Social Media Starts with Experiments and (Beautiful) Mistakes

This Ad Age article rightly stresses the need for first-hand experience when implementing a social media project.

“The biggest challenge that I see is getting people who have practiced traditional marketing for their entire careers to adopt a new set of values. The first instinct is to treat any form of social media as a channel that you use to drive a corporate message. It's relatively easy to grasp the tools but more challenging to understand how new technologies have changed communication behaviors and patterns.”

Spot on.

This is why some clients are experimenting with it. Others might focus on a particular site like Twitter. But most everyone sees the value in this facet of communications.

Regardless of where clients are on the social media curve, I stress is the concept of campaign vs. commitment. This phrase, crystallized for me in a presentation by Mitch Joel, is more than fodder for a t-shirt, bumper sticker or ppt slide.

Campaign or Commitment
Several projects I’m involved with are using a specific event or a time-based reason to get more involved in social media.

This is an excellent idea unless you think you can go from zero to Facebook page in two seconds. Trying to gain traction in social media with the flip of a switch doesn’t happen unless you’re @aplusk perhaps. For most brands and people, attention is earned through participation.

These projects are building off already established profiles. These profiles represent active participants who follow community guidelines spoken and unspoken.

Anything else comes off as drive by marketing. This is more than simply ineffective; it draws the ire of your new found community. So if anyone questions the value of experimenting or concern over making a mistake, consider the above Ad Age article and realize why they’re asking these questions. They need more than shiny new. They need to understand the new set of values in play here.

Social Media 401(k) Fund
Recessionary jokes aside, your involvement and participation in social media is a long term approach. And it might require a commitment and resources that some are unwilling to devote initially. But consider that Google is a big investment fund and all of this content builds relevance and awareness over time. This can pay off but you have to invest. And the earlier you do it you can experiment and learn from your mistakes.

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Comments

[Peggy Hoffman]

Kevin - you sum it up nicely in the phrase "new set of values in play here" ... thanks. Also thanks for the Ad Age link. I just came from yet another session where someone said the standard "we'll higher the younger ones to do it." I wasn't jeered outwardly but eyes rolled when I said I disagreed. If you think its important, then get in. I'm going to now post the Ad Age article to our group site.

[Catherine M]

Kevin,

I agree with the points you have put forth. As both a post-graduate student in public relations and as someone born into generation Y- a.k.a, "the social media generation", I am often instantly labeled as a "social media guru". While there is a certain level of truth to the aforementioned statement, the fact of the matter is that society, and in particular, companies and organizations, cannot solely rely on us to educate those unfamiliar with social media.

I agree with your statement that “attention is earned through participation”, and that through experimentation people can learn from their mistakes and become more familiar with social media. After all, my generation never had anyone teach us how to use instant messaging, or sites such as Facebook and Twitter. Instead, we sat down and fiddled around, saw how others used these social media outlets to their advantage, and eventually got a hang of it.

The companies who recognize that not only is a“new set of values are in play”, but that these values are here to stay, will be poised for greater success, while those that don’t will have more and more challenges. The less in sync employers and employees choose to be with social media, the more and more they will be left behind, as this phenomenon will surely continue to expand.

As George Bernard Shaw stated, “A life spent making mistakes is not only more honorable, but more useful than a life spent doing nothing." Perhaps his words today would be “a career that embraces change, technological or otherwise, is not only more rewarding, but more relevant than one that is spent doing nothing but watching this change surpass them".

[Nate Holland]

Thanks for the insights.

I agree with "attention is earned through participation". It really is true. How do you get attention, or build your network if you don't sit down and actually have a hands-on experience in using the site? I find that it's really a struggle at first in getting to know what strategy you should use in approaching your target market, but it's all about trial and error - Just like the title of this post.