Madison Avenue Needs a New Lens for Social CRM

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StatCounter has recently reported that web discovery service StumbleUpon has overtaken Facebook as the top source for social media traffic in the US. Major publications like Forbes and marketing industry blogs are reporting that “this news will have major implications for social media marketing strategies, as the figures show that whilst Facebook accounted for 38 per cent of page view referrals, StumbleUpon generates 43 per cent of social media traffic.”

As an industry – and I’m referring to the digital marketing industry – if we’re still referring to Social as “Media” and the opportunity as “Pageviews”, we’re looking at this through the wrong lens and need either a new pair of glasses, a fundamental shift in mindset, a fresh set of eyes – or all three.

The marketing opportunity for brands in the social channel can be found in two primary areas: Listening & Engaging.

Note that I did not mention Advertising as an opportunity for marketers. This doesn’t mean that publishers and solution providers can’t make money from Social. To imply as much would be silly. The purpose of any business is of course to generate revenue; and let’s be honest with ourselves – we’ve been selling blow-by traffic and branding opportunities online since the AT&T and Zima campaigns ran back in 1996.

As an industry, we’ve seen exponential increases in ad spend and exponential decreases in response rates, from the 35% click-through rates we saw back in 1996 to the point where we are now “ecstatic” if just 0.05% of our target audience doesn’t ignore or purposely avoid our ad .

Where Social is concerned, Advertising is primarily an opportunity for publishers and solution providers to generate revenue.

While Social is currently viewed as an Advertising channel (many times an “Experimental” one at that) on the marketing plans of many major brands, in and of itself, Social is not “Media” – it’s “Conversation”; and it’s unfortunate that the term “Social Media” was coined a few years ago and stuck,  rather than something far more accurate like “SRM – Social Relationship Marketing”.

We labeled it as “Media” because that’s what we as Advertisers are comfortable with. It’s also what we can sell. It’s the old pair of fuzzy slippers that we’ve worn for years and both Buyers and Sellers are familiar with it, perhaps making an unfamiliar entity easier to buy and sell.

But Social is not Push. It’s not “Media” to be bought and commoditized. It’s “Conversation” to be listened to and engaged in. It’s not about YOU and your product or service offering. It’s about ME. It’s about my RELATIONSHIP with you.

If you and I have a relationship, I’ll gladly look at your product or service offering. Hell, I may even endorse it. But until that time you’re just making noise and being charged to do it.

For traditional advertisers and brand marketers considering investing in Social, this is a very critical differential for you to understand. It’s the difference between paying to be able to enter into a roomful of people – all of whom are busily engaged in conversations – with you walking around the room wearing a sandwich-board bearing your brand’s logo and a call to action on it, hoping that someone will “Click Here Now!” on you, versus LISTENING to what people in the room are saying about your brand and then using that information to actually improve your business; and, in the process, increasing both your sales and customer base; and then actually PARTICIPATING in the conversations that are going on around you and establishing a relationship with your potential customers.

The primary opportunity for brands in Social is to engage customers and potential customers in conversation for the purpose of building relationships.

Relationship-building is NOT accomplished through billboard-type advertising, Conversation is not media. It’s not measured in terms of Pageviews. As Publishers, we can “say” that it is measured that way, so that we can walk around the roomful of conversations and sell ad space on our sandwich boards, but in and of itself, ENGAGEMENT and INTELLIGENCE are the real opportunities in Social, NOT media.

These conversations are happening right now, 24 hours a day. As brands, we can choose to Listen, we can choose to Engage; or we can choose to Opt-Out of the conversations entirely, pretending that nobody is talking about our brand and just go buy a sandwich board to announce that we’re present in the room.

To be clear, I’m not saying that no one in the room is going to click on your sandwich board. Statistically, 0.05% of the people in the room will. What I am saying is simply that Social is not about Advertising. It’s about Relationships.

As marketers, we’re still looking at Social through the wrong lens and we need either a new pair of glasses, a fundamental shift in mindset, a fresh pair of eyes or a combination of all three.

Adam Boettiger is a Senior Digital Strategist, helping large brands, small businesses and startups create, leverage and deploy web marketing strategies & tactics that drive measurable results since 1994. adam@adamboettiger.com / 503.946.6450 / Twitter: @AdamBoettiger / On the web @  http://www.adamboettiger.com/