IS SOCIAL MEDIA THE SILVER BULLET FOR MARKETING?

The past six years has seen the social media industry rapidly evolve. Early on I thought that social media would become the ‘silver bullet’ of the marketing industry: a way to end the inefficient spending of budgets on television/traditional media. Given the rapid growth and unique role of social media, I was almost right.Technology-led innovationIt’s stating the obvious to say that technology has dramatically changed our lives, but it’s relevant to consider why it’s been such a game changer in our industry. Young, agile agencies are driven by innovation in the tech world, which enables efficiency. We’re powered by Cloud-based products: Xero, Float App, Dropbox, Google Mail—you get the idea! Because we’re tech natives, we avoid big overheads and cumbersome internal processes.Technological innovation is also driving how the marketing industry works. Now that the production and management tools are readily available we can place a greater focus on the creative and on executing a beautiful product in less time, often at a lower cost. We have found this to be especially effective in producing high-quality imagery and videos for our clients’ social channels, all in-house. While we’re producing video, we can also create additional photography for use across digital channels—making budgets go even further. Moreover, we can use big data generated by social media to identify and place this content in front of the most relevant audience.Taking a long-range view, technology has also propelled an evolution of the entertainment industry from theatre, to radio and cinema, to TV and now the Internet and social media. This evolution has been matched by new marketing methods and formats—because the entertainment industry offers such an effective way to reach a mass audience.So technology and innovation have made doing business faster, made marketing smarter and made entertainment a lot more, well, entertaining; so was I right about social being the silver bullet?? Has it killed off traditional marketing channels? Not exactly! This evolution in the marketing world is not to say that TV, radio and even the good old bus shelter don’t serve a purpose. Today it’s really all about integrated marketing: a delicate mix of mass media with niche channels to reinforce brand messaging and communication.Focusing on consumersThink back to when you studied the craft of advertising and marketing… you were probably taught the discipline of the four P’s: Product, Price, Promotion, Place. Now we talk about a more consumer focused four C’s: Consumer, Cost, Communication, Convenience. So it’s a similar approach, but the focus has shifted to the consumer. But enough alliteration! Instead of P’s or C’s, these are the key questions to consider when creating a consumer audience and producing content that resonates:• Consumer: What does the consumer need and want?• Cost: What is the market cost of the product or service?• Value: Does the product or service provide good value to the consumer, beyond the sale price/price point?• Communication: What is the message and how to best communicate with consumers?• Socialise: Is the brand active in the same spaces as its consumers? Does the brand talk to the individual consumer?• Reassure: What do the consumers’ friends think or know? How can these forces influence consumer choices?• Convenience: How easy is it for the consumer to obtain the product or service? Where are the consumers and how do they buy/engage?• Service: Does the brand look after its consumers before, during and after the purchase?Our approach to integrated marketingOnce you know your audience and how to communicate with your consumers, there are three key phases for successful integrated marketing: strategy, campaign, retain.First things first: it’s fundamental to establish a solid creative idea in the initial strategy phase that will be the foundation for execution across all channels—be it TV, digital or social. Creative can then be adapted for success in each specific channel, rather than being tacked on when someone thinks, “oh s**t, we better do that.” An integrated strategy best positions a brand to proactively plan an effective multi-channel campaign, as well as enabling retention of new and existing clients. Ideally, a good strategy will create realistic aspirations for the audience across multiple and complementary channels.Following strategy comes the campaign phase, where you launch or create consumer awareness of a product or service. It’s here you need to use a mix of channels to engage customers and drive awareness, trust and positioning. Gone are the days of big splash, one-off campaigns; today marketing tends to consist of an evolving series of iterative campaigns.Once a product has been launched we can gather information/data via social and tweak aspects of the mix so it better resonates with the audience. Equipped with this knowledge we can develop effective social content, such as video-based ads, which resonate with the audience and inspire them to take action: share, comment, get involved and ultimately purchase! A well-placed Facebook app with a good prize can promote sales and extend the life of an in-store promotion.The third and crucial phase is retention, which ideally follows the awareness generated by a campaign. This realm is all about customer service: from point of sale, to problem solving associated with faults or issues, through to ultimately building a loyal fanbase for the product or service. Retention is an area that has often been overlooked, largely because advertisers traditionally focused on consumer awareness. Not so in the social world where, like it or not, awareness quickly becomes reputation. If you don’t have your reputation locked down and don’t retain your audience, your awareness campaigns will merely amplify the failings of the brand.Remember running user groups and launching a campaign, crossing your fingers that it would be successful? Now, by harnessing the tangible power of live social research we can quickly and easily test ideas, concepts and messaging and then refine at every phase.We’ve created a flight path for integrated marketing that illustrates these phases:“Following our flight path for integrated marketing will allow your brand to take off. When all the components are working well together across the right channels, you’ll be flying.” –Tom Reidy,Catalyst90So what goes where?Ah yes, content and context. Both these terms are well thrashed in the social media space precisely because they are so crucial: where you put your content is just as important as how the content is created. It’s as simple as not posting the same item across all social channels because these channels are used in different ways. Similarly, digital content on social media doesn’t always make for a good TVC and a good TVC shouldn’t necessarily be republished on social.You need to know how and where the audience consumes information and go where they are. For example, think about how most people watch TV… ‘the ads’ are no longer just the perfect time to make a cuppa, these days much of the audience has their laptop, tablet and/or smart phone out and will instantly begin to flick through their social channels, opting to spend ad breaks immersed in social media. The rise of on-demand TV services as well as consumer’s increasing desire to simultaneously watch TV and scroll through their social channels will further challenge TVC’s relevance, reinforcing the need for integrated marketing across multiple channels.Integrating traditional and social marketingProduct placement on TV shows isn’t a new concept, but combining it with social opens up new opportunities. Brand or product placement on TV can easily be supported by digital content that is disseminated through social at the very same time the audience is watching the TV show.Smart marketers are already using YouTube to align brands with relevant content by infiltrating and sponsoring videos. For example, take a look at this little clip from Mountain Dew—well, not exactly Mountain Dew, but watch and see:https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eYthI8sVTMEAt the end of the clip the viewer sees Mountain Dew is the sponsor. (As a sidebar, this is an excellent example of creating content for social and publishing it in the right context.) But what if we also took some of this content, released it on TV with supporting social media content? Or better yet, create an entire TV show that associates the brand with this type of action adventure and match it with buzz and unique digital content on social!? OK, OK, my imagination is running away from me, but I hope you can see there so many ways we can now integrate real-time and traditional marketing with social.If you take anything from this rather long post, it’s to challenge your agency to innovate and socialise what you do to extend your reach. Get all your channels working together from the initial strategy phase to leverage your marketing spend, and make sure your customer service is always on point to retain and create loyal fans.So, I was almost right. I now believe that integrated advertising is the silver bullet and social is an essential component. This silver bullet is at its most powerful when it fires great content that’s perfectly positioned across the right channels for the target audience. Bang bang!