Unsocial media
Organisations MUST use social media, but must keep their composure, according to Partner Mark Blackham.
A Nielsen report at the start of this year said that two-thirds of the world’s Internet population visit social networking or blogging sites, accounting for almost 10% of all Internet time.
So we're always being asked by clients whether they should get on social media. The answer is absolutely yes. Organisations have to use the communication channels their stakeholders use.
As a professonal I am totally in love with social media. Never before have my clients had such insight to their customers' everyday lives. Nor have they had so many ways to communicate.
But do not make the very old mistake of focusing on the medium rather than the message.
Let's get social media in context. The Economist recently reported on an investigation it undertook with Facebook which found that interactions between people via social media are fewer than "real life" interactions.
The average number of “friends” in a Facebook network is 120 – 28 less than the average individual’s "real world" network. Moreover, these online friends were largely already part of the person’s real life network.
The most revealing fact was that the number of people with whom a Facebook user has two-way interaction averages only four for men, and six for women. Most people would have more interactions with others before morning tea than they would on Facebook on an entire day.
That doesn’t say a lot for the viral usefulness of this medium, nor for its potential for expanding social interaction.
Social media is simply a new way for people to exercise control over information and entertainment in their lives.
Psychologists say we need others, even people we dislike, to give meaning to ourselves. The popularity of social media can in part be explained by our need to create a network visible to ourselves and others which elevates our sense of self-importance.
Social media is attractive because we create and use this network, even if it is limited and shallow, faster and wider than “real time”. It enables people to have a greater sense of control over their experience of the world – far more control than they have in real life.
This generates heightened expectations of personal control over institutions.
So organisations are responding to the new found outlet for assertive consumers by wondering how to use that social media power for themselves.
People selling "social media" to businesses are claiming that you need to be "on" social media. This mistakes social media for television. It is really more like a conversation at the pub or café that is broadcast to anyone wanting to tune in.
Some social media boosters say businesses should participate in the melee by issuing their own Twitter channels, Facebook pages and posting YouTube videos.
They are mistaken in thinking that consumers even want businesses to be sitting next to them in the pub or café. Or that businesses would gain anything by being in a forum where the dominant culture is complaint, blame, and mob lynching of someone’s reputation.
Social media does provide some tools for organisations to place information where consumers increasingly expect to find them. For example, putting up video on YouTube helps disseminate your message or information, such as tutorials on product use.
The biggest answer to the question of what to do about social media is that you don’t go out and use social media – you first respond to the motivations behind it. You address customers’ growing sense of self-importance, their expectation of control of service or product, and their need for recognition.
The single biggest new thing most organisations can do is improve the levels of direct and personalised engagement with customers. More email, more Web-based resources, more personalised offerings. Organisations can style some of their customer services along social media lines – such as user forums on websites, bringing together groups of particular types of users, holding online competitions, and asking for feedback on product development and marketing ideas.
The key is to adopt the style of social media. You will probably use social media channels. But that is not important. The answer to the question of responding to social media trends is the age-old solution: Engage with customers and demonstrate that they matter to you.
[1] “Primates on Facebook”, The Economist, Feb 26th 2009.
