Thank you for your question. I am sitting here smiling. Social media has been compared to a cocktail party, high school and a Bruce Springsteen song. While each of these different analogies has their merits, I don’t think the writers were thinking big enough. Or hairy enough. Social media is like a big, hairy spider. “Social media is like a tarantula?!”, you ask, out of breath from jumping on top of your nearest chair. Yes. It is. Here’s why.
My usual disclaimer before we start – all opinions expressed here are my own, and come from my experience running social marketing campaigns, managing social marketing teams, and advising social marketing clients. Your mileage will vary.
Social media is like a tarantula, the biggest and hairiest of spiders. As we know, the mere mention of a tarantula can send otherwise fearless arachnophobes running screaming. Likewise, just the *thought* of having to create, execute, and track the ROI for a brand’s social media strategy can send otherwise fearless marketers running screaming.
The Eight Ways Social Media is Like a Tarantula
(You just knew there were going to be eight ways…)
1. Tarantulas are the king of spiders. Social media is the king of marketing.
Remember back long ago, when our companies asked us marketers why we needed a website (1994), why we needed to be on Facebook (2006), why we needed a mobile app (2008), and why we needed to be on Google+ (last week)? Okay, some of us are still working to convince our companies about that mobile app, but we’re no longer having to convince our companies of the value of social media marketing. All marketing has become social. We no longer get to choose our media. Our customers do. And they have spoken. Regardless of whether we’re B2B, B2C, or B2X, social media is now at the heart of our integrated marketing strategies.
2. There are over 900 species of tarantulas. There are over 550 social networks.
I’m the first to admit it. You may never need to know or care that there are 14 different social networks for cat lovers. But, if you’re marketing a brand of cat food, then you need to know the specific audience and culture of each and every one of them. In fact, niche social networks may be the most effective marketing channels you have for your brand.
3. Tarantulas move fast (10-16 kph/6-10 mph). Social media moves faster.
People think I’m joking when I say the worst part for me about being a social media marketer is waking up “stupid” every morning, after going to bed feeling so smart (“wicked smart” as my friends in Boston like to say). Why? Because each and every day new technologies, tools, and practices are launched to help us better engage our target audiences. “Keeping up” with the blistering pace of innovation in social media means being able to identify and analyze – often in real-time – what is valuable for our brands, what is not, and why.
4. Tarantulas have a lot of moving parts, eight legs to be exact. Social media has a lot of moving parts, six to be exact.
I define social media’s six “moving parts” as:
- Actively listening to what our target audiences are saying to and about our brands
- Tracking and analyzing our target audiences’ [often out of synch] social content and behaviors
- Creating valuable, [hopefully] viral, brand-appropriate content
- Publishing this content *everywhere* our audiences choose to be
- Growing, cultivating, and managing our social connections with our target audiences
- Engaging and interacting with our target audiences in ways *they* think are valuable, actionable, respectful, [appropriately] outrageous, and entertaining
Each of these moving parts has its own unique function, but they are also tightly integrated and interdependent. The real power (and effectiveness) lies in the sum of the parts, and taking them as a whole.
5. Where there is fear of tarantulas, there is opportunity — for the tarantula — when we run away. Where there is fear of social media, there is opportunity – for our competitors — when we run away.
The opportunity here has nothing to do with the hype driving and driven by the ever-increasing army of social media “experts.” The opportunity is to embrace rather than run away from social media by mastering it to out-market our competitors.
So where is the opportunity? Ask yourself these three questions:
1. Which customers are my competitors not listening to?
2. Which social channels are my competitors not using?
3. Which customers are my competitors not engaging?
Your competitors’ social media blind spots are the real opportunities for *your* brand!
6. Understanding tarantulas will reduce your fear of them. Understanding social media will reduce your fear of it.
It is rational for us to fear big, hairy things with lots of moving parts that move quickly, particularly if we don’t understand them. It is equally rational for marketers to fear complex, quickly changing new media, particularly if we don’t understand it. Acknowledging our need to constantly learn new skills and change ingrained behaviors is the first step in transforming our fear into action.
7. You can be startled out of your shorts if a tarantula sneaks up on you. You can be startled out of your job if social media sneaks up on you.
Evolve, don’t perish! Take 15 minutes a day, 7 days a week to LEARN. Where should you start? I recommend the media of social media, Mashable (http://mashable.com). You should also sign up for the free SmartBriefs on Social Media at: http://smartblogs.com/socialmedia. This is not “extra credit.” These are the requirements for us as marketers to succeed in this era of rapid, unpredictable and unprecedented change.
8. While you may think of them as “just plain weird and to be avoided at social functions,” many people just like you around the world have “befriended” tarantulas. While you may think of them as “just plain weird and to be avoided at social functions,” many people just like you around the world have “befriended” social media.
Today, marketers have greatly diminished financial and human resources at their disposal. To achieve our companies’ business objectives, we MUST use the tools and channels of social media effectively. Engage, learn, and share. You will always find someone in social media who’s a page ahead of you, so reach out and ask questions. Likewise you will never feel better than when you can return the favor and help a colleague who’s a page behind you.
At the end of the day, it doesn’t matter whether social media is like a cocktail party, high school, a Bruce Springsteen song…or a tarantula. What does matter is that you are fully leveraging every aspect of social media you can for your marketing, communications, product development, customer service, and talent acquisition efforts. Why? Social media works. Interactive, viral, and real-time, social media empowers *anyone* to talk about you, your company, your brand, and your products and services with as much [or even more] authority than you do yourself. Back in the Mad Men era, marketers were the de facto creators, controllers, and [sole] authorities on their brands. Today, we are just one of many voices talking about our brands. It is up to *you* to use social media to be THE voice with the highest social authority on your brands.
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What do YOU think? What would you compare social media to in order to explain it to your peers? Please share your thoughts with us in the comments section below.
Editor’s note: Do YOU have a question about social marketing technologies, tools, and best practices? Tweet your question with the hashtag “#DearKen”. All tweets will be acknowledged, and considered as being submitted for publication.