Unicorn Bones & The Social Media Fairy Tale
Taking a break this morning from the interwebs, I cracked open my copy of Content Rules
Blogs, YouTube, Facebook, Twitter, and other online platforms are giving organizations like yours an enormous opportunity to engage directly with your customers or would-be customers. That’s a lucky thing, because instead of creating awareness about your company solely the old-school way (by annoying people with advertising, bugging them with direct mail, or interrupting them with a phone call during dinner), you now have an unprecedented and enormous opportunity.
SERIOUSLY?
Calling “old-school” marketing tactics “annoying” in exchange for sparkly-new “social media” techniques is throwing out the baby with the bathwater.
If your offer, your product, or your content sucks, it will be “annoying” whether it’s on Facebook, Twitter or a blog. And, to reverse the statement, just because something comes to a consumer via “old school” channels does not by default mean it’s annoying.
There’s a dangerous trend in the teaching of social media optimization to value the connections one can make via social media above and beyond traditional marketing tactics. As if something is “good” because it’s presented via a blog, Twitter or other social media channel but it’s “bad” if presented otherwise, like in a broadcast email.
These teachers often have incomes that are dependent on selling the concept of social media marketing to business, via their consulting, keynotes, or their books. So they place social media marketing as the end-all-be-all answer to all problems and the end-all-be-all marketing solution. Social media is the end-all-be-all of nothing.
Social media marketing is one of many tools. A well rounded marketing campaign could consist of, yes, social media, but also search engine optimization, pay per click, app development, split testing, email marketing, direct mail, jv partnerships, viral campaigns, television, print or radio advertising, podcasting, article marketing, contests / giveaways, et al.
A marketing campaign should never consist of just ONE element, even if it’s so magical an element it’s made of unicorn bones and social media fairy dust.
They go on to write (we’re still on page 1, by the way):
Produce great stuff [content], and your customers will come to you. Produce really great stuff, and your customers will share and disseminate your message for you.
I already wrote about the concept of using social media so you don’t have to toot your own horn in May 2009 (“Content Rules” was published in December 2010) in The 3 Pillars of Social Media Marketing. But that’s the end, not the beginning, of the social media funnel.
To say that “If you build it (and it’s good) they will come,” is dangerous and misleading (again). You can have the best damn Facebook fan page in your niche, with the absolute most amazing content in the world. But until it’s got fans, you’re SOL (or FUBAR’ed – it’s “Pick Your Acronym Day” around here!).
So how do you get fans to that Page? Well, perhaps you put a “Fan Page” box on your website encouraging your site visitors to “Like” your Page. Great! …Oops, no, because that’s “advertising” and advertising is “annoying” according to Handley and Chapman. Oh! Oh! I got it! I’ll start a Twitter account and tweet my Facebook Page to my Twitter followers! No, that’s not gonna do the trick either – because you’ve got to get followers to your Twitter account first…
Having a Facebook page with really great content and waiting for people to show up is a lot like having a lemonade stand with the best darn lemonade in town. Except that instead of putting your lemonade stand out at the end of your driveway, you put it in your garage. And close the door. And wonder why no one is buying your lemonade. “But my lemonade (content) is really good,” you’ll say, “And if I were to put a sign out (old-school marketing) it would be annoying to passers-by.”
See how self-defeating that method is?
Most of you who are reading this post are doing so because you either subscribed to my email list and I emailed you telling you this post existed or you are subscribed to my blog’s RSS feed. Some of you came in via a search engine and some of you came in via social media channels. See how that works? I let people know my content existed through various channels, and now ya’ll are here. Hi!
Social media should be used to funnel your prospects to your other marketing channels. But I already wrote about that too in the Social Media Myth.
If people aren’t responding to your offer outside of social media, it’s unlikely they will now that it’s on a blog, Twitter or Facebook feed.
Don’t get me wrong and think I’m damning social media, or the “Content Rules” book – I’m only on page 1 (which was deceptive, but they’ve got another 270 pages to redeem themselves by being sensible instead of sensationalizing). Social media is great – I wouldn’t have witten about it to the extent that I have if it weren’t. But it should never be your only strategy or the sole answer to your marketing problems. Truth is, if your marketing strategies aren’t producing any results, you should be looking at why that is instead of adding social media to your campaign.
It can be scary that so many people believe those kind of misleading statements… I totally agree with the throwing the baby out with the bathwater statement… I have had clients that hired me for Social Media stuff, but we soon found out that there were more effective strategies for them and their niche with the “traditional” ways of marketing. Thanks for keeping it real Michelle!
