NIGEL WALLEY

Brands really need to calm down about social media

24 June 2010 | By Nigel Walley

Could Facebook not just be a global communications medium that doesn’t need brands, like the telephone?

Is it okay to think that Facebook is a bit crap? I realise this might be construed as going slightly against the grain of the current new media industry, but I think it’s a question that’s worth asking.

I don’t want to pick on Facebook unfairly, so let’s widen the focus to include all social media and, in particular, the current wave of ‘brands must learn how to engage with their customers through social media’ stuff that’s going on.

There are two aspects to this phenomenon that bother me. First, the word ‘must’. Says who? There’s a shocking lack of evidence to back up this statement. There are lots of fun case studies, with interesting, but small, numbers attached. But our industry has always got itself in a lather about numbers that in other media formats are just rounding errors.

Second, the weary familiarity of it all. In fact, if we said ‘brands must learn how to engage with their customers through [blank]’ and left it at that, you’d realise that this has become the stock PR phrase for our industry. You could then drop words into the gap to see what happens. We could reflect on past failures — ‘Second Life’ fits very nicely, as do ‘MySpace’ and ‘Bebo’. Those all appeared at some point in the recent past. ‘Mobile’ pops in there every six months or so before disappearing with its tail between its legs. I like dropping in random words like ‘sausages’ or phrases like ‘the medium of modern dance’.

I realise anything that gets money flying around the new media economy is good. The faster it flies around the better — I’m told economists call this ‘velocity’. So loads of brands talking to loads of agencies about loads of ideas for social media activity is great because it means loads of fees for the industry. But I do wish we could all calm down about it. Could Facebook not just be a globally successful communications medium that doesn’t need brands, like the telephone?

I was phoned today by a woman making a film about social media for small businesses. She wanted a consultant to talk about why small businesses needed to get onboard with social media. She felt that Facebook proficiency could help them even up the field with big business. She was a bit miffed when I told her that was rubbish.

I don’t believe in relativism. So, being a pompous arse, I told her that my opinion was worth more than hers because I had been a new media analyst for 15 years and she was a runner for a TV production company. She came back at me that her opinion was more important than mine because she was under 35 and I was clearly old. So I said this was just like Second Life all over again, what with the ‘brands have to learn how to exploit Second Life’ cobblers that was flying around at the time. “What’s Second Life?” she asked. “Quod erat demonstrandum,” I said. “Old fart,” she said, finally offering something I agreed with.

Readers' comments (22)

Neil Patel | Wed, 23 Jun 2010 12:00 pm
Whilst I agree with you calm down I don't agree brands should ignore social media. How can you when the very people who buy your product or service are spending there free time and more of it everyday social media platforms. You say small numbers but I have real life examples of social media making millions of dollars in sales or built and building email lists which will make millions of dollars. Feel free to see this unfold on http://www.Webidiotz.TV
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Ben | Wed, 23 Jun 2010 1:47 pm
While I agree people tend to get over-exited about social media, Facebook is clearly on a completely different scale from Second Life. Second Life didn't actually have a large audience using it. It has 18 million registered users, of which I would imagine only a relatively small percentage are active. Facebook has 400 million active users. Second Life was seized upon because visually it worked for TV and academics liked the idea of living through avatars. Facebook is mainstream to the point of being a similar size to Google, so any firm that believes in SEO should also think about SMO.
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Tim Whitlock | Wed, 23 Jun 2010 2:47 pm
(Re the examples of MySpace and Second Life) Sites may seem to 'disappear', but that doesn't mean they haven't changed the landscape. If users go somewhere else they're still taking their evolved behaviours with them.

