Social media marketing – It’s all about ME, ME, ME!
An open letter to brands of the world attempting social media.
Dear Brand Manager @ Blue Chip Company,
Thank you for trying to involve me in your advertising; I understand that this is your first foray into social media and you are very excited about engaging with the general public. And yes, I know that you are really keen that the world and his wife talk about your products online. However, I fear that you are missing the point of social media.
There is a real ‘jumping on the bandwagon’ feel about some recent TV ads, last night for instance, I was party to a Rowse honey advert. They wanted me to ‘like’ their Facebook page and then watch all their adverts and vote for the one I liked best. How do you think this made me feel, Brand Manager? I mean, whilst it was lovely that they’d got their staff to make the ads for them, my overwhelming thought was ‘WHY?’ Seriously, why would I want to spend my Facebook playtime watching all six of your adverts? And then spend further time voting on them!?! Beats me.
You are forgetting, Brand Manager, that the human race – and I – are inherently lazy. The incentive has to be so mind-bogglingly-brilliant that it makes me stop in my tracks and enter whatever you’re throwing my way. Winning a goodie bag just doesn’t cut it, no matter how many celebrities you get to endorse it.
I did wonder if I might be alone in this; perhaps I am the only one that is massively lazy? Having checked out some recent campaigns, I don’t seem to be the only one. The problem with these types of social media competitions, Brand Manager, is that the results are open for the whole world to see. For example, the Kingsmill Confessions TV advert that asked the public to share their sandwich-sneaking confessions on a YouTube channel… had a whopping 9 entries. (I mean, it couldn’t even manage a rounded number!) It doesn’t seem to be the only one either – although Boots No7’s best Wink competition has done slightly better with 194 ‘winking’ entries, it’s still not a staggering result from a fan base of 46k.
I‘m sure you probably hired a ‘social media expert’ (there are so many of them) and paid a fortune for the idea, but, dear Brand Manager, please consider the free tool; common sense. Would you as a consumer jump through these hoops? Would you go out of your way to vote for the next honey advert? Would you really talk about your bread confessions? (who has such a thing?!) And, ultimately, please remember how lazy I am.
Therefore, I am not planning to go to your website and/or Facebook page to upload my ‘swish’ (Pantene) nor do I want to show you my ‘wink’ (Boots No 7) and I’ll certainly not be telling you what I do with my white bread (Kingsmill), unless of course you offer me a devastatingly sweet deal!
Love,
Claire
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Social platforms are about brand interaction preferably with few or as little barriers (the laziness syndrome) to entry, of which I have to say sadly most ‘upload video’ competitions still don’t capture consumer interest. As archaic as it sounds ‘We’re are only human’ and fundamentally built on emotions. If a social concept touches our emotions then we’re involved; so when you say ‘mind-bogglingly-brilliant’ I assume you mean hits an uncontrollable emotional release which means you will interact up to a level whether it be: watch, take part, ‘become’ and hopefully share. Brands want to find ‘their tribes’ – there’s some S. Godin bullsh*t right there – but in essence more true than we care to believe; so that they can communicate and lead the group behaviour to increase sales, increase their following, get people to share….sadly the marketing self proclaimed genii forget some basic human principles….nice article though thnx
Amusingly written post! I agree that all too often the strategies are all thought about from the ‘want the brand wants to get out of it’ angle, and that’s it! The real challenge is to put the time in to be a REAL person with something new and exciting to bring to the Facebook playtime (liked the way you put that!) and not to do it in such a push marketing manner.
Do you think that there are any brands who have actually got it right? I’d be interested to hear your view on that
I found your post v funny anyway- thanks for sharing!
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this is very true. useful, thanks