Good stuff Michelle! The bad marketer syndrome is pretty common still, it seems; however, I’ve noticed that it’s changing. For me, personally, my circle of friends is spending more time on the internet due to sites like Facebook… and, as they do, I see them starting to wonder… “Hmmm, I wonder if I could make a living with this thing?”
It’s pretty funny how quickly someone’s perception of the “bad marketer” changes when they go from being the one advertised to… to being the one doing the advertising!
That said, I notice your comment box here has a “Post comment to my Facebook profile” checkbox on it. So, are you saying you want me to post it to my profile or not?
Great article Michelle. You made a very good point. I am in the process of leveraging what I have done online with my marketing and taking it offline. Seems to be working.
Funny Michelle I’m reading this same book right now as well. You make some good points! Tracy
Funny – how are Anna and CC marketing their book?
(My guess is they’re advertising it.)
Just a hunch.
Funny how things “change” when we break things down into a logical picture. This “Myth of New” (aka. Social Media is the only way) is a joke. The only guys making real money “with Facebook” are Zuckerberg and crew, and their advertisers.
-Chris
Hi Michelle, I tell you the truth confessing it’s the first time I read inside your blog.
But seeing the quality, I will be back as soon as you will write something new!
In this case I appreciate your analysis of the common errors that bring no visitors and no interest at all at our Fan Pages, and I learnt a lot of useful tricks.
I will definitely change my old and annoying way to do social media.
Thanks a lot and see you soon,
Alessandro Zamboni
GREAT post Michelle! I’ve been ‘harping’ on this very subject. All of the sudden, ‘old school’ marketing is dead. What a bunch of garbage!
Good to see this kind of post… marketing is marketing, whether it’s offline, online, social media or whatever…. there’s a Product (hopefully), there’s a Place (what ever channel is most appropriate), there’s a Price and there’s Promotion…. (and if you have a an organization behind it all – there’s People). How and where it all happens is the marketing mix that determines success or failure… different methods (in proportion) for different markets..
The danger with statements like that is so many small businesses know they need to use social media but this will have them drop what works and has worked for a long time to use something “new”.
Social networking is nothing new though. It’s the way business has been done for tens of thousands of years. It’s just that we are able to use social media to network locally or globally. It’s a tool and should not replace anything.
Please let me know how the book progresses. I think I’ll hold off on that one for now.
So my question is, did you get past page 1 or did you do the prudent thing and toss the book?
Michelle it’s good to get a no BS opinion on reality. Marketing is marketing and without the right mix you’re gonna struggle, regardless of which particular variety it is.
Thanks for posting this Michelle as this is important stuff to get across.
Totally agree – so many people think they need social media when it may not be the best otion for promoting their business and others think it replaces all the other marketing options which in many cases it might but not all. A healthy mix of mainstream and social is worth its weight in gold.
So TGIF( since it’s “Pick Your Acronym Day” around here!). Maybe we can ROFL at their naive comments. Hopefully their advice will not cause the people reading it to have their social marketing attempts to be DOA. TTYL BTW I think you resemble Kate on the early NCIS (another acronym hehe) episodes and judging from your videos I’m sure you could handle a gun and beat some criminal to a pulp if you had to—MTBAC–meant to be a compliment
Nice to hear an honest take on this social media stuff. I appreciate how it can “add to” what you are doing. But the idea now that someone facebooks me to tell me something important is bone too far. Everyone is now a friend so that word is now meaningless. Thanks for this post.
Good points, on target.
Hi Michelle,
What theme are you using? It is really nice and clean. I like it a lot.
Advertising is a two-edged sword; it can cut you to shreds or cleave the barriers between you, your business and prosperity.
What has to happen is divorce. You must divorce yourself from ‘pride of authorship’ and forget your ego when you contemplate that masterstroke of marketing genius lighting the fires of niche domination desire as it dazzles you on that glowing monitor.
What you think really doesn’t make a bit of difference, actually. It’s the eye of the prospect you must capture, and you have seconds to accomplish that formidable task.
Fail there and you will likely have no second opportunity.
Achieve the pinnacle however, and your efforts are trivial in retrospect, the rewards outstrip your dreams by orders of magnitude.
Just don’t talk down to them. Don’t insult their intelligence. Don’t assume that because it looks great to you that they all have your highly developed sense of color, composition, craft and creativity.
Speak as you would speak to an old friend; throw out the pretense, disavow the flamboyant, but rather appeal to the want, not the need.
Let your prospect sell himself, and you’re golden.
As Marshall McLuhan said, “The medium is the message.” And he should know because he had a vision of the World Wide Web before anyone even OWNED a personal computer. In his life he FORGOT more about communicating ideas to large audiences of diverse composition than four or five ‘gurus’ ever KNEW.
There’s nothing ‘old school’ about traditional advertising media or methods; the methods serve us well, the media perpetuate the ideas and cross-platform applications of creativity, innovation and communication have the power to persuade, educate, motivate and entertain regardless of how and where the ideas come to an audience’s attention.
I would concur with your comments. Reaching a market takes more than one method and in doing so is just being lazy. It is like all things in life PPP = PPP (piss poor preparation = piss poor performance)
I agree, Social Media isn’t a magic bullet that will solve all your marketing woes. As a consultant to small and medium businesses I find that many have unrealistic expectations of any form of online marketing whether it is “social” or not.
I found a great book “The Hyper-Social Organization” by Francios Gossieaux and Ed Moran that takes a more pragmatic approach to the Social Media Fairy Tale and they seem to have a better grasp of the challenges and opportunities of Social Media.
Thanks for a great article
Great points about SM. Yeah, just ‘one’ way to get people’s attention; not the ‘all there is’ way.
Great post Michelle. I think using all types of media is important as you said. I’ve come to respect social media marketing over the years. But everyone has their own expertise. I am very ‘old school’ when it comes to online marketing. Email marketing still works great for me but I also use a lot of direct mail marketing and lately qr codes to bridge the gap between offline and online marketing. – PS> Note to Betty- the theme is the Platform Theme from Pagelines.com – it the same one I’m using at TheWealthManual.com and I love it.
You had me at “unicorn” … I don’t read my email, but if I see your name I know it is good stuff … so here I am. Thanks Michelle. I’m glad you’re back, you were missed.
Personally, social media ain’t for me or my wife, but my daughter-in-law spends hours everyday posting photos and what have you. I see it a bit like video games – one generation is hooked on it and the other just doesn’t get it. I don’t. And who for heaven’s sake wants to be limited to a couple of dozen characters when trying to say something – have we all lost the power to express ourselves in English! BUT as an Internet Marketer I can’t ignore it, wish I could but can’t. I have to get it working for me but don’t expect me to suddenly enjoy it, it just isn’t going to happen. Personally I like good old fashioned mailshots, especially when they enclose some nice glossy magazine or some goodies – like the company that makes bespoke trousers and sent me more than 20 swatches – difficult to do that via social media! Keep up the good work Michelle
Oh, how you hit this post square on the head!
Not sure how this whole social media concept got so out of control… maybe we were all asleep while the social media fairies were busy putting the dam cart before the horse, not sure!
Anyway, recently wrote an article with a similar premise: http://raventools.com/blog/prioritize-your-website-not-your-social-media-accounts/
Nice article Michelle.
Boom Roasted! Great post Michelle.
As someone who works with small businesses locally in the trenches and an advocate of social media, over the last year, I’ve really had to clean up all the mistakes that people who have recently switched the careers paths and became over night social media experts.
Like you said Michelle, social media is just one component of many working parts in a complete campaign to help a business grow.
And for small business, its been for me at least, more about “How do we create better experiences for our current customers and potential customers.”
If social media is a part of that, then great, but maybe not. Maybe it’s an offline event, or direct mail, or hey, even building a mobile marketing list for a restaurant, but you really gotta focus on the goals of what customers want.
If you want to be a “social media expert” and continue to tell people:
- get a blog and write content
- get a twitter and be cool
- build a fan page cause there’s 600 million people on facebook
- and have them all talk to each other…
That’s stuff we talked about in 08/09.
Real businesses want real results. It’s going going to take much more than just social media to help a 6 figure business offline business to double their business, it takes marketing period = old and new. You know that stuff that still works for people.
Dang, I wanna write a post about this now.
Out for now.
Great post Michelle!
Unfortunately, on the Romanian market, the same trend seems to dominate. Lots of people follow methods only because they are “the latest”, “the coolest”, etc. I use exactly as you say, a combo. The marketing mix, is sometimes misunderstood as “FB+Twitter+StumbleUpon”. Or something like this. I had the chance to study “live” here, in Greece, a marketing method used at its maximum extent: Printouts. The same conclusion you draw here. Relaying on a single tool, is like engaging a deadly operation without a “Plan B”. And speaking of a backup plan, I saw here David Vallieres. I owe him a lot, because of his weird book title “Fail Fast…”. David uses heavily the mail. Is it bad? What about people above their 60′s? Most of them, use only mail. See “Phil Paine” before me. I guess all range of ages should read this article. Having a balanced marketing campaign is better than using only one channel, even if it’s the FB.
Thanks Michelle for putting those things together so straightforward!
Thank you for the great illustration of what has been my common rant these days.
As the owner of a small ad agency aimed at helping small businesses make it in an environment where big multinationals monopolize practically all media, the number of people I see buying into fairy tales like this around me always makes me want to scream.
