This is the second in a series on key concepts for social media for business marketing. In the transformational nature of social media marketing, I discussed the changes taking place in marketing and how influence has shifted from marketer (seller) to buyer and communities who have embraced the interactive nature of the Web. To be effective in this new Internet economy, the marketer can’t continue with the same, marketing 1.0 strategy and tactics of command and control. The marketer needs a new mindset with new perspectives (key ingredients) from which to approach her audience. The key ingredients of a social media marketing mindset are: (1) creativity and passion, (2) quality relationships, (3) stainless credibility and (4) remarkable content.
Pick up any book, or read nearly any blog article on social media marketing and you will find discussion around the pillars of being successful with this new brand of marketing on the Web. They also refer to having the right social media mindset, and include the following key ingredients:
Creativity and passion. If access to a sizeable budget could bring success in marketing 1.0, discovering and channeling your creative urges and passion is the fuel that energizes and shapes your social media engagement. Its brains over bucks and time vs. budget that matters most. Planning for social media marketing is essential to articulate your passion and zero in on “how” you are creative (not “if”) and what comes natural for you in terms of channeling your creativity in the medium you’re best suited for. Create according to your passion and abilities and you will be happy – fulfilled – even deeply satisfied. Practicing your creativity is the vehicle that connects you and your ideas, your values and purpose with others. It’s a channel of communication and relationship building; and it’s an essential ingredient to successful social media marketing.
If you want to explore the ingredients of passion and creativity more, there are two outstanding books I’d recommend: The Element – How Finding Your Passion Changes Everything, by Sir Ken Robinson, PHD. And here’s a podcast on Creativity & Innovation featuring Robinson. The other book is: Crush It – Why Now is the Time to Cash in on Your Passion, by Gary Vaynerchuk. Check out Gary’s Wine Library TV and his video blog to see how passion and creativity plays out. You may also enjoy this post by Edward Boches, chief creative officer at Mullen: Social media changes everything, except the need for creativity.
Quality relationships. Obvious to most, but all too often overlooked, *social* media marketing is all about connecting with others and building quality relationships. It’s often been said in business that 80% of all products and services sold are sold because of the relationship created by the two parties. Business is about relationships and this is a key ingredient to embrace in your social media mindset.Relationships take time and effort. Too often we see marketers broadcasting messages and offers across social media platforms without any regard for their audience, and, without ever engaging or getting to know them. I am dumbfounded by the audacity and seeming stupidity for instance of some Twitters’ that send out auto-direct messages to their followers. Here’s an example of one I received just the other day: “Hi 
Thanks for following me. Want some free bonuses? (followed by a link).” Free bonuses? Bonus of what? You don’t even know me (and I don’t know you), yet you’re offering me a free bonus? This is a quick way to get blocked or unfollowed.
Social media marketing is a process that involves connecting with people, getting to know something about them and engaging them on a meaningful level. Building relationships online are not that much different from offline interactions. Expect to grow your market gradually, organically by investing in activities such as listening, engaging, acknowledging, sharing, complimenting, commenting and interacting. And, if you do so with thoughtfulness, helpfulness and authenticity you should expect to see your online interactions lead to offline opportunities.
Recently, I posted an article on some practical things you can do both online and off to build quality relationships: 7 Principles for Building Quality Offline and Online Relationships.
Stainless credibility. Nothing can hurt or help your influence more than your reputation. If you’ve been active on the Web you know and you’ve seen everything is open and anything can be known; and if there’s something about someone or a company that smells a little stinky or self-serving, that too will be known. Companies invest in reputation monitoring tools and services to alert them whenever their brand, company name or names of their key leaders are being mentioned – positive or negative. In their book, Trust Agents – Using the web to build influence, improve reputation and earn trust, authors Chris Brogan and Julien Smith state: “Companies can no longer hide behind a veneer of a shiny branding campaign, because customers are one Google search away from the truth.” Being authentic, transparent, trustworthy, kind and helpful is the foundation of all great marketing. You should consider implementing reputation monitoring measures to help you build trust and credibility through your social media marketing activities and routines.
One thing you may want to do even now is to Google your name and learn how many mentions there are of you, and if they’re accurate, neutral, positive or (heaven forbid) damaging. Google both your personal name (“first last”) and your company name.
You can then setup Google alerts to monitor any further mentions. You can choose to have these alerts emailed to you on a regular basis. If you don’t have a free Google account, you can set one up here: http://www.google.com/accounts. Then just go to Google Alerts: http://www.google.com/alerts and setup alerts to be emailed or sent to Google Reader via RSS feed.
Remarkable content. For me, the concept of creating and publishing remarkable content started with Seth Godin. You may recall his admonitions to create remarkable content because that’s the kind that spreads and is worthy of being re-marked about – “ideas that spread win,” observes Godin. In his books, like Purple Cow – Transform Your Business by Being Remarkable, he tells us to stop being boring and find a way to stand out. If you were passing through farm country and saw brown cow after brown cow until all of a sudden there stood a purple cow – now that would get your attention! To stand out in social media marketing you need the purple cow equivalent of remarkable content. Then, in his book, The Big Moo – Stop trying to be perfect and start being remarkable, Godin writes, “You will grow as soon as you decide to become remarkable and do something about it.” By tapping into your creativity and passions you can’t help but produce remarkable content.Brian Halligan and Dharmesh Shah, co-founders of HubSpot, a marketing software company, recently published a book, Inbound Marketing – Get Found using Google, Social Media and Blogs where they dedicated an entire chapter, “Create Great Content” to this very subject. They point to two key reasons for creating remarkable content:
- Great content attracts links from other web sites back to you. More links mean more traffic. Plus, Google ranks your site higher according to the number of quality incoming links. Some observe it’s not that Google determines how important your content is, it’s the fact that others link to it that indicates its relevancy.
- “Remarkable content is easily and quickly spread on social media sites, such as Twitter, YouTube, Digg, Reddit, Facebook, among others.” The more your content spreads and is syndicated, picked up, linked to, voted on and consumed means you’ve got more and more eyeballs looking your way, and that’s helping you to cast a large net into multiple ponds.
Web marketing terms are constantly evolving as are the tools and technologies. One thing that won’t change is the value of creating and publishing remarkable content. Attracting your market persona’s eyeballs and feasting them on the insights, ideas and information they’re hungry to consume is in itself the highest form of search engine marketing. Search engines are for the most part after all focused on delivering relevant, authoritative and credible content to people searching and surfing for it. Perhaps David Meerman Scott said it best when he wrote in The New Rules of Marketing & PR the following declaration with regards to being found online:
“The single best thing you can do to improve your search engine marketing is to focus on building great content for your buyers,”
These key ingredients of a social media marketing mindset are interrelated. Your creativity and passion makes you interesting and others will find value in the content you share; they’ll engage and build a mutually beneficial relationship with you, thus bolstering your credibility and influence. Focus on mixing in these key ingredients with your social media marketing strategy and you’ll be off to a great start.
