The End of Social Media Marketing
Social media marketing’s dead. Or at least it should be. Not because it’s going away but because it’s going everywhere. There [should] be no delineation of where the “social” part of an idea begins and where it ends. Part of the goal of any tactic should be for people to share, talk and advocate for the brand.
This is a mind shift. It’s a move away from creating individual micro pieces of content meant to live in a News Feed to making social part of the DNA of any initiative. No matter what, we want people talking about the brand and sharing the brand’s message. That’s a much more powerful goal than a simple like or retweet.
The Lines Have Blurred Beyond Recognition
Now is the time to view everything a brand does as social. Video thrives in social channels, and one of the first things people do when a commercial launches, especially during an event like the Super Bowl, is talk about it online. Is it a TV ad or a social media marketing tactic? