SCORE Minnesota

Social Media: Marketing’s New Wild West!

June 1, 2010

Unless you live under a rock, in a cave, and in the middle of nowhere, you have probably been hearing a lot about social media. Why is everyone talking about it? Well, as of this moment more people are on Facebook than the population of the United States (around 500 million people). In fact, if Facebook were a country it would be the third largest in the world. As of this moment, 65 million professionals are on LinkedIn and well over 75 million users are on Twitter.

As you might expect, these numbers represent huge implications for marketing – both good and bad. Actually, the incredible phenomenon of social media marketing bears some similarities to the American Wild West.

In the mid 1800s, American settlers began migrating toward the Pacific Northwest in search of economic prosperity and a better quality of life. Many went west in search of gold that had been found in California. Others were enticed west by the free land that the government was giving away to promote development.

Although, the American West “promise land” held an irresistible charm for the dreamers and schemers it quickly became known as the “Wild West” due to its distance from US government control in the East. For many pioneers, the perils of the west, not the least of which was the absence of familiar rules, made it a whole lot wilder than they had ever imagined.

Similarly, those who want to take advantage of the promise land of social media must prepare themselves for unfamiliar territory and new rules. And, while they won’t have to pack up all of their belongings, leave everything they know, and risk life and limb, they must adapt to the new rules of this wild west of the internet.

Not too many years ago, a company had almost complete control over what current and prospective customers thought about their brand and its products/services. Even if an unhappy customer shared their opinions about the company or its products/services with the people they knew, it had very little negative impact on the company’s reputation or brand. Today, when it comes to what customers think about a company’s brand or products/services, social media is a game changer.

Now, as a result of social media, a customer has the opportunity to directly and/or indirectly share their negative opinions about a company, its employees and/or its products or services with millions of people before you even realize they are unhappy. That’s the bad news.

The good news is that even a small business can find out about how customers feel about their company and its products/services almost immediately. social media provides an opportunity for a business to address and resolve customer issues almost immediately before the customer has a chance to tell too many people. Even better, social media provides an opportunity for a business to solve customer issues publicly, which helps build increased loyalty to their brand or products/services.

One of the best ways I know of to share important information with a large number of people is the social media tool, “YouTube”. The short video below will help you see why social media is the wild west of online marketing today.

Pretty amazing, isn’t it? Approximately one and a half million people have viewed this video. And the facts represented in the video are pretty conservative considering the video is almost a year old.

In a recent training session for SCORE counselors, Tom Pick (named one of five B2B Marketers to watch by the American Marketing Association) of KC Associates and a blogger at Webbiquity, explained the circular evolution of marketing since the cave man. The first marketing tool started with the cave man through word-of-mouth. From there, it evolved through many phases, including mass marketing, and now, with social media, it has returned to word-of-mouth. However, the tools have advanced to where a message can reach millions of people in just a few hours.

Tom explained that today, it is much more difficult to buy attention for your business – you have to earn it. Consumers have taken charge of the marketing messages sent by companies. They simply block them out traditional advertising with iPods, TiVo, Pop-Up Blockers and Do-Not-Call Lists.

As a result of the internet and the green movement, the Yellow Pages, which were once an absolute marketing necessity, will soon be obsolete. Many of the old school marketing methods, which I was taught in college and used successfully for decades, have lost their luster and effectiveness. The importance of marketing strategies hasn’t changed, but the methods and tools have changed.

So, it isn’t hard to understand why small businesses are migrating toward social media as part of their marketing strategies. This has created a demand for companies and individuals that really understand these social communities and tools. Due to the fact that many small businesses are just too busy to learn about all this on their own, it seems everybody and their uncle are hanging out a “social media expert” shingle.

However, just because these so-called experts know how to create an account on social networks like Facebook, LinkedIn and Twitter, does not mean they know how to incorporate social media into a sound marketing strategy. Just because someone owns and knows how to use a saw, hammer and nails, doesn’t make them a carpenter.

While getting involved in social media networks and using social media tools is fairly simple, if you are not doing it as part of a sound marketing strategy, it can end up doing more damage than good. It is critical to understand the “rules”, culture and etiquette of social networks. For example, if you start bombarding LinkedIn groups with ads about your business, tweeting ads to Twitter users or filling your Facebook wall with advertising, you will soon be perceived as a “spammer” and shunned by the very audience you wish to attract.

Sometimes when I counsel small business owners and the conversation turns to social media, I am told, “We have tried social media and it doesn’t work.” With all of the empirical evidence that social media DOES work, how can it NOT work for these businesses? Without exception, upon further questioning I learn that they really did not have a sound marketing strategy. In some cases I have been told that they attended a seminar and learned how to use these tools. But again, learning how to use the tools, although necessary, does not an “effective marketing strategy” make.

For well over a year now, I have been actively studying the use of social media and blogging about it at America’s Best Business Practices. And, even though I have learned a lot and feel comfortable about they way I am using social media, I am certainly no expert. In fact, I am learning new things every day. As long as my social media efforts produce the results I want, then that is good enough for me.

As social media evolves, however, new tools are continually being developed. So, how can a busy small business owner learn about these new tools? If small business owners get involved in social media networks, the news about new tools will spread fast.

At the risk of being trampled by the throngs of pioneers rushing towards the new frontier of social media, I must issue a warning. A sound marketing strategy requires much more than just social media. In fact, social networks like LinkedIn, Facebook, and Twitter are just a part of social media and social media is just part of online marketing (often called “Web 2.0 Marketing”). As a result of our mission to provide advice on leading edge business and marketing practices, you are going to see many more articles in the coming weeks about social media, social networks, and online marketing from SCORE. We will notify you each time we update this blog with a new article if you click here and share your email with us – we promise to only use it for this single purpose and you can unsubscribe any time you desire.

In fact, I have good news for those of you who want to know more about how you can incorporate social media into your marketing strategy.  As a result of my involvement in online marketing and social media, SCORE asked me to create a seminar that would focus more on aspects that are typically glossed over or omitted in so many other seminars on this topic. So, I set out to find top online marketing consultants in our state who also possess a high degree of expertise in social media. I am pleased to announce that I succeeded in assembling an excellent team of professionals who will share their considerable knowledge and experience in our “social media & Internet Marketing Boot Camp” on June 24. If you would like more details on this seminar and/or our team of professionals, simply visit our registration page by clicking here.

If you are a marketing professional with proficiency in the use of online marketing and social media, I would like to encourage you to consider volunteering for SCORE. We are a non-profit organization that helps millions of new or existing small businesses succeed each year by sharing our knowledge and experience. Click here or the link on the right to the office nearest you to learn more.

Mike Clough, St. Paul SCORE
View more posts by Mike Clough

Filed under: Marketing,Online Marketing,Social Media

Tags: internet marketing, Online Marketing, small business, social communities, social media, social media networks