Let’s look at a fundamental truth right from the dictionary. This is the textbook definition. Starting at the beginning.
mar·ket·ing (mär'ki-ting) n.
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The act or process of buying and selling in a market.
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The commercial functions involved in transferring goods from producer to consumer.
Taking a page from politics, marketing is getting an idea into the marketplace and getting people to change their minds and behavior.
Let’s examine a pragmatic definition you can use today:
Marketing is the practice of getting your idea not only into the marketplace but also into the minds of those who are ready, willing and able to take action to consume your product.
As a business, the first thing that your business has to do is promote the idea that it can produce a consumable product. But more importantly, getting the idea to the right people is critical. Traffic is crucial. Actional (conversional) traffic is even more important.
For politics, the consumable product that you market is leadership.
As a business owner, you too are promoting leadership in your chosen market.
So how does this pertain to social media strategy?
Social media for most is a place for chatter. Making that idle chatter actionable is your goal.
So…
Getting an idea into the marketplace is one skillset.
Getting the idea to penetrate, stick and become an action is a totally different skillset that is often overlooked.
Most get concerned with the amount, such as:
- Number of Friends On Facebook
- Number of Twitter Followers
- Number of Connections on LinkedIn
- Traffic to your Website.
The questions that I have for you are:
- What are you saying in the marketplace?
- What is the response to your communications?
- Are you looking at the right numbers?
I contend that most are looking at the wrong numbers and don’t even know it.
Look for sales, transactions and valuable conversations as the measure for your success.
Til next time…
{ 4 comments… read them below or add one }
Thanks David for pointing out the unuseful activity of focusing only the numbers of friends, followers, connections, etc. The numbers of quality conversations and connections are what really count but these are difficult to measure easily.
As an engineer I do like to have some hard numbers to measure my Social media activities. You mentioned sales and transactions.
So maybe the sales do go up after a social media campaign but how do you know for each sale what was the influence of SM given that the client is probably also influenced by your email marketing, your blog, your direct phone call?
Russell : Within the social media space, moving around and getting something done are two different situations. Focusing on results is the key. You can measure the quality of a conversation by seeing what comes of the conversion after the call in terms of next steps. Thanks for your support as this was a moment of clarity.
David
All too true, there is no point in having the biggest numbers (unless its sales of course!) if you dont have anything quality to say or offer.
Tom
@tom – Having an offer is the part that is missing from most of what is going on in the Social Media space. Chatter without an end in mind. Very interesting to see how this is all going to evolve. Thanks for the support.