Authentic Messaging in Social Media Marketing

Posted on May 14, 2013 by bharig

While it’s been an uphill battle to get brands to adopt social media, marketing departments were early adopters and believers in the platform. As people begin to grow more comfortable, however, with using social media in their everyday lives, they have also gotten more wary of brand efforts on “personal” platforms like Facebook, Twitter, etc. The industry has conflicting thoughts on how welcome brand engagement is for consumers, with one recent report from Brian Solis claiming 51% of social users wanting to discuss brands without them listening, 43% going so far as to think brand listening is a privacy intrusion. So just when brands get buy-in from their execs, now it looks like they are unwelcome attendees of the party.

Ugh.

Rather than seeing this as an impediment for developing a quality program, the industry is beginning to understand the shotgun approach of getting involved in a wide assortment of discussions may not be a sustainable solution. Advances in analytics and increasingly impressive efforts by national brands on select platforms indicates that a message can be delivered when it’s focused, clear and treats the consumer like they’re not dumb. Where before marketers had to make the best use of limited resources and spread a msg to as many people as possible as simply as possible, there’s now a challenge to impress or risk being shut out for good.

Polishing the sales pitch and maximizing every engagement is now a clear priority and component of social campaigns for brands trying to not only be an effective provider to potential consumers, but also be digital thought leaders.

This framing brings us to the #smchat’s discussion points:

Q1: Is there still potential for success in mass-distributed/non-personalized #marketing via #social? How?
Q2: What’s one brand that’s changed how they approach #social #marketing for the better?
Q3: How best can a brand establish authenticity in their #marketing efforts in #social?
Q4: What are some ways a brand’s #social #marketing dept can engage customers proactively w/out being intrusive?
Q5: Is a #social #custserv dept required for a brand to engage in #social #marketing?

We look forward to you joining in the #smchat discussion Wednesday, May 14th at 1 PM EST!