the 6 c's of social media marketing...

This is something I wrote as the first in a series of articles for our company blog / email

The C’s of social media…

Social media is hot. Everyone wants their campaigns to be social – their advertising to be viral - but what do we actually mean by social media?

Social marketing is a phenomena quite unlike any other that the web has seen. Its effects will be felt throughout our society for years to come. We as a species are rediscovering our connectedness and some would argue our humanity. The late, great Douglas Adams put it very well…

“We are natural villagers. For most of mankind's history we have lived in very small communities in which we knew everybody and everybody knew us. But gradually there grew to be far too many of us, and our communities became too large and disparate for us to be able to feel a part of them, and our technologies were unequal to the task of drawing us together. But that is changing.”

For the full text click here

This epoch busting change will affect everyone. The old media (record labels, film studios and newspapers) are already feeling its full force. Many household name brands – EMI, the New York Times, ITV and The Daily Telegraph are fighting for their very survival. Some will not make it into the second decade of this century. These businesses have felt the effect first because of the ease with which their products can be shared. But make no mistake. All businesses in this next phase of the web’s evolution will need to meet similar challenges. It is by no means too late, but it is certainly time to give social marketing some serious time and thought. Take a very simple for instance.....

Right now, it is possible, by using a technology called “facebook connect ” to see in real time, which of your friends (or your friends’ friends) have bought a particular product, and what they thought about it. Yes the technology is in its infancy, no one is using it very well – but its coming - and the effect of this single application alone will be extraordinary - think how powerful the recommendation engine is on Amazon – now image the person writing the recommendation on every ecommerce site you visit is someone you know and trust.

The age of push marketing – where we tell “consumers” what to think about our brands is coming to an end. Have a read of this excellent blog called post advertising to find out more http://www.postadvertising.com/

So it’s a “big” topic – both in terms of scope and impact What I’m going to do over the next couple of month is to introduce you to a few of the pillars of social marketing – the 6 C’s (in a Dodgeball style…). Over the coming weeks we’ll take a look at them, see how they work in practice and what they mean for brands, they are, in order of importance:

- Communities
- Conversations
- Control
- Content
- Continuity
- Context

For anyone wanting to read more widely pick up copies of - Net Gain, Small is the new big or the Cluetrain manifesto - all essential reading for marketers of all ages and creeds.

twitter....we reap what we sow

Twitter makes perfect sense when viewed against a backdrop of a society that elevates an ignorant racist to the role of People's Princess #2 (aka Jade Goody)

Instead of leading lives of breathtaking new experience, friendship and fun - discovering all that is wonderful and interesting about themselves and the world - a generation gazes up its own twittering backside as it becomes increasingly detached from the natural world and "reality".

Billions of sad, lonely voices shouting into the darkness of cyberspace desperately hoping some strangers will emerge from the digital shadows to engage with them and validate what is left of their lives.

90% of what we think of as "social media" will be deemed an irrelevant fad in 5 years time. Douglas put it best....here

what we mean by a global village

On from yesterdays post...

One of the most thought provoking pieces of writing on the web is by the late, great Douglas Adams. Read the whole piece here

The 2nd to last paragraph I love..

"We are natural villagers. For most of mankind's history we have lived in very small communities in which we knew everybody and everybody knew us. But gradually there grew to be far too many of us, and our communities became too large and disparate for us to be able to feel a part of them, and our technologies were unequal to the task of drawing us together. But that is changing."

More quickly than anyone really imagined, humankind is rediscovering, via technology, the ability to reconnect with itself. It is this phenomenon that is at the heart of the connected world.

To put the concept in context.....Within your village 250 years ago you would have known the business of most people. You'd have known who was sleeping with who, who brewed the best beer, which baker added sawdust to their bread and who slacked off at harvest time.

What digital technology has done is recreate this world, or at least, recreate the mechanics of it. To amplify human bonds, to make us feel, at least partially, more connected to everyone else, the world around us and ourselves.

For 250 years, as we've burned hydrocarbons and industrialized, the importance of these connections was downplayed, even considered "dated". Instead we learned to rely on 3rd parties - to trust businesses we had no personal connection with, to informed us as to the best products and services. We no longer knew who brewed the best beer. Advertising was born. We got to the stage where our sense of self became so caught up in these messages, many of us lost our identities. We became, in Marxist language, "alienated".

As people thinking about how to engage other people in the digital world, this concept, that we are "natural villagers" should be at the heart of our thinking. Only by recreating and harnessing the inbuilt desire to connect can we be effective - and more importantly, can be build brands who can usefully serve us again.