Didn’t Catch Any Fish With Your Social Marketing Campaign? Stop Blaming The Pole.

The Fishing Hole

In order to understand ‘why’ response to B2C marketing within a social media environment often fails, or returns without any fish in your net, let me start with one of my favorite definitions of what social media is:

 Social media is like 4 or 5 female friends gathered in a group, at a very large shopping mall, discussing various personal points of interest.

 Too often, marketing into a social media setting is like someone from one of the stores in that mall just walking up to that group of women and beginning to pitch their product.

 (Important side note: typically, every store in that mall would consider themselves a “friend” of each of those women, just because of their proximity/location).

 Your Tackle Box

The marketer failed to ask, and answer, the critical questions before trying to engage the group:

What can you say that…

• Won’t come across as you butting into their private conversation?
• Won’t be perceived as self-serving?
• Be of interest to them? 
• Invoke a positive perception, thought or response? and/or
• Actually makes them want to ‘do’ something that is of benefit to your company?

 Because so many B2C marketers break most if not all of those rules, their message is ignored or publicly rejected. They fail.

 Conditions

You need to come up with an answer that justifies the investment (time, personnel, $, etc.) required to effectively engage targeted individuals within that particular social media group.

 Caveat: Few marketers are able to match up what ‘can’ be done inside a social media environment (from a B2C standpoint), with a form of effectual or responsive engagement that is perceived to be a benefit to their company. Part of that problem rests with their inability to track, quantify or measure the types of engagements that ‘can’ be done, as they understand ‘measurement’.

 One of my Grandpa’s many anecdotes was: “Don’t blame the fishing pole, just because you didn’t catch any fish”. The same goes for your social media marketing campaign.

The Right Gear

The soundness of ‘what you want to get out of marketing into a social media environment’ is highly conditional on how effectively you’ve crafted the set of criteria that must be determined and answered first:

• What outcome are we looking for?
• Does this plan meet the company goal?
• Is the goal valid inside Social Media?
• Is the campaign feasible, actionable, trackable – and can it be replicated?

 So, make sure you’ve researched your favorite fishing hole, your tackle box is well stocked, the conditions are right, and you have the right gear before setting out on your next fishing excursion. Here’s to a big “catch”!

Advertisement