Hannah Watterson, Principal, Watterson Marketing Communications
If I had a dollar for every time someone threw in the words “social media” to try and create a magical aura around their pitch or program, without having any idea of how to back it up, I’d be banking online daily.
Recently, I sat in on a webinar on social media aimed at educating the audience on how to apply best practice. Apparently, if you are planning a social media project you should set up your metrics before beginning, know what social media to use to reach your audience, know what content is relevant to that audience, and get the buy-in of your organisation to make sure the program is fully supported.
I’m sorry, but that is the basis on which any communications program should be established. Social media can be a great tool, but the same rules apply. For social media to be useful it must be additive, a subset of your communications program, not the lunatic in the wheelhouse calling the shots.
Last month, Qantas’ ill-timed luxury Twitter query resulted in a deluge of withering insults from a public who took the opportunity to vent its collective frustration. This is only the latest in a history of social media mis-steps by companies and individuals. Being alive at the birth of social media is like being present at the invention of dynamite. Everyone knows that something very powerful is on hand, but first they have to learn that it can be hazardous to your health unless used properly.
After the dust settles, everyone remembers that many of the “old” rules still apply.
At the moment, social media is a bit like the early internet-based companies. They were measured by many people as to how many sales they made – or predicted they’d make – and how many new terms they could throw into a presentation. They weren’t measured on profitability or whether they had a sustainable business model. As we know, many of those companies failed. The next generation learnt from these failures, and merged traditional business measures with new opportunities provided by the latest technologies. They recognised that while the ground might have shifted beneath all of our feet, the ground was still there and so was the law of gravity.
Whenever powerful technology arises, enthusiasm is natural. Everyone tries to wrestle with the technology, jargon is invented by the truckload, and far-flung predictions made. Sometimes, the early enthusiasts are right: business and life will be re-organised around the new technology. But more often the enthusiasts overshoot the mark, predicting changes that lose sight of the central fact behind all historical technological adoption: technology is shaped by human need.
Take a simple example: the evolution of transport. The speed, accessibility and lower cost of modern travel has changed the world and the way all of us live, but the essential act of transport, transiting people and goods from point A to point B, remains the same.
Malcolm Gladwell, the author of The Tipping Point, generated some controversy earlier this year when he said that social media didn’t matter much in the popular revolutions sweeping the Middle East. He might have underestimated the benefits of Twitter and Facebook, but he is correct in saying that great social movements of the past, such as the civil rights lunch counter sit-ins, spread like wildfire without sophisticated technology. Social media was also an element in the recent English riots – but it was not the cause. In other words, the technology cuts both ways.
While it is clear that social media offers ways of connecting that didn’t previously exist, communication is still about connecting. If your message doesn’t resonate in old media, it won’t resonate in social media. If you have a commitment to communicating your message, you will find a way to communicate that message even if you have to use the bush telegraph.
Hannah Watterson is Principal of Watterson Marketing Communications.
Spot on, Hannah. I summarize it all thus: social media programmes work when they have purpose. Otherwise, it’s just more noise (and as you note, dynamite often creates large bangs).
I couldn’t agree more.
The message is more important than the medium. (With apologies to Marshall McLuhan).
People are still enthralled by social media, pretty soon they’ll realise its just another channel.