As for why you 'must' engage these communities, if you don't claim your brand in these spaces someone else will do it for you. Facebook community pages and spoof Twitter accounts spring to mind.
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Marie | Wed, 23 Jun 2010 4:34 pm
I get what you’re saying, kinda. (and I'm not a video producer, I cut my teeth in the interactive space, so I'd like to think I know what I’m talking about). Should social media be the only thing brands think about, no? It should be a small piece in your marketing plan. Is it a must, probably not. But there are several things that brands can utilize social media for (beyond marketing) that are proven and can do great things for your org. A great brand is one that creates an emotional connection within its customers; social media can help do that through personalized relationships built through conversations. But it also is a great tool to listen to the internet, hear what people's pain points are, create brand ambassadors through viral marketing (word of mouth is a powerful thing, and I’d like to see the person that disagrees, if a person recommends your brand to their social media network, people will listen), network, provide customer support with transparency, establish thought leadership (do you really discount the power of a blog?),and allow participation with forges deeper customer loyalty and retention . Social media is really just another communication channel. People are so fatigued with email and advertising is becoming more and more ignored. So is it an ooo shiny, yeah, but is it to be completely ignored, no way. If you use social media as a platform for your marketing messages, you will be tuned out, but if you allow your employees to showcase themselves and their personalities then social media has the reach and can be a very powerful tool

my blog: stillisms.com
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We are:london | Wed, 23 Jun 2010 7:02 pm
Nigel, sounds like a certain Mr Clarkson is ghost writing your column today. Nice work though wonder how many comments come from those selling social media snake oil?
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@crapcook | Thu, 24 Jun 2010 7:33 am
"She felt that Facebook proficiency could help them even up the field with big business. She was a bit miffed when I told her that was rubbish"

pourquoi?

the new age is about attention, flying around on the ether... where it goes, nobody knows...

the big companies buy up trends...
they aren't making them...
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Walter Adamson | Thu, 24 Jun 2010 8:28 am
In 2010 I think that we're well beyond the why, so I'll just leave that to you to fight out in your cupboard. The question today is how, and sure there have been lots of mistakes and will continue to be. There are bottom-up approaches, usually agency-driven, which are tools-based and some work and most fail. There are bottom-up approaches which are more embracing of customers and tool (I mean Facebook etc etc) agnostic, and they work if you work at it. And their are bigger corporate approaches which tend to work if they grasp the right methodologies (and they are not "led" by marketing), but they take longer to achieve results. What are the results? Better customer engagement, more profit.

No company "needs" to do it, unless they want to engage more deeply with their customers and potential customers and those customers are present in the social web, which they may not be.

Walter Adamson @g2m
http://xeesm.com/walter
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Alex Miller | Thu, 24 Jun 2010 10:10 am
Nigel, it sounds like you’re missing the point a bit here. It’s not that brands must simply learn how to advertise or ‘engage’ with their customers through social media but that businesses need to fundamentally change the way they operate in order to remain relevant. I’m afraid to say that this social media thing isn’t just going to come and go (like some of the sites that you mentioned) so that we can all go back to the good old days. Social media represents a gigantic shift in the balance of power between customers and brands.

If a few years ago a couple students had phoned up HSBC to complain about their student overdraft interest rates, rather than starting a group on Facebook, do you think HSBC would have lowered their rate?

Social media is not an ad platform for media agencies to work out how best to advertise on. People gather on blogs, forums and social networks and will talk about brands whether a business likes it or not. These reviews can have a serious impact on huge organisations and can make or break small businesses.

Big businesses such as ASDA, Next and Renault get this. They understand what social media represents rather than thinking it’s just another big website. They’re putting their customers, who communicate through social media, right at the centre of their operations and respond and adapt as they go. As a result they’re standing out amongst the crowd rather than being left in the past like Second Life.
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Anonymous | Thu, 24 Jun 2010 11:08 am
There is already a significant graveyard of failed corporate social media strategies out there - companies need to realise that successful social media and digital marketing strategies are dependant on hiring the right people for your in-house team - its not just about selecting the right agency; look at the NMA jobs site and you will see that corporates still think they will attract the best digital marketing management talent for >40K - investing more in the right people will cost you far less in the long term.
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Mark Pack | Fri, 25 Jun 2010 11:17 am
The telephone analogy seems to me to make the opposite of the point you want Nigel, because look at it from the point of the consumer: consumers *do* expect many brands to be available via the telephone.
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