They’re all looking for a single medium to magically put them in the ranks of the big players, with no regard to strategy, planning and an understanding of how everything works together before you can decide where you can start cutting back or moving forward, and what to do or not do first.
I remember back before the day of the internet and social media, it was all events, events, events, then door to door promos, then it was “get a website and you’re made” and now “You don’t even need a website you just need a Facebook page.”
Sure I live in a country where the large multinationals have bought out all the spots on traditional broadcast media, or at least made it largely prohibitive for the startup or small-scale businessman (which is basically why I am always on the look out for things which will help level the playing field, and the internet and social media is indeed a godsend on this front) but advice like what you mentioned is terribly simplistic and ultimately dangerous for a small business’s health.
Great retort to a stupid statement Michelle. I’m not a Facebook or Twitter fan, (not part of the generations who embrace it I guess), but I understand that I will have to “face it” in my internet marketing strategies. My “take” on it all is that there would actually be more people being “annoyed” in the new social marketing arena than in the “old school” stuff. I DON”T think many people have started their love affair with FB or T to be sold to.
Great article michelle. ‘Old school – New school’ yadda yadda yadda. Is not the ‘old school’ now being taught by ‘new school’ guru’s who know that the REAL way to market a business is ALL SCHOOLS!. Couldn’t agree with you more.
You are so right, Michelle! I think that those who make a blanket condemnation of “old school” advertising vs. “social media marketing” are doomed to repeat the errors that make some “old school” forms annoying. That begins with the assumption that social media can’t be annoying in and of itself.
In the end, good content is good content – however it’s being delivered – and if you are sending out bad content or interrupting people on Facebook, that’s not (much) better than calling them during dinner to sell them a credit card.
The best proof of that? It’s Saturday and I was just going to pick at my inbox, but when I saw an email from you I think, “oh, Michelle is always worth reading,” and here I am connecting with you on Facebook
.
You are right on the money….as usual! BTW your blog is my one and only RSS feed.
Great post Michelle!
I always look forward to your emails.I get so much junk mail but junk this is not.
http://chrisfarrellonline.co.uk
You are soooo right Michelle. I ALWAYS tell my clients thet social media marketing is NOT to replace your traditional marketing but to be used in conjunction with it. We look at what they are doing now for marketing and scale back what is not working for them. (not or little Roi) Then we include social media in the mix and they end up not spending anymore money on marketing than they currently are but have added a new tool into the mix.
Don’t ya just love it when Michelle gets all worked-up.. Great post.. sound advice
Nicely put, Michelle. IMO, effective marketing maintains a co-dependence between content and its delivery mechanism. The most effective message without a means to deliver it is like a trojan horse that was never wheeled up to the castle gates. Likewise, the utilization of social media technology to deliver a polished **** is a waste of time, effort and technology. Effective marketing combines great content with great delivery to produce great results. And great delivery includes both ‘old school’ and ‘new school’ strategy.
Darn. And I put so much trust into Mark Zuckerberg and his modern day definition of connecting…
Well said, Field of Dreams did not do us any favors when they instilled “If you build it they will come” into our minds. I have a question for you, since you seem to be an expert: I want to brand my facebook page to incite direct conversions, actual sales I can use for myself. I need a custom app that allows me to brand everything for free, right away. I’ve been using this one
http://www.facebook.com/pages/Mindflash-Advertising/180033020422?sk=app_4949752878
Which gives you branding concepts, but does not automatically install them on my page…do u know how to do this?
Social media is definitely one arrow in the quiver.
Hi Michelle, I know this isn’t the preferred method of contact but… I have been unsuccessful getting an affiliate payment issue resolved through your support staff. I would appreciate it if you could message me for details. Thank you, Jeff
You are so right about a self defeating method. Why not say that everything is virtual nowadays and lets dispense with the postal address and physical location of our business. You can find us online if you want us. Only if you set up the system to work like that – and it is a system. Every social networking tool is just that, a tool. You still need the whole toolbox and the shed to be able to make something with it.
I can’t stand when people categorically lump Social Media in one bin and EVERYTHING ELSE in another, labeled “Crap that doesn’t work because it’s not my specialty.”
Print is still relevant, radio and TV still work, and so do most forms of advertising IF DONE CORRECTLY. Some media are stronger than others, sure- but even that varies depending on the message and the audience!
A quick post about why I think Print is still, in fact, relevant… http://bit.ly/fvzoK5
Thanks for the great read!
Great post Michelle! Thanks for helping keep us well grounded in common sense and well balanced thinking.
Some folks believe their idea solves the problems of the world when, in fact, they have addressed a problem in their local area. Your article shows clearly that global resolutions are multi-faceted. Thanks for putting things in perspective.
Best regards,
Frank