Bottom line, not buzz words

February 28, 2008
by Simon Whittick

Perhaps more daunting is the need to move past the traditional campaign mentality that is focused on relatively short-term goals and activities. Thanks to search engines and links - the true currency of the web - permanence rules social media.

This calls for ongoing commitment and willingness to invest more than time and money. This calls for a purposeful investment of human capital in social media.

The intersection of technology and humanity, where consumers have themselves invested heavily in the communities they’ve built, is one where marketers are not often welcomed with open arms. But individuals bearing genuine value usually are. (Sadly, a link to your latest advert is not guaranteed to be considered valuable to consumers.)

Often the most valuable thing a company can extend is also the most difficult for it to offer: the willingness to listen. Of course your brand is wonderful and worth consumers’ hard-earned cash. Telling them that in so many words, however, lacks both subtlety and efficacy.

For many online denizens, personalisation and collaboration on their own terms - and turf - are now par for the course. And as the underlying technology becomes more invisible (and thus accessible) to non-techie consumers, the reach and impact of social media grows exponentially.

So clinging to increasingly outdated ideas about target audiences becomes something of a folly: There are no audiences in many-to-many conversations, and participants in them don’t take kindly to notions of being targeted (or dominated, or captured, or any other hostile marketing-speak we have grown fond of).

To make the most of social media, it is imperative that companies be willing to reduce things to their most basic units: individuals participating in conversations. It may sound soft, but if getting past the hype matters - if results matter - then it’s pointless to pretend that a broadcast approach will work in this networked world.

The technology and buzzwords won’t be what gets those results. But expertise, enthusiasm, and the persistent delivery of genuine value certainly will.

If you’ve got it, give it away. The value will come back to you, many times over, in the bottom line.