Monday Marketing Moxie – The Social Media-Ologies
March 22, 2010
“People don’t want to connect with brands. They want to connect with each other. Fascinating companies create more opportunities for people to connect with each other; through the brand.” — Sally Hogshead, Author of Fascinate
The Social Media-ologies
For most of us, when the subject of social media comes up, we quickly drift to the topic of the big ‘ology’, the ‘technology’ that powers social media. But does it really? I mean, I love technology as much as anyone, but is technology really what powers this global phenomenon?
If you’re hot to trot for social media, I’d like to momentarily divert your attention to the other ‘ologies’ that you may consider in your planning before you head down the technology path (I’m not just doing this for the sake of wordplay, a recent report by Gartner Research found that 70 percent of social media initiatives coordinated by corporate technology departments fail, so let’s not start with technology on this one…)
Psychology – Some of you may have had this course in college, but in social media we’re concerned with human mental functions such as perception, cognition, attention, emotion, motivation, personality, behavior and interpersonal relationships.
Sociology – According to Max Weber in his tome “The Nature of Social Action” from 1922, Sociology is the science focused on interpreting the meaning of social action to give a causal explanation of human actions and the effects which they produce.
Anthropology – In general, the study of humanity (mostly in the historical sense). Anthropology seeks to answer questions like “How do humans behave?” and “Why are there variations and differences among different groups of humans?” In social media, you need to understand these variations in your customers more than you will ever need to know the technical merits of the over 300 tools that you can use for Twitter!
Zoology – Why zoology? Well, for starters, one of my all-time favorite books, The Origins of Virtue is written by zoologist Matt Ridley. In TOOV, Ridley explores why cooperation and collaboration trump competition. These are key insights for those of you developing brand communities.
Ethnography – OK, it’s not an ‘ology’, but this study of the real, current actions of human beings is key to understanding the smart phone movement and the mobilization of everything. Audience insight does not lie in flat demographic data; you need to get toe-to-toe with them on the level of ‘what they do’.
Q&A | QUESTIONS & ACTIONS
What does your business and marketing planning focus on? Are you enamored by technology and tactics and missing the real human factors & motivators that account for why people buy your stuff in the first place? Why not dip into the literature and get to know more about your decision makers.
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“If your customers cannot differentiate you, then they will fall back upon the one point where they can always discover distinction – price!” — Scott McKain, author of Collapse of Distinction |
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Distinction is in the DetailsThe only perception that matters is the customers’.Price is the single worst point of differentiation for any organization in any industry. One of the great things about being a marketer is that I tend to walk around with a ‘marketer’s mindset’, looking at nearly everything through the eyes of marketing. Yes, I know, that’s limited, maybe shallow and not that exciting for many of you, but for me, it’s a blast. Last week held a special treat for me in that I made a first visit to a local restaurant that’s full of little points of distinction. In fact, I took several photos with the phone while we were there just to capture the little things that I thought were ‘distinct’. The owner clearly followed, whether by intent or by default, the laws of distinction. In his book, Collapse of Distinction, McKain tells the story of why Roger Ebert, the film critic, gives such high marks to foreign films. Oddly enough, it’s not that they’re ‘better’ along the lines of film fundamentals that we might all judge a film on, rather, they’re simply ‘distinct enough’ from the traditional films so as to seem superior, if only for a moment. We call that “The Ebert Effect:”
McKain’s four cornerstones of distinction are simply:
What does this cost? Better question…what’s it costing you by NOT being as ‘distinct as you can be? Come to think of it, I can’t tell you what our bill was (and I almost always remember) because I was so enamored with all of the distinctions that everything else faded away… Will we be back… You bet! |
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Q&A | QUESTIONS & ACTIONSYour mission, should you choose to accept it, is to create small, solid points of distinction that are recognizable and important from the customers’ perspective…because customers perceive that different is better. What are you doing today to be genuinely distinct in your business? |
