So you read up on social media strategy until you’re blue in the face. Then off you sail and create a Twitter profile, a Facebook Page, a blog, a YouTube channel, a flavour-of-the-month profile. Then provide “unique content”, “meaningful resources”, ebooks, webinars and whitepapers.
You then promote the hell out whatever meaningful content you’ve put (hatched?) together across all your networks with countless tweets, comments and “helpful” retweets by the tribe you’ve been working hard to amass over the last three months.
You then sit back, breathe momentarily, and then hope like hell it yields results.
Haven’t we seen it all before?
Trouble is I’m personally getting a bit jaded by the same old social media strategy that seems to be populating the communication channels right now. Everywhere I look businesses – guided by social media gurus or not – are walking down the same path. Everyone seems to be using the same kind of approach and the only difference seems to be the shade of wallpaper on their Twitter background or the design of their blog. Sure, a few people try the odd trick of bombarding you with DMs or continually retweeting old stuff, but on any given day I see about 90 percent of businesses using the same social media strategy. And as a potential customer I’m bored.
That’s why the Old Spice campaign, which is practically now a social media marketing legend, was so refreshing.
Obviously small mom and pop businesses don’t have the same kind of budget as Old Spice did, so what can they do to make themselves unique as they strive for attention and a return on investment?
Being Unique Ain’t Easy
It’s getting harder and harder to stand out from the crowd with so much energy going into social media marketing right now. Design will get you so far, but design won’t win you an audience when you’re communicating in 140 characters via cell phones and desktop Twitter clients.
Despite your linguistic dexterity there’s also only so much you can do on Twitter to make your voice standout; ditto Facebook, where comments on a Wall longer than a few syllables seem to drone on far too much.
Being constantly available, updating your blog, tweeting until kingdom come and frequently posting to Facebook is one option at ensuring you get some kind of attention but that’s not possible if you’re a small business; and besides, no one wants to drown a growing tribe in noise.
So How Can Stand Out from the Crowd?
Be human. Connect with people one-on-one. Make your people pages powerful.
If you come across customers or prospects looking for information or help, step up to the plate. Give support freely. Don’t push the hard sell. Sure, make it clear on your website – with über-fantastic landing pages – that you are a business; but don’t ram it down people’s throats.
Build your social media strategy around connecting with one person at a time, gently helping them find your true value and worth as a service provider – with an array of outstanding content marketing to boot in the form of blogs, vlogs, podcasts and Ebooks and maybe – just maybe – you’ll stand out from the crowd as someone real, someone special, someone unique.
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One thing that will help you stand out from the rest is to find your hook. There is something that makes everyone of us unique, such as our personalities, humour or the like, that draws others to us in real life (i.e. our friends).
The same applies to social media too. We are drawn in to real personalities, not figments of them.
JonnnAs usual Jon you are really putting a lot of thought into the issues which are at the core of a successful social media campaign. In blogging about the Old Spice campaign I noted that it was the one-to-one conversations viewed by 40 million plus that made it a social media success. They simply used video (of course they were highly entertaining) to communicate with the public. I agree with you that by being yourself, you can create a unique conversation, and then you need to determine which channel it would be best to conduct it on. We all can not communicate using a production company and advertising agency to produce our spots, but we can all use a flip video camera and a unique message to connect with our audiences. If video is not someone’s forte, a podcast or blog can work just as well. Your point is spot on – in trying to connect one person at a time, you are having a conversation with a much larger audience that, over time, should help you stand out from the crowd.
JonnnAs usual Jon you are really putting a lot of thought into the issues which are at the core of a successful social media campaign. In blogging about the Old Spice campaign I noted that it was the one-to-one conversations viewed by 40 million plus that made it a social media success. They simply used video (of course they were highly entertaining) to communicate with the public. I agree with you that by being yourself, you can create a unique conversation, and then you need to determine which channel it would be best to conduct it on. We all can not communicate using a production company and advertising agency to produce our spots, but we can all use a flip video camera and a unique message to connect with our audiences. If video is not someone’s forte, a podcast or blog can work just as well. Your point is spot on – in trying to connect one person at a time, you are having a conversation with a much larger audience that, over time, should help you stand out from the crowd.
