Social media is for everyone
Jason has just written a fantastic article behind his philosophy of social media, I read in awe. It was very enlightening how he sees social media as the core responsibility of PR. I don’t feel he’s wrong, but my slight deviation in beliefs is too long for a comment. So sit tight, I’ll try to be as explanatory as possible.
While Jason emphasized that PR should be the fateful social media adopters, it left me to wonder about the marketers and customer service cohort. I gathered that these three are the most in touch with customers, compared to any other departments in corporate companies. Of course, support engineers etc do as well but not as much. Hence, Jason’s classic question… Where exactly should social media fall in the organizational structure?
Jason gave a brief definition of social media, which is precisely what I believe in and had been preaching.
Social media is a method of communications.
Social media tools facilitate these communications.
Evidently, the most appropriate people to adopt social media are not IT developers but rather, corporate departments that deal directly with consumers. The kink that I do not agree with mainly resides in the fact that modern marketers and customer service departments handle customers equally much. It is easy for us to think that only PR maintain relationships, but the fact is, marketers and customer service reps are much in the loop too. They are, afterall, the faces of the companies that customers see.
Yet, it’s not restricted to only the three above. Even R&D and senior management can get rolling with customers. As we have seen, more corporate blogs are being launched as the days go. With the technological shift focusing on interactive web, anyone and everyone can get online for a piece of the action. Can I consider that a good evidence of how social media applies beyond PR?
As some of us have experienced (allow me to restrict it to Singapore where I am), IT developers are sometimes the last people we want to be talking business with. I have pointed out countless times in my blogs and private dinners, a Web 2.0 website is only as good as a piece of online art without the human factor and interaction. Many IT departments can come up with some really fantastic ideas but it just doesn’t sink into the rest of the company. It is difficult to make them see that we do not need just another fanciful solution, but one that complement the environment equally well. Not change it to something it is not.
However though, Jason said that all-important thing about social media efforts.
What is most telling in your social media efforts is the message. And that is most likely already being supplied by your public relations or communications arm.
I wrote once in my now-dysfunc blog that through social media, there are always messages contained within social media’s interaction. I was met with objections, ranging from a social media “guru” (associated with Social Media Breakfast Singapore) to even PR professionals that social media is all about establishing relationships without all the marketing messages. Today, I hold firm my beliefs… there IS a message in every bit of communication we direct at consumers.
I think we are a little naive to think that companies are inviting social networks and bloggers to publicity events without a good reason. The quality of coverage is another issue, so I shall not go into it at this point. Like I said previously, there are no free meals in this world. Companies that deny this, I say it’s an outright lie. Not wanting to sidetrack from the topic, every exchange of opinions and complaints line up the infrastructure of the message. Is this a company that listens to customers? Is this a company that is willing to invest time to share knowledge with customers? Is this company giving enough to empower customers to provide assistance for one another? Is the product designer digesting the feedbacks when rolling out a new gadget for customers?
Everything, is telling the customer something.
It also led me to self-question if there is even “social media marketing”. It is a direct contradiction to the objections I received earlier this year, that social media is all about relationships. My take is, there isn’t really a process or technique called “social media marketing”. I felt more compelled to believe that social media changes the way marketers work with consumers (at best), in comparison to pushy product campaigns that have been done before the Dot Com Bubble Burst.
How did I end up with that? With the empowering of customers opinions, they often become the marketing mouths of various products. These unofficial product endorsements in social media engage the prospects through the sharing of experiences. Looking at it from another angle, you can almost say the workload of marketers are being shared by the average public.
At this point, you would have realized everyone in this viral cycle cannot be dismissed and should not be. While most social media efforts are typically driven by IT services now, it will require them to dabble with marketing knowledge in order to produce a system that will drive marketing and PR efforts. It isn’t just about marketers and PR adapting to the Web 2.0 environment. And the greatest mistake of all, IT developers’ attempts to convert marketers and PR into geeks. The website can’t talk (literally), it takes the participants behind the consoles to whip up an active conversation.
Instead of watching social media heavily centered around PR, I am more aligned to the school of thoughts that it will infiltrate other corporate functions in years to come. The IT department designs and builds it, PR starts the ball rolling, marketers adopt it to engage, customer service use it to support and finally, customers use it to respond or share.
It takes two hands to clap, and a team to click.
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4 Responses to “Social media is for everyone”
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EDISON ROWAN LEE
Ed savors the building of conversations and always prospecting the inception of values beyond the usual puffery.
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Bravo, sir. I’m impressed with the point-counterpoints and flattered my post would inspire such a thoughtful article. Certainly, I agree that un-siloed, cross-discipline involvement and execution of social media outreach and programs is best. Marketing, customers service, product development and the like all have roles to play. I just feel strongly that social media facilitation, training and strategy should rest with the professional communicators (not salesmen as marketing is more apt to be) in the organization.
Well stated points. I appreciate the additional conversation here and look forward to seeing those who respond.
[Reply]
Hi Jason, thank you very much for penning the post that you had. Certainly very entertaining and educational to read.
I’m all up in hands with using PR to facilitate training of marketers and customer service reps as you suggested there. When that happens, I think it will be one of the most viable partnership in social media.
[Reply]
Hi Ed
Nicely written and many points I think couldn’t be truer.
What is “marketing” really? It’s not a tightly defined role inside an organisation called “sales” or one called “PR”. It’s basically a sum total of all the interfaces that a company has with world outside it. In one way or another that probably includes everyone in an organisation, and probably the decisions of everyone in the organisation will impact it (some in big ways, some in small ways). It’s not just about a company’s dealings with customers, but about potential customers, customers of competing products, vendors, peers, media (of all sorts), people who casually brush up against your company for some reason. It’s about your product, your pricing, your outlets, your advertising and your people… all of them.
As you said at the beginning, social media is a method of communication. All communication by a company is some form of marketing, whether it’s considered by by the company to fit the narrow confines of the “marketing role” or “PR role” or not. If you’re interfacing with the outside world, it’s marketing.
As our methods of communication become more numerous and more democratic, you’re right to say that success is going to lie with new skill sets for companies and for individuals within them.
Thought provoking indeed!
=) Marc
[Reply]
Hey Marc, always great to receive your comments.
As to marketing, there are too many misinterpretations. One thing I need to clear up is that, marketing is not sales and sales is also not marketing as well. However, sales is one of the eventual step in the entire marketing strategy or campaign, whichever you prefer to call it. It is normal to be confused between the two, in fact most companies are using the term “marketing” wrongly when in actual fact, they are seeking to employ sales professionals.
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