At the risk of sounding like a complainer, or as someone who is always ranting, I wanted to take a second to address some recent developments in social media. Of course, there are things daily that cause one to shake their head or pump their fist. Social media elicits strong opinions from all sorts of people. Whether you're on the client or agency side, young or old, you likely have an opinion on something related to social media. That's cool. In this case, opinions are mostly good. Opinions mostly help us push the space forward. However, as with anything in life these opinions have limits.
There are several memes in social media that should cause you to scratch your head. If you aren't scratching your head, you aren't close enough to your clients or bosses to understand what's really important to them. For example:
- Social media experts are "clowns." Let me be perfectly clear for a second - I think Gary Vaynerchuk does amazing work. He's an incredibly smart guy who's done a lot more for the space than I have done to date. However, when he called 99.5% of social media experts "clowns" he was wrong. Not that there isn't a large number of faux experts, it's just that companies don't care. If you're good, companies will recognize it. If you suck, companies will cut bait. If you think otherwise, you're wrong. And no, for the record, it doesn't make the job for those of us who know what we are talking about harder. It actually makes it easier in the end.
- Snake oil salesmen - This is another one of those memes that should die a very quick death. It's in line with my first point here, but companies just don't care. They don't care what you think of other people in social media. They care how YOU can help THEM. End. Of. Story.
- Social media is not really media - Tell you what, try an experiment with 10 people you know within large companies. Ask them whether they think social media is actually media, or whether it is an accurate reflection of what the space is or does. I'd bet my life that 10 out of 10 will either stare blankly, say they don't care or both.
- Defining ROI - Again, I'd bet you a significant amount of money that a marketing professional within a company has never once asked themselves whether ROI in social media actually means return on influence or return on engagement or whatever other stupid RO acronym you'd like to come up with. ROI within companies is return on investment. Nothing else. Stop it.
- Does PR or corporate communications or marketing own social media - This is one you could possibly argue, but realistically companies only care how those elements come together to deliver a strategic approach to social. Who owns it is a secondary concern at best.
Just so you don't think I'm a complainer, what should we be talking about?
- Measuring social media effectively - We need less talk and misinformation about measuring social media. At Ogilvy, we approach measurement as KPIs and diagnostic measures. KPIs could be things like sentiment, or positive share of voice or, gasp, sales. Diagnostic measures are those that are specific to the platforms you are using. If you are using Facebook you might look at clicks/post, likes/post, comments/post, etc... Again, it depends on your goals. Lets start talking with companies about how they can effectively measure social media success.
- Defining, measuring and implementing influencer programs - There is a significant amount of debate about how to measure and define influence. A lot of informed opinion, I might add. The jury is still out, but influencer programs aren't going away any time soon. We need to land on appropriate proxy metrics for influence, and soon. We need to understand how we're appropriately leveraging our lists, and soon. There may never be total agreement, but we need to get closer than we are currently.
- A more strategic approach to social - Unfortunately, social media is still overly tactical. Companies that are incorporating elements of paid and earned media into social campaigns are actually few and far between. We need more of that. We need more companies who want to leverage social across the entire enterprise (read: a truly social business). Social media can help your business, but only if you let it be more than a broadcast channel.
- Using listening data proactively - There is some value in using listening data reactively as a marketing intelligence tool, but it is most effective when your content is nimble enough to be influenced by conversations you are seeing online about your brand and your industry. We need to be formalizing listening teams at the brand level in order to do this well. Yes, it costs money, but ask Dell whether the social media listening command center hasn't already paid for itself. I bet it has, and not just by a little.
I'm sure there are other things we should be talking about, and I'm hoping you'll come and do that for us. Either way, social media needs to stop acting like the next iteration of Ringling Brothers Circus by focusing on things companies couldn't care less about. Lets refocus on what's important, and help to really drive business value. Who's with me?
