Social has become a buzzword that in front of traditional marketing terms creates vivid expectations that success will rattle down over a given campaign without any major investments.
The terms are many: Social Media Marketing, Social Customer, Social Ads, and Social CRM.
Social media has become a natural part of our lives and Social is today one factor that we as marketers cannot ignore! However, one may be tempted to ask:Is there actually anything new to the concept of ‘Social’?
We have always been in dialogue with each other and always recommended products to family and friends like we have always warned our colleagues against the small restaurant on the corner, due to its poor service. And we will probably continue to do so.
So what has Social genuinely changed? Well, in short: That we increasingly interact online and thus are able to reach out to a much larger audience! But our behavior remains the same!
Yet many companies are reticent about 'going social’. The negative examples are far more famous than the positive that almost only get mentioned if they receive a roar in Cannes. But the fear of losing control or to get bad publicity were just as great 10 years ago.
The theory has not changed and the strategy should be the same: You should not sell products that do not work and your service has to be flawless!
As an example: “Social Customer Relationship Management” alone has more than 839,000 hits on Google, which points in the direction of a huge immense quantity of articles, publications and blog posts, where various avid practitioners want readers to buy into their specific definition of Social CRM. The result is a jungle of conflicting definitions, which understandably seems confusing for the individual brand owner.
Putting ‘Social’ in front of CRM does not change the fact that the right and most relevant message has to be delivered to the right and most relevant consumer — whether the campaign or customer service is running on Facebook or via email.
To learn more about which consumer that is the right and most relevant, Social Media can serve as an extremely valuable knowledge base. The challenge is here is to understand how social data can add value to both business and consumers, and how it can be transformed and systematized into usable segmentation.
Therefore, the new meaning in the word ‘Social’ does not concern the actual CRM philosophy in particular, but only that the private user is to a higher extent transformed from simply being a beneficiary to being a potential successful advertising medium.
Although the mechanics are the same, it can still go wrong, and therefore ‘Social’ should be taken seriously, like any other discipline, and not just used in front of various marketing terms to add a little magic spice into the marketing cocktail.
If a brand has decided not to be present on social media, this decision does not exclude the conversation that consumers may have about the brand. Negative publicity may come all by itself, whereas brands have to work for the positive.