True whether you’re marketing a product, service or person – if the bulk of your marketing efforts lack a tangible benefit, then you might get some brand recognition, but its effectiveness will rarely take off; especially in the social networking realm.
For products, this concept is fundamental: what tangible benefit will the person using it obtain? For services, how will it make his/her life easier or better? We write up the details and catchy tag lines and give the sales pitch. What about the marketing itself? What about when we’re dealing with social networking? Can we take the type of benefit assessment we make for the actual product and services, and migrate that into the actual marketing plans and campaigns… can your marketing be an extension of the product? Can your marketing actually become a product (or rather a service)? … Paris Hilton and Kim Kardashian did it, why not a widget?
We most clearly see marketing as a product extension in PR, sponsorships, and community projects: by doing good for the community, we can build the brand and customer loyalty. That part is easy.
What about marketing people, politicians, or if your product doesn’t immediately appear to have a tangible impact? Honestly, for the latter I’d say create one that does. For people, you’re judged by your actions, so put effort into small, immediate, tangible projects that can improve peoples’ lives, even if by the smallest amount on a daily basis. For example, my everyday life would be improved much more by filling a few potholes on 13th street, than with a better health care bill. Stop talk. Start do.
This problem extends a little further into the way in which people communicate post facebook. Our online social connections (which now FAR outnumber, and for many, out weigh their personal and real connections), completely lack personal and tangible benefits other than a boost to the ego. We have numbers (we count friends and fans), we have activity, likes, and posts – other than keeping track, where’s the actual connection? Where’s the long term connection and loyalty?
The more social networking grows, the less the value of a Like becomes. Gauging your success based on just fans and followers is becoming increasingly meaningless. Many marketers manage to create interactions online that keep people involved and help the brand, but one cannot deny that many tend to put too much value into these superficial “customers”. Most could care less or will be the first to jump ship when a better offer comes along.
As such, however, when people are given something that DOES have an immediate, tangible impact on their lives – it’s novel and interesting, and in a way brings people back for a short period of time to real instead of virtual interactions and benefits. It’s not just about interacting, it’s about finding the idea that can make your social network marketing interactions TANGIBLE.
Maybe this means that to convert fans and followers into loyal and believing customers and constituents, we need to start spending more on events, sponsorships, and community outreach on a micro-targeted level, and less on actually advertising to build awareness… if you want to connect and build loyalty, rather than just brag about having a lot Likes, anyway.
Mr. Mayor, please fix those potholes. I’ll adopt one if I have to.