JonnnAs usual Jon you are really putting a lot of thought into the issues which are at the core of a successful social media campaign. In blogging about the Old Spice campaign I noted that it was the one-to-one conversations viewed by 40 million plus that made it a social media success. They simply used video (of course they were highly entertaining) to communicate with the public. I agree with you that by being yourself, you can create a unique conversation, and then you need to determine which channel it would be best to conduct it on. We all can not communicate using a production company and advertising agency to produce our spots, but we can all use a flip video camera and a unique message to connect with our audiences. If video is not someone’s forte, a podcast or blog can work just as well. Your point is spot on – in trying to connect one person at a time, you are having a conversation with a much larger audience that, over time, should help you stand out from the crowd.
Jon
As usual Jon you are really putting a lot of thought into the issues which are at the core of a successful social media campaign. In blogging about the Old Spice campaign I noted that it was the one-to-one conversations viewed by 40 million plus that made it a social media success. They simply used video (of course they were highly entertaining) to communicate with the public. I agree with you that by being yourself, you can create a unique conversation, and then you need to determine which channel it would be best to conduct it on. We all can not communicate using a production company and advertising agency to produce our spots, but we can all use a flip video camera and a unique message to connect with our audiences. If video is not someone's forte, a podcast or blog can work just as well. Your point is spot on – in trying to connect one person at a time, you are having a conversation with a much larger audience that, over time, should help you stand out from the crowd.
@Roy, thanks so much. I didn’t check out your Old Spice post. Can you post a link here? I think it would be useful to share. rnrnIt’s so hard to build a conversation one step at a time but the best example of that I’ve come across was running a twitter account for a school. I responded to a 16 year old who was moaning about the start of the new term. Just a couple of tweets got her interested in the senior high school I was running a campaign for and she came along to Open House three months later, signed up for the school and is starting there in 2 weeks time. Each student brings in about 23,000 USD. That’s not bad for a couple of tweets is it?
@Roy, thanks so much. I didn’t check out your Old Spice post. Can you post a link here? I think it would be useful to share. rnrnIt’s so hard to build a conversation one step at a time but the best example of that I’ve come across was running a twitter account for a school. I responded to a 16 year old who was moaning about the start of the new term. Just a couple of tweets got her interested in the senior high school I was running a campaign for and she came along to Open House three months later, signed up for the school and is starting there in 2 weeks time. Each student brings in about 23,000 USD. That’s not bad for a couple of tweets is it?
@Roy, thanks so much. I didn’t check out your Old Spice post. Can you post a link here? I think it would be useful to share. rnrnIt’s so hard to build a conversation one step at a time but the best example of that I’ve come across was running a twitter account for a school. I responded to a 16 year old who was moaning about the start of the new term. Just a couple of tweets got her interested in the senior high school I was running a campaign for and she came along to Open House three months later, signed up for the school and is starting there in 2 weeks time. Each student brings in about 23,000 USD. That’s not bad for a couple of tweets is it?
@Roy, thanks so much. I didn't check out your Old Spice post. Can you post a link here? I think it would be useful to share.
It's so hard to build a conversation one step at a time but the best example of that I've come across was running a twitter account for a school. I responded to a 16 year old who was moaning about the start of the new term. Just a couple of tweets got her interested in the senior high school I was running a campaign for and she came along to Open House three months later, signed up for the school and is starting there in 2 weeks time. Each student brings in about 23,000 USD. That's not bad for a couple of tweets is it?
@Johnny, I agree about “real personalities”. The difficulty is when you’re marketing a brand (or organization). Do you delve into the personalities behind the business u2013 i.e. CEO bloggers u2013 or just push the PR department forward? I think it’s an interesting issue for big corporations to negotiate this space. Smaller businesses and freelancers can more easily show their personality.
@Johnny, I agree about “real personalities”. The difficulty is when you’re marketing a brand (or organization). Do you delve into the personalities behind the business u2013 i.e. CEO bloggers u2013 or just push the PR department forward? I think it’s an interesting issue for big corporations to negotiate this space. Smaller businesses and freelancers can more easily show their personality.
@Johnny, I agree about “real personalities”. The difficulty is when you’re marketing a brand (or organization). Do you delve into the personalities behind the business u2013 i.e. CEO bloggers u2013 or just push the PR department forward? I think it’s an interesting issue for big corporations to negotiate this space. Smaller businesses and freelancers can more easily show their personality.
@Johnny, I agree about “real personalities”. The difficulty is when you're marketing a brand (or organization). Do you delve into the personalities behind the business – i.e. CEO bloggers – or just push the PR department forward? I think it's an interesting issue for big corporations to negotiate this space. Smaller businesses and freelancers can more easily show their personality.