Blogs, social networks, video sharing platforms, audio, photos, podcasts, wikis, virtual worlds, forums, microblogging, social shopping … The era of digital marketing is now part of our lives and social media offers an attractive landscape for brands [both b2b and b2c] who have adopted social media as a core objective. The goal, to exploit these connective advantages through the enormous power of the network, or what may be considered the same, the enormous power of the users.
Social media is giving way to a new era where the concept of communication begins to be replaced by a dialogue, where before, companies had to create, listen and speak. Now, we see a new paradigm that consumers are not necessarily averse to advertising because they are the ones creating and developing content for the brands, enhancing the social product mentions and social placements.
Do not be because they do [Yoda speak]
The interesting investment in social media, however, was misinterpreted by many companies. In the beginning they understood that this method was simply to move the social tools that conveyed the same message through traditional media. They did not realize that it was in fact an entire philosophy of work whose mission was to place users as protagonists of their success by reorganizing the message to them and allowing the users to qualify, criticize or even reject their content. Social Media was a new concept of communication which was first kept in the background, enhancing the product development of useful information and providing value to the user.
Social Media is not a set of mechanical actions
Social Media social action is based on people, not machines or automated methods. The strategy therefore, not based on simply exposing a product to the greatest number of potential sites and social networks, but to define new communication activities where individuals are active partners in spreading the message and its importance. That the message is conveyed by the brand becomes less credible and more credible when transmitted by the users as an intrinsic act of endorsement.
Communication but not much dialogue
The concept of a traditional advertising campaign where the brand delivers a message to a user is not appropriate in the formula of social media. The role of the user is not meant to only receive information, but to disseminate the concept, culture and actions sought by the campaign. This old belief system fully cancels and lays null and void plans for interaction. Continuous messaging by brands and the need to share value with their audiences is actually how social media works.
This is a communication process that requires listening to what the public thinks of you and your product on the network: this is not what you say to people, but what people say, do or how they interact with your product or services .
Once we receive feedback from users, data mining is important for working on strategies that allow us to connect with our users the most effective way possible: there is no standard way of doing Social Media, each case can arise from very different circumstances related to the type of product, with its target goal, or the need to expand information about a particular product. What we must not ever forget in this type of communication is to plan long term strategies and move away from seeking immediate ROI. Social Media is about creating communities where you encourage and reward loyalty continuously to its most active users.
Social media speaks of a discipline which also applies to both “off page” using third party tools, and “on page” strategies that allows you to use our own site as a forum for dialogue where we can incorporate other disciplines such as creativity, SEO, user experience etc..
The basic tenants of best practice SEO from 5 years ago still apply to today’s best practice SEO with very little changing other than the availability of off page influence and search engine spiders ability to crawl a wider variety of files and formats. The Social Media mix now amplifies and extends the inbound traffic and profitability of a site via off page execution of social media strategies and campaigns.