The boy who cried wolf

Everyone knows this story by now, the boy cried “wolf” too many times when there was no wolf at all. Then, when the wolf showed up, no one would listen to him because he had mislead them so many times before.

Let this be a lesson to those creating content for social marketing purposes. If you spew out a bunch of crap just to have content, people will stop paying attention. This is also true with where you put your content. It should be just as strategic and targeted what you say, as where you say it.

Here’s an example:

Company X has created a video that shows how their new plastic egg container keeps eggs safe while being transported. They posted the video on You-Tube and created a Facebook fan page. The five people in the company’s marketing department have sent “suggestions” to their Facebook friends to join the Facebook page. This is fairly common for companies just starting out with social media. Once a week, they post the video on their Facebook fan page and promote the locations where they are going to be doing demos at local grocery stores.

The problem: Their Facebook fan list is not growing and sales are not rising. That’s because they are sending the same message to the same people, who aren’t necessarily the target for what they are selling.

ABC's - Audience Before Content

One of the basics that I was taught in marketing 101 is that marketers must have a target audience to spread their message to. Meaning, there is already a need for the product/ service.  All companies have to do is find the consumers that have that need and tell them about what they have to offer. In the past, marketers did this through placing print ads in specific magazines, putting TV commercials on during certain shows, and placing radio ads on particular radio stations. If the consumer wanted what a company had to offer, they would buy. If not, the message was ignored as "clutter".

Today, the rules with social marketing are different. There is strategy involved in planning which social platform will most likely reach the target audience. There is now another level to that strategy, in which customers want something in return when marketers are in their social space. Consumers do not want to be bombarded with what companies have to sell, where the company is telling the consumer what to buy and why. This is considered "clutter", even though the companies may be speaking directly to their target audience that would otherwise buy from them. Instead, they want to be the voice telling the company what they want and how they want it.