Not all conversations are markets
- Josh Mehlman, Stuart Ridley
- 3 November 2009
For many business owners, social media are what staff waste too much time on. For others, they're an opportunity to spruik their products and services to an engaged audience. However, both these attitudes can get you into trouble - with staff, customers and the general public - if you break the laws of the online community. The problem is, nobody knows exactly what those laws are.
First of all, there's a debate around which people within a company - or outside it - should be responsible for marketing to social networks: a PR firm, the marketing department, the IT department, executives, the HR department, ad agencies or even the receptionist who has a lot of friends on Facebook.
Futurist and media technology strategist Mark Pesce believes it's everyone's job.
"The strength of social media is that they empower individuals throughout an organisation to speak on behalf of that organisation," he says. "Is this potentially confusing and chaotic? Yes. Get used to it. This is the way things work now."
Ray Welling, co-founder of digital content agency Zazoo
, thinks social media
marketing is like any other marketing: best left to the marketing department.
"Social media marketing is about getting close to your customer, listening to what he or she has to say and responding appropriately," he says. "Marketing needs to manage that interaction, but they also need to feed that information back to all those other departments and encourage them to participate."
However, marketing people need to understand how social media differ from traditional forms of communication, according to John Horniblow, director of digital marketing and social media at LABEL Communications in Geneva, Switzerland.
"Marketers must understand ... the notion of value exchange or social currency," he says. "A broadcast message will soon create deaf ears. Marketers must adopt a long-term approach to relationships, not always the quick sell.
"The receptionist who has a lot of friends on Facebook might be able to teach you a lot about maintaining conversation. If he or she is also a good party organiser, watch and learn."
Some companies put all their social media responsibilities in the hands of one employee, commonly known as ‘twit-face' (Twitter and Facebook), according to Stephen Murphy, head of search at payperclick.net.au. "Too often we've seen someone start out as the twit-face but have
no longevity or strategic content plan," he says.
If you engage an external agency to act on your behalf, this needs to be made clear to the audience, according to Jonathan Crossfield, communications director at Netregistry.
"Hugh Jackman had a particularly embarrassing social media failure when his PR company misinterpreted his instructions and Tweeted about the ‘Sydney Opera Center'," he says. "Mainstream media ridicule followed, causing a PR #fail, as they would say on Twitter. Jackman's audience is now less likely to believe the messages are actually from him."
Stephen Collins, founder of social media consultancy acidlabs, discourages businesses from thinking of social media as a marketing platform.
"Social media marketing is fraught with risk," he says. "Go deep and wide with your social media marketing: get input from as many sources as possible and engage as many people as you can. But take care. One whiff of artificiality and you're screwed."
Can you control social media?
Many business owners, deeply suspicious of social media, try to control what their staff say, or block access entirely during work hours.
"One of the biggest myths I hear about social media is that it has taken control away from the businesses and given it to customers - complete rot," says Crossfield. "Social media have merely empowered everyone with the same set of tools and ability to spread a message.
"The only way a business loses control in this space is by giving it away by blocking its own access."
Control is important, but it means setting realistic rules, says Tim Burrowes, publisher of media and marketing website mUmBRELLA.
"For example, you could tell staff when they comment on industry issues [to] identify themselves clearly, and set standards for courteous conduct when they are speaking for the company or [are] identifiable as associated with the brand," he says. "Employers shouldn't block access to social networks. If you can't trust your staff to do their work then deal with that issue - don't blame Facebook."
David Weinberger, a senior researcher at Harvard University's Berkman Center for Internet & Society and a co-author of The Cluetrain Manifesto, believes there's no difference between discussions in social media and real-life conversations at the pub.
"Employees obviously shouldn't give away company secrets or slander their co-workers, online or offline, but they generally don't need a lot of control," he says. "Accessing social networks during work hours is the same as ... making personal calls or writing personal emails, isn't it?"
Adam Ferrier, a consumer psychologist and founding partner of Naked Communications thinks managers should try to control how people behave in social media only if it directly impacts the company.
