Gnarly Notes - Social Relations

PR? Phrrup!

It is SR now. Social Relations.

It is not about intercom communications anymore. This is a walkie talkie situation. And doing it on social media is the way to go.

Yes, there are people who will be reached with your great banner ads on websites, or those clickable ads on Google, or those You Tube ads that take away minutes from your life. All  of Facebook's 1.4 billion is there for you to tap into, not. And Twitter. Aye, Twitter. Such a great platform for those short, sharp messages. And tweets lost in the pipeline within minutes.

Oh, you will get traction (love the word) when you spend, spend, spend to get your message out there. The point is that 'spend' is great for those who can. It always takes something away from your bottom line.

Now let's not pull any punches - it is a mess out there on social media. Short attention spans no matter how intrusive your ad is; a plethora of channels; and your itsy bitsy ad competing with the millions of others.

When you see the jump in the number of Likes, Shares and Retweets after you sunk in some money to promote your post or tweet, it is almost a vindication. And you look at the views on your video and say "Wow!

And then you look at your click through ration and cost per click and say "Sh*t!" These costs are not sustainable in the long term for small to medium businesses, and some will only use promoted posts for particular projects which need to 'out there'.

Facebook continues to tighten its pipeline for organic reach; squelching down to make you pay for what is essentially your content that they don't want getting out too much. Not until you pay for it. The organic reach on most platforms, Instagram included, will be tightened as these platforms seeks more income. It is lucrative market for them out there - and an increasingly higher paying one for businesses.

Yet, there is hope. If you shift from PR to SR.

PR worked (and still does, maybe) on the principle that there were reporters out there who would interested in your message, and were willing to publish it for free so your company could get some 'advertising'. While we may have become savvier in putting together media releases and advisories, the general trend is still to shoot them out and keep your fingers crossed. Or pick up the phone and plead for some space. This is a decades-long processes that has seen little or no change.

Social Relations works on the principle that you are developing your own network of stakeholders - from the mom who wants to know where to take the tots on a lazy Sunday, to the weekend fisherman who wants to pass on some fishing tip, to the millennial with a thousand devices who just wants to know of things that matter to them. You become the hub of information that your customer can use.
It is a pity that every company has a website and can access ALL the social media channels and yet fail miserably in aligning them for the good of the company.

What's missing?

Content to kill for
Killer content does not happen by chance. It needs working on.

There is content that is decided by a committee. Sign offs, double sign offs and a 'last look' is great for a 30-page documents but does not work well in the 'instantly now' platform of social media. And anything produced by a committee is bound to be bland to ensure that the greatest number of people are appeased, right?

Then there is content that comes out of a situation. Something happens (or you make something happen), and you jump aboard with your say and then everyone else jumps aboard with their say. Great content. No control. Great feedback. Many trolls. Such a mess.

Finally there is content that a creative comes up with. It could be content she has repurposed from existing content, putting her spin on it after knowing what exactly is needed to done. Or it could be a line out of a thousand other lines that she picks on and develops some rhetoric around. And then she follows up on it - putting in further hooks for continued conversation, setting up space for feedback and then reporting back - both to the online engaged audience and to the company.

It is the conversation that matters. That is the great content to strive for. Not just the expertly put together post but what follows after the post.

And that folks is the content for social relations.

Communities to die for
Narrowing your interests in social relations is about the same as saying "I want to deal with these guys but not you." You do want to sell something, or provide a service. But you can't do that all the time. If you think ROI only, you are effectively killing some potential market segment even before it becomes potential.

The idea is to approach social relations as a hub. You will do whatever it takes to get whoever is out there to follow you somehow. Your channels - your website, your Facebook, Your Twitter - become a hub for the communities that populate those spaces. Your job is not to sell your product here but to become a go-to place for INFORMATION on things you know of intimately. You are there to help on these channels. So, only posting to sell your wares, or trying to be cool to attract more followers is not going to cut it. Not in these times.

Media
So, the media.

We now have all the equipment we want to communicate directly and in a direct manner to those who we wish to communicate with. Yet, somehow, we feel we need to send that media release out to the media and hope it gets published. It does not matter what kind of spin the media puts on your release - it could take your message and spin it out negatively and we would have no control over it. And with comments enabled, all that good feedback (and I mean good feedback, whether negative or positive) goes down the drain.

Oh, you do post that media release on your social channels. And put it up on your website? And then?
Where's the follow up?

Do you want take apart your media release and post them in chunks on social media for easier consumption? Do you ensure you have rich media to go along with the posts?

Do you actively engage with your followers in answering questions, no matter how curly?
It is the conversation that will enable you to build the community that will both be your purchaser and your advocate. Just make sure you have the right product or service on offer.

Next post - Advocacy.
Gnarly Notes