Jason Falls wrote a powerful piece about the 'bottom line' approach that a client obviously wants to have using social media or any other marketing effort.
In a nutshell, he argues that:
"In the world of business, all that talk will get you exactly nowhere. Conversations do not ring the cash register. Engagement does not sell more product."While his statements are absolutely valid we need to be sure that we don't throw out what drives social media in our pursuit of the almighty revenue. Can you make a sale without communicating to someone? It's not easy. Humans haven't changed much despite our ubercool techno tools. We want our creature comforts and most of those involve other people.
Why do the masses participate in social media? The large majority are Twittering and Facebook status freaks as a means of participating in discussion and interacting with their fellow beast. A statement I sometimes use in my presentations: 'humans doing what they do best.'
The reality is that social media business efforts must snap-in to the engine that makes the platform run in order to work with the human touchy-feely side of communication. The alternative smells like 'banner advertising' and thats certainly not going to work.
Let's do dinner!
Its possible to find a happy medium that allows for both relevant and valuable contributions mixed in with an agreement that 'we are gonna try to sell you too.' I accept that type of relationship because it's no different than going to dinner or drinks with a salesperson.
If I am interested in a person's lifestream or brand's communications and they continue to give me reason to trust them, they have every right in my mind to mix in some business.
We watch TV or videos online and accept the commericals. We read newspapers and magazines and accept and even sometimes enjoy the ads. We accept advertising in many arenas of our lives from baseball stadiums to highways, even in areas we really probably don't want to have them...why should social media be any different?
Social media is a business dinner. The sales can be direct and accounted for, it just takes a carefully crafted pitch woven into a valid interaction to get you there.
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