Toward the end of the year, it is easy to look back at the last twelve months, and to form new thinking of the year to come. We may try to do this all year, but let’s face it, as we see the clock tick toward 2011, it is easier to close one chapter and open another with a fresh mind. I want to share some of my social media observations of 2010 and look toward 2011. Please join me.
This year, as with past years, many people were frantic to learn the value of social media marketing for their business. During 2008, 2009, and 2010, social media experts in shining armor came riding along on their strong white steeds to save the day with theories from A to Z.
As we near 2011, there are about as many theories on social media as there are “social media experts”, and let me tell you, there are a lot of people calling themselves experts these days. In the past few years, the field of social media marketing took on the excessive noise of squillions of unemployed and starving advertising salespeople, public relations reps, marketing strategists, receptionists, real estate agents, automotive line-workers, and broom-pushers from around the world. Go ahead, shoot the messenger, but what I say is the truth.
Many newly self-appointed social media experts formed theories of what creates enough value in social media that they can sell their services to the abundant number of companies desperately trying anything to get their bills paid. A lot of these so-called experts agreed on things such as the best tools to use, the value of listening to the public, and engaging their customers and potential customers using social media. However, there has often been a huge disparity between the theorists’ ideas and their actions. Worse yet, they have often confused efforts with results.
A lot of people have claimed to have expertise with a given angle, such as how to become popular on Twitter (a very funny topic, by the way), or how to manage a Facebook campaign. Other experts will dig a bit deeper with topics of social media data analysis, and a smaller few experts engage the psychology of people in order to build upon their pack mentality and create a desired response.
As the experts came calling, so did their noise. Even the people who are reliably good at their jobs in social media found that there was a strong barrier of noise to overcome. What was often heralded as the most important factor, which was “engagement”, began to fade as people implemented a stronger filter to strain out the noise. A hazardous outcome of this was that many of the “experts” simply turned up the noise, rather than to create a new strategy and new tactics.
Making a Whisper Heard in Social Media
Social media is a very noisy place, and most of what people will encounter on a daily basis is easy to consider “junk”. That is because it is junk to them. I urge you to remember the old adage that says “One man’s trash is another man’s treasure.” and it goes both ways. Your treasure may be their junk.
The Internet is inundated by noise (people are noisy, after all), and there is likely only a small percentage who will see value in your “junk”. What I have to say is certainly “junk” or “noise” to the mango farmer in Navsari, India who just needs to find a new truck to haul his crop of mangoes. He is not my target, and thus, I keep my noise level down so as not to bother him. If he needs me, I am still here, but I am not going to bug him.
Where many failed social media campaigns sealed their losing fate is by simply adding to the noise. Failing to reach a specific target audience is not only wasteful, but leads to a significant filtering-out effect. As a marketing professional, myself, I have been stunned by how many people contacted me in 2010 to try and sell me their SEO and social media marketing services. They would actually even email me through my blog’s contact page where they have to enter a captcha code to send their email. This indicates that it was not just automated, but actually a live person entering their sales pitch to sell me the same services which I provide. Before you waste time with this approach, you should at least note the title of the blog.
These people who approached me had no idea of a target, and they added to my filtering-out of the majority of others in their industry … my industry. People approaching their market in this way made so much noise that many people’s “noise filters” went into hyper-drive and tuned them out. This was not limited to my industry, either. The noise level of the Internet as a whole is higher than ever, and with noise-filtering becoming more important, often times a whisper is heard above a shout. This means that the challenges are in careful targeting and balancing volume with value.
Social Media Balance of Volume vs. Value
There is an easy assumption that the volume and reach of a message creates value to a company. This is what we have all be taught through years of commercialization. It is true that there is a strong correlation, but there is a big backlash, too. In the realm of social media, there is a very common outcome of being filtered out.
A better solution is to be filtered-in by proving your value rather than just your volume. Anybody can create volume, and it is quite evident online. It does not take a marketing genius to promote something online and put it in front of a lot of people. Doing it in a way that gets you “filtered in” instead of being “filtered out” is a lot trickier.
Can I claim that this will be the most important piece of your social media strategy to address in 2011? I am not going that far, because there is already plenty of argument on the matter. There are many points of your social media strategy which should constantly be analyzed, criticized, and adjusted. What I can say regarding volume vs. value is what I have experienced. If you wonder if I actually mean what I say, simply look at my frequency of blog updates and usage of other social media for my answer.
I have been claiming it for years that volume alone is often wasted effort. Reaching a good balance of volume and value is important. I believe that as 2011 moves on, the balance will become even more important than ever while people continue learning to filter in good information and filter out noise.
Just as before, but with more prevalence than ever, targeting your message more carefully to reach your market influencers and discovering what they want will factor heavily in the success or failure in many social media campaigns.
Social Media at a Whisper
In summary, it is my continued belief that careful targeting and keeping value high will trump the importance of volume in 2011, just as it has in past years. As such, I invite you to filter me in and subscribe to my blog by RSS or email. If I do not have something to offer which I believe you will find useful, I will keep the noise to a whisper.
Photo Credit to Joe Shlabotnik via Flickr
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