Network Natives: “If you don’t play nicely, we will ignore you.”

It seems a number of companies think that the fact that they’ve landed on Planet Social Media automatically entitles them to broadcast messages to the current inhabitants. And as a result, they’ve been surprised by the simple lack of business which seems to be coming their way. And why’s that? Because network natives in social media environments do not appreciate being broadcast to. And it all points the way to the fact that many (if not most) organisations still do not get social media.

The key is that organisations believe it is “another channel to market,” however it’s not. Social media environments are places where people communicate with each other in an online environment. Social media environments are places which we can regard as channels to each other. A bit like the pub, coffee shop, canteen and so on. The only people who have any entitlement to engage with us are those we care to sit with. Like any social situation, if someone starts to dominate a social space, you’ll find that people will respond in an appropriate fashion: either by moving away themselves or by censuring that person.

Some organisations seem to have forgotten this in their gold-rush behaviour toward social media environments. CTR on things like Facebook is alleged to be as low as on any other regular web site (and then we’re not even thinking about conversion to sales). Some of this can be attributed to poor targeting software associated with the environments, but also because it’s still a broadcast method.

Having got engaged recently (and changed my status on Facebook to reflect this), I have been swamped by wedding related advertising (having previously swamped with ads for the black dating network). Little attention is paid as to whether I want these services. The ads are relentless. And it turns me off the firms involved. Yet – I know I may want these services, but the imperative needs to be mine. Digital has always been about power in the hands of customers. Firms that forget this, do so at their peril.

The perfect firm is the one that recognises the importance of the conversation. It’s possible to communicate directly with me, to see if I want to have a dialogue, to assess my desires (not work out my needs). And one of those desires is: do I want you to communicate with me? Do I want to converse?

My membership of groups and Fan pages should be a much better indication of this. Think it through.

Social Media Press Releases

Well it looks like the PR industry (not necessarily the traditional PR industry mind you) is starting to get its head around social media, in the form of this Social Media Press Release Template (opens a PDF from Shiftcomm). Now – a US agency may well have to do things differently for a different psychographic or behavioural market in the US, but it’s nice to see the development of a “methodology” emerging from what is pretty much a chaotic state of affairs. What’s interesting is that whilst the US lags somewhat behind in certain subtle aspects of digital marketing, the preponderance of American bloggers means that social media PR seems to be further developed over there – to the extent that social media PR people are trying to show clients that it is is not a dark art that certain (digital) PR/full-service agencies in the UK seem to suggest.

A nice example of open social PR is used up at Democracy PR. Director Jennifer O’Grady is responsible for the Digital PR aspects of the launch of the new Yang Sing Oriental Hotel in Manchester. Despite the performance of the traditional PR agency (whose PR choices I have to question), the digital PR side of things is done in a very open and interesting way. A media launch last week involved plenty of non traditional audience turning up. Jennifer has actively used informal social networks on Facebook to create some noise and traffic (both virtual and real) to the hotel. In response, she’s got plenty of nice people talking. Shove “Yang Sing Oriental Hotel” into Google and you’ll see an excellent write-up from prodigious blogger Julia Shuvalova, a well respected and (key point here) independent writer.

My only worry is I don’t seem be able to find a web site for the hotel yet – but as the hotel itself is not quite finished, I suspect the same for the site. But I know this is an area that another agency is having to deal with (which shows what issues emerge from using many different agencies). Anyway – hats off to Jen for the 1st page on Google which shows the results of an excellent open social media campaign. I hope she gets to run more of the publicity operation for what is such a lovely business.