Websg - The Needs and Wants of Social Media

The Needs and Wants of Social Media
“based on personal experiences as Blogger and at 24seven”
For Websg.org Meetup

The things PR vs Marketing do in social media…

Social media to PR agencies…
Invitation to media events
Hold blogger events
Sending press release to bloggers
Wine and dine with bloggers
Loan units for trial and review
Hope for (expect) write-up on blog
Find opportunities to seed product for trial and review

Social media to advertising agencies…
Banner buys
Advertorial in blogs
Pay bloggers to write
Using bloggers and their presence to increase traffic to site
Wants to control what is written
Sees only the numbers
Wants to do what PR is doing but sucks at it.

Due to lack of internal communication,
Leads to duplicate of effort and clash of interests

The things they want…
Most of these examples comes from media / interactive agencies

They say…
“Everyone’s talking about it! I want to do it!”
Give me bloggers!
I want a Facebook group
Give me Twitter too!
What do you want them to do?
What do you want the bloggers to do?
Erm… …

They say…
“I want bloggers to write positive things about us.”
I’m paying to engage them. They cannot write negative things about my company or product.
No! I don’t want it to be labeled as <ADV>
I’m paying. So I’ve the right to.
Let’s do an advertorial campaign instead of an engagement.
But its only right to disclose. And we do not encourage control over what the bloggers write.
Erm… … (you’re paying us for our service, not paying the bloggers to write only the positives.)

They say…
“Give me the traffic. I want to hit 500k impressions.”
Tell me the impressions I’ll be getting for this investment… I want a lot of traffic…
I want to know how many impressions my Twitter is getting…
Give me the statistics report.
It’s not just about the number of impressions…
Don’t you want to know what others are saying about you instead?
We can’t track impressions on Twitter. It doesn’t make sense…

They say…
“Social media is free, you can do with this (tiny) budget.”

The things that take time to understand…

What is social media?
Media (Then)
Personal: Letter, Phone, Email, IM
Mainstream: Newspaper, TV, Radio, Outdoor
Media (Now)
Personal + Mainstream
(Converging? OR Converged?)

Hardware Vs Heartware

Long-tail of Social Media
Reach
Traditional Media
E.g. Content on Print
Online Media
E.g. Content on Blog
Time

Advantage of Continuity
Reach
Ideal growth
Time
Campaign A
Campaign B
Campaign C
Campaign D
Short term goal with
One-off campaign
Long term goal with
Multiple campaigns

Content Distribution
Content Package 1
(Press Release, Photos, Videos, Reviews, Product specifications etc)

Content Distribution
Content Package 1
Content Package 3
Content Package 2
Content Package 4
Channels to Broadcast

The things they should be focusing…

Strategies instead of tools…
People
Opportunity
Strategies
Technology
From Groundswell: Winning in a World Transformed by Social Technologies (2008)

Social media is about…
Commitment
Willingness to take risk
Being real (and transparent)
Getting involve
Communicating (in both ways)
Taking time (not a quick way out)
Opportunity for audience to see

Be daring and experiment!
but first… learn to listen…

Less control
Track and Evaluate
Experiment
and Review
Listen and Strategize
More control

Some things you can make it good in social media…
Make it a conversation
Offer value
Offer variety and options
Gives exclusivity to evangelists
Recognise and reward fans

One final quote…
“by yours truly…” *ahem*

“People say Content is King,
But (I think) Network is your Kingdom.”
Without the network (and people), your content remains in your castle.
We Rule Rocks!
(Something like that lah!)
Claudia Lim
24seven Communications
Find us at http://24seven.com.sg
Blog: claudia.sg Mail: claudia.lim@24seven.sg

Websg - The Needs and Wants of Social Media

by Claudia Lim

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