build customer relationships.
The key takeaway is to know your audience and what they’re most likely to respond to. Give them more of that.
It’s OK to promote your company and products, but do it in a way that capitalizes on your audience’s deepest interests and connects with them on a personal level. Avoid selling.
Here’s the thing, social isn’t just a new way of marketing, it’s really a new way of running a business. Social companies certainly have figured this out and are using social marketing to rapidly grow their business.
Test. Learn. Improve. Repeat.
Mike Schoultz is the founder of Digital Spark Marketing, a digital marketing and customer service agency. With 40 years of business experience, he blogs on topics that relate to improving the performance of your business. Find them on Twitter, and LinkedIn.
Digital Spark Marketing will stretch your thinking and your ability to adapt to change. We also provide some fun and inspiration along the way.
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