"Managers have a responsibility to control how their company is represented to the world," he says.
"It's like being part of a family; what you do or say reflects on your family, whether you intend it to or not," says Welling. "But once that's clear, you need to let [staff] live with the consequences of their actions."
Pesce thinks it's vital to clearly differentiate between personal and business use of social media. "If these boundaries aren't maintained, horrible accidents are liable to occur," he says.
He believes technology has made it impossible to control access to social networking during office hours. "If it doesn't happen via the office computer, it'll be happening via the mobile, so there's no effective way to police this," he says. "The best policy is to trust your staff."
Managers must lead by example, says Stefan Sojka, creative director of Cyrius Media Group.
"What managers can do is encourage good communication skills and positive attitudes," he says. "What you give is what you get. The more enlightened and constructive your social media contributions, the better off you and your business will be."
Faking it
At Nett we often say that building a following and credibility in social media takes time and hard work. You also need to be genuine, because audiences can spot a fake. However, there are a number of techniques one can use to push things along a little.
"Everyone does them, it's just that no one will admit it," says one new-media entrepreneur, who did not want to be identified.
‘Trusted avatars'
One example was brought to a head recently when mUmBRELLA reported that Geoff Emerson, founder of marketing agency The Prosperity Principal, was looking to hire a social search consultant who would "take on a supplied persona and join in on the conversation" in social media to promote clients' products. This concept of a ‘trusted avatar' attracted a storm of controversy. (Emerson did not respond to our questions in time for our print deadline.)
Most of the experts we interviewed were dead against the idea.
"These practices make our relationships less trustworthy," says Weinberger. "Eroding trust for personal gain is, in a word, evil. Oh, it's not evil on the order of genocide or child abuse, but it turns our willingness to embrace others against us."
"Under no circumstances," says Pesce. "This is basically a fraudulent activity."
Social media advisor Ian Lyons believes it is a flawed technique.
"This is a desperate, short-term tactic used to artificially boost a campaign that is underperforming," he says. "The better approach is to establish an outreach program with real trusted people within a community and invite them to co-create a service, product or campaign."
Burrowes is more concerned about the backlash that will follow if, or when, you are caught out.
"The risk far outweighs the benefit," he says. "It's verging on spam, which annoys bloggers and makes them go digging. If they can then expose the people behind it, they will."
Seeding conversations
Another common, and commonly frowned-upon, technique is ‘seeding' a conversation by posting a question on an online forum or blog and then answering it - in a way that promotes your product or service - using another identity or ‘sock puppet'.
Lyons believes this is acceptable, as long as you disclose who you are and respect the established norms of the community you are entering.
"Having a fake conversation with yourself is disingenuous and a little sad and, more likely than not, it will come across that way," he says. "It's not that hard to listen into a community and then develop an authentic and straightforward approach."
"By all means enter existing conversations and answer questions, but be transparent," says Welling. "And if you want someone to reinforce your position, find a real friend or colleague to support you, don't make them up. Keep the sock puppets for neighbourhood puppet shows."
"Kevin Rudd does this very well - he loves posing questions and answering them himself," says Sojka. "But there would only be a few situations where it wouldn't appear contrived. Better to have real people ask real questions and provide genuine answers."
Buying friends
Brisbane-based uSocial.net is one of only a few companies in the world that will
admit to selling lists of followers on social networking sites such as Facebook and Twitter, which companies can then use to market to. (Founder Leon Hill also did not respond to our questions in time for deadline.)
"Didn't we stop doing this in primary school?" says Lyons. "Anyone resorting to this should simply be fired - the goal of business is to sell more stuff to more people, more often and for more margin (thanks Mark Neely). I fail to see how buying a list of uninterested, disengaged ‘friends' works towards that goal."
Nett had to convince Pesce that people actually did this before he would respond.
