Social Marketing - your questions answered Part 1

“The world is changed.  I feel it in the water.  I feel it in the earth.  I smell it in the air. Much that once was is lost.  For none now live who remember it.” From the Lord of the Rings, Fellowship of the Rings...

It’s 2010.  The explosion on the modern web is not really news to anyone anymore.  Just look at this earlier post that showed the “wow” stats on the growth of social networking platforms and mushrooming of online material.  A recent post by Steve Rubel reminds us not only of the continued growth of Facebook but that for the first time in history, the platform is driving more traffic to other sites than is Google.

Why then another perspective on social marketing, particularly from one who cannot profess to be anything near to an expert?  A few reasons actually:

1.Because I love to stay apace with developments in my field.  This exercise is actually more for my benefit than it is for yours...I see it as a way of organising my thinking on the topic.  2.Because regardless of how wonderful the technology appears, I am an ardent defender of marketing basics and am anxious to see they are not forgotten amidst the euphoria of Web 2.0. 3.Because I am a marketer who likes great marketing case studies with great results!   

And if there’s one great example of social marketing at work look no further than “Obama08”, a case which redefined loyalty building and which helped raise one of the biggest campaign purses in history.  I marvelled at David Axelrod’s far-sighted appointment of Chris Hughes (22) as Obama’s digital campaign coordinator and the speed with which the founder member of Facebook had acted in establishing a working ecosystem of conversations about ‘change’ even before Obama became the Democrats preferred candidate.  America’s first serious black contender raised nearly $650m in campaign donations, most of it online and much of it from donations of less than $100.  Though social marketing is still like a capricious adolescent who is yet to come of age, “Obama08” shed light on the near limitless possibilities afforded us by the available platforms.  His game book is one of the best we have and will be for some time.

Sadly however, social marketing is still an unsystematic craft with no official operating manual.  Maybe it’s never meant to have one.  Maybe it’s marketing’s final frontier and as such will only be mastered by the very dedicated and intuitive few.

So why another perspective on social marketing, especially from someone not professing to be an expert?  Very simply, because without a thorough grounding in at least the best practice of social marketing, we will seldom be more than “tourists” to this exciting new territory. We may master the technical aspects of the various platforms (a skill I respect deeply) but if we relegate the old world disciplines central (but not limited) to traditional marketing, we’re not going anywhere. 

And it is in these old world disciplines that I DO profess an expertise. 

So whilst this isn’t an exhaustive manual on social marketing, it is an insistent plea that we don’t forget what made marketing a “little less than a science and a good deal more than an art”.

Social media in its many forms, is simply this: a channel. A route to market.  In fact many channels.  Funnels into which marketers may place a message, just as they do with TV, radio or print.  Sure, these channels open worlds we never thought possible.  Sure, the tone of the message and ongoing conduct must be very different from that fed into traditional media channels.  But none of this should marginalise the primacy of the media-neutral, foundational basics - insight generation, segmentation, targeting, holistic communication strategy etc.  Without those things, we cannot talk of meaningful content – and heaven knows, both online and offline, content is king.

With that in mind, let’s understand the difference between social media and social marketing.  And more importantly, get to the bottom of what we mean by the word “social”.