Internet Marketing - Matt Bailey [223]
A particular message, with specific intent and careful messaging, can be properly interpreted or extremely misinterpreted simply based on the medium through which it is transmitted. In terms of social media, a message that works well in one medium may not be translating well or be received well in another medium.
Target a Single Medium
Once you have your message, the next step is to determine the medium that best fits your message and your resources. The vast majority of companies that have become famous for their social-media savvy focused on a primary medium when getting started, rather than all available mediums. By focusing on a single medium that best communicates your message and then using the rest of the social-media world to support that message and medium, you can contain your marketing to a focused, supported, and directed approach. The type of business you are determines the best medium for you.
The examples of those businesses that have created amazing results in social media are well known and recounted as hero stories in many marketing venues. These are the examples that marketers see and hear and then strive to repeat when they enter the world of social media. Keep in mind, though, that for each success story there are thousands of failed attempts that are not publicized or published as warnings. Only the lucky few who have figured out the magical social-media formula are the ones canonized for their originality.
Each social medium carries with it an intrinsic depth of interpretation. Audiences apply different filters and interpretations based on the type of media and the types of messages that are broadcast using that media. Simply put, what works on YouTube doesn’t always work on Twitter. What works on your blog may not work on Facebook. For your business, think of your message and your audience and the important aspects of how you can present your business and how your customers will be part of the community. Is your business best at presenting a visual or an auditory message? Does your business rely on an immediate news cycle and dispersing information to as many people as quickly as possible? Then Twitter would be an ideal choice, because blogging may be too slow.
Video-sharing sites such as YouTube tend to be a “see-to-believe” medium for businesses that have a very visual product. Product demonstrations, stunts, and comedy work very well in this medium. Videos that show processes, such as manufacturing, how-to, and other types of instructional and educational videos are also effective.
In terms of networking/microblogging–type social media, consider that on Facebook, the pace of communication is slower compared to Twitter, which is an immediate or real-time conversation. Users of Facebook spend long amounts of time updating their profiles and catching up on their friend’s news. According to Nielson, Facebook users are on Facebook more than 6 hours a month (Nielsenwire, http://blog.nielsen.com/nielsenwire/online_mobile/june-2010-top-online-sites-and-brands-in-the-u-s/). Conversations can take place over a number of days, similar to email. The sense of immediacy is significantly less than Twitter, because people communicate at their own pace in Facebook. Comparatively, many of the conversations on Twitter take place in minutes and can be very old news in a period of hours. If you aren’t watching when it happens, you might miss it, because Twitter is a “stream of consciousness” medium.
Social-news media relies on visitors to have accounts at the major link sources, but as Twitter and Facebook have grown, they have started to displace the “old guard” of social-news sites, such as Digg, StumbleUpon, and Reddit. There may not be as many visitors with those accounts, depending upon your industry. So, knowing the typical “hangouts” for your visitors is critical in promoting your