"Money can't buy you love," he says. "It can't buy you friends, either. Simple as that. Connections predicated on cash are not the same as those drawn from the bonds of affinity. What you've got there is not a social network. It's something else. That something else might still be useful - time will tell. But you're not being sold a social network."
"I'm not sure that's acceptable or unacceptable, but it's certainly a waste of money," says Burrowes.
However, some of the experts we spoke to gave their reserved support.
"Ultimately, if it's good for the brand and generates sales then I don't have an issue with it," says Ferrier. "That said, I can't see a situation where buying mates would feel like the right thing to do."
Sojka says his company has tried it in the past for clients, with mixed results.
"If the 'friends' are sourced with a high likelihood of actually being interested in your products or services, it can work well," he says. "Chances are, however, that most of these kinds of 'friends' are scammers and spammers anyway, looking for overnight internet stardom by collecting thousands of random followers. You might just end up wasting a lot of time trawling through all their spammy posts when you could be concentrating on your own valuable communiqués to a genuine audience."
Butting in?
Marketing to social media often involves inserting yourself into a conversation. But isn't that rude?
"The key to social media is to treat it like a cocktail party," says Crossfield. "You wouldn't go to a party and leaflet everyone in the room. You wouldn't turn every conversation into a sales pitch. But you may discuss your products and declare who you are if someone were to express an interest or indicate - without prompting - that they were in the market."
“Eroding trust for personal gain is, in a word, evil – not evil on the order of genocide or child abuse, but it turns our willingness to embrace others against us”
Some of the experts we spoke to said there was never an excuse to butt in on a discussion.
"Shouldn't I present every opportunity for people to engage me in conversation?" asks Pesce. "Shouldn't that be enough?"
"It's simply icky," says Collins. "Would you be happy if someone interrupted you in the pub and tried to sell you something under the guise of making conversation? I didn't think so."
"If you're any good, then you shouldn't be introducing yourself into the conversation at this stage ... you should already be joining in the conversations and adding value," says Burrowes. "Then when you do introduce your product you can do it naturally, and with people already knowing your affiliations. It's about earning your right to be in that conversation."
"Marketers should be very nervous about entering conversations because they will have such a temptation to market their products," says Weinberger. "Doc Searls said, ‘Markets are conversations'. That doesn't mean that conversations are markets."
Lyons believes social media should be more about listening to customers than speaking at them.
"The approach has to move from ‘how can I sell?' to ‘how can I help?'," he says. "It's centred on the needs of the customer and begins with listening. Next step is empathy; by understanding what someone needs and genuinely trying to help, you start to earn trust - particularly if you're not trying to sell your stuff."
Other experts believe it is possible to enter conversations as long as you follow certain rules.
"Give more than you take," says Ferrier. "If you're entertaining, generous and charming, people may appreciate your presence. And the more intimate the relationship, the less likely your presence is welcome. Assess the quality of the relationship others are having before entering the conversation."
"The most effective way to do this is to join a conversation that you are genuinely interested in and contribute as a passionate participant," says Welling. "Meanwhile, make it clear through your handle or your description what your association is (there's that word transparency again). Then, be genuinely helpful as you participate in ongoing conversations.
"If people get to know you as a person and trust you, they will be more receptive to your marketing message when you introduce it later. It's all about the genuine relationship." #
###
To control or not to control: approaches to social media
Many Australian companies are concerned about how their employees' use of social media affects their reputation.
The Australian Financial Review recently published a set of guidelines severely limiting what its journalists were allowed to say in blogs, Facebook and Twitter, even outside work hours, to prevent any suggestion of political bias. And a sub-editor at Brisbane newspaper the Courier Mail was recently sacked after making derogatory comments on a personal blog about an author whose work he was editing. In his defence, the sub said it was a private blog mainly for the entertainment of his friends.
By contrast, Aaron Magness, founder of United States-based online retailer Zappos.com told Nett at the Online Retailer Conference in August that he allows his staff free rein to say what they like on social networks, even if they're talking about how hung-over they are from partying the night before.
