You can’t predict when it will happen, but it will happen.
There will be a moment when you believe in Social Media. Just like the moment that the Berlin Wall came down, Obama got elected and Ashton beat CNN to 1,000,000 tweeps you will remember where you were when it happened.
When was it that you realised that New Media (Social Media) had the power to transform … your life, your business, your cause, or even the world. We are living through the most amazing change in the communication landscape in the history of humanity and you, we, the broader people are through the power of Social Media, in charge.
The Moment I Believed
In 2007 (I know the version below is December 2008), it was late at night, the rest of the family was asleep. I watched “The Message”, a youtube collaboration video, made by an ingenious unknown person known as Mad V. At 2.13 minutes into this clip, a young man I’ll probably never know changed my life. The sincerity with which he shares his message “I Believe In You” touched me so deeply, that I was able to realise Social Media is not just about a meeting of minds, it has the potential to be much much deeper than that.
It has the potential give people the thing that they crave at this time in our history, connection, real heartfelt connection.
If you have a purpose, whether it is to create a product that improves peoples lives, create unity in the world, or to teach people to take care of thier health you will need to deeply move people. In order to do that there is no more effective or efficient way than through the strategic use of Social Media.
Has your moment of belief arrived? I would love to hear your story, please leave a comment.
3 Comments
Thanks for your post Ken and your responses on Friendfeed.
http://friendfeed.com/building43/dfaf484f/moment-you-believe-in-social-media-via
Most business owners are interested in the marketing benefits of using social media but become quickly confused because they are trying to build friends, create fan pages, set up Twitter accounts, set up LinkedIn profiles, etc. Are you beginning to see the mistake here?
The business owner (interested in marketing) has begun a social media networking initiative and NOT a social media marketing initiative… They have been confused and have set down the wrong path from the start!
One of the biggest mistakes that Internet marketers make is believing that they can launch a social media marketing initiative inside of social media networking environments (like Facebbook, Twitter, etc.)
Social media marketing and social media networking are two VERY different initiatives. If you try to do one inside the other you are bound for disaster. Much like mixing baking soda and vinegar together with explosive results.
There is a clear and distinct order in which you engage social media for business benefit. If you try the networking bit before the marketing bit then you are not operating at maximum efficiency.
Most people have it wrong. They network with people in an attempt to build their business (prospecting)… This is the most inefficient way to use social media and a great waste of time and energy. Not to mention it is hard to track results… It’s not completely measureable!
G’day Kevin, thanks very much for taking the time to reply to my post.
I absolutely agree that confusing Social Media Marketing and Social Media Networking is a recipe for frustration and burning up resources.
My primary motivation for creating a series of videos and a template for Social Media Strategy (link to the first post) is to address a need that we have observed and heard amongst a large number of business people who are being encouraged to embrace Social Media Marketing and confuse Social Media activity (primarily networking) with strategic use of Social Media for business. This is unsatisfactory for everyone, the businesses and the audience. Many people come to Social Media with a mindset that comes from traditional media. “Here are some more channels through which to spread my message”. As you probably realise this really doesn’t work as effectively, as using Social Media to first listen to your market, to secondly engage your market (build genuine rapport, a relationship), thirdly connect your target audience with you, your business and one another, and then fourthly to share rich content that solves problems for your market.
As you can see in this video we advise that business people first listen, engage, and connect with their market before a significant push into sharing content. The reason we do this is because we have employed this formula ourselves and with/for clients in different markets and for different purposes. We have found this approach very effective and we are comforted by the fact that many of our mentors have found this fundamental approach effective.
I really value your comments. It would be interesting to hear what Social Media Marketing sequence you recommend and what experiences have lead you to that understanding? I would also be very interested to understand what marketing steps you advise before networking?
Perhaps you are referring for the need to have an objective and a pathway for prospects to follow before devote resources to engaging them, if so couldn’t agree more. Again we observe frustration on a significant scale when business people have an under developed web strategy e.g. online brochure style website (no interactivity, no pathway for involvement, no process for articulating their value proposition for creating service in their market, no process for qualifying visitors into genuine prospects) and falsely believe that randomly following people on Twitter or setting up a Facebook fan page is going to suddenly lead to a business boom. [In this regard this website is not yet a best practice model, we are working on that]
This is the precise scenario we are trying to address. Would love to hear your comments Kevin, thanks again for your input. Dean
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