Is Social Media a mere extension of traditional media ?

Marketing practitioner Harish B, assimilates how social media is perceived by marketers in the Indian market and suggests possible engagement approaches that can be applied on-ground. Harish is currently an Assistant Professor Marketing Area at Rajagiri School of Management, Kochi and also authors a marketing blog at marketingpractice.blogspot.com.

Facebook, Orkut, Twitter, Myspace, Foursquare, ibibo,blogger, BigAdda,Farmville, Mafiawars, Linkedin ….. the list is growing day by day and marketers can hardly make any sense out of the growing popularity of social media. Social media has been the buzz word of this decade and marketers around the world are struggling hard to get on the bandwagon.

But do we understand social media ?

• Interaction between the constituent members becomes the media.
• Social media is not a corollary to the traditional media. Social media should is a platform for users rather than a medium for communication and promotion.
• Traditional matrices are irrelevant for social media. The focus should not be conversion into sales but level of engagement.
• Listen to the conversations that occur on social media. Encouraging target consumers to talk so that they can listen, is crucial.
• Social media plans have to be sustainable and long term. Marketers are joining the band wagon without a well conceived plan. Interesting conversation strategies should be devised.

Understanding Social Media

Media in pure terms is the medium channel through which information is transmitted from the sender to the receiver.  For marketers, Media refers to the tool through which they could promote their product/services. This is where the problem starts. Marketers tried to narrowly define social media as an extension of traditional media – a media through which they could promote their product. And it is this narrow definition that made it difficult for marketers to extract any tangible benefit from this new media.

Social media unlike traditional media like print, television and internet is not static. This is a dynamic platform which is more like a living organism. The life in this media is the interaction between the members participating in the conversation. Traditional media is largely a one-way communication. Whether it is print or multimedia, there is little scope of interaction between the participants. Marketers who are habituated in this one way communication have to learn new lessons on marketing through this new media.

Social Media is a platform rather than a medium

Social media should be treated as a platform rather than a media for communication and promotion. Marketers should understand that social media is a media for the users and not for the marketers. Here the rules are different. While in traditional media, the emphasis is on choosing the right media and the message but in the social media the emphasis is on initiating and sustaining the communication with the consumers. Here the message is constantly evolving and continuing.

When marketers begin to treat social media like a platform, the rules of engagement should also change. The traditional matrices used to evaluate traditional media are irrelevant for social media. Rather than the increase in sales, what counts more in the social media is the level of engagement that the brand can create.

Listen

Not every brand can create meaningful engagement with the social media. In such a case the best strategy for marketers is to listen to the conversation that is happening in these platforms. Marketers interested in making use of social media should then encourage their target consumers to talk so that they can listen.

Even to listen to the social media conversation needs new learning for the marketers. In social media, listening means active listening. The marketers should listen and then respond to the conversations. Passive listening is dangerous in social media. For example, when a marketer finds a complaint raised by a consumer in Twitter about the product/service , active listening means that he responds to the complaint and not just passively taking note of the conversations.

Plan

Many a times, marketers lured by the sheer size of the members participating in the social media make a plunge into the this media. Brands then set up a Facebook fan page, a Twitter account, a YouTube channel and then try to promote the products. At best the brand will be able to make some viral videos and after a while the engagement stops.  Many brands fail to tap into the online communities effectively because they fail to plan.

Marketers entering into active engagement with the consumers in the social media should have a plan. The plan should clearly provide the route map for engagement and also the key parameters that can be measured so that the marketers know whether the plan has succeeded or not. The critical factor that determines the success of any social media marketing plan is the sustainability of the conversation between the brand and the consumers. Brands must be able to sustain the communication in the social platform in the long-term in order to derive any meaningful benefits out of such an initiative.

Engage

Social media engagement can happen in many forms. The engagement can be between the brand and the media users/consumers. Here the brand takes the responsibility in sustaining the dialogue with the consumers. Typically the brand initiates the conversation, users responds to it, dialogue continues and then eventually it dies down. The brand again starts another dialogue. The brand should have a variety of interesting conversation strategies if it wants to succeed in this form of engagement.

Another form of engagement is where the conversation is between the users and the brand takes the backseat in the dialogue. Brands often act as a listener and interfere only if the conversation moves out of context. This is the most challenging form of social media engagement because the users should be motivated to engage in a conversation about the brand. In this sort of engagement, the brands should recruit users who can engage with other users and build a constant dialogue in the media. This is possible only when the brand has created a strong set of followers who can love and evangelize the brand in these platforms.

The critical decision for marketers is to choose whether they like to be an active listener or to engage in the social platform. The choice is not about making money from promoting brands through the social media.

Social Media marketing is for those brands that are passionate about consumer interaction and for those marketers who are willing to take the risk of a highly interactive platform. This media is not for those faint-hearted marketers who would like to use the traditional one-way communication style.

Harish can be reached at askmarketingpractice(at)gmail(dot)com

Note: Views of authors are personal, and do not represent views of IndiaSocial or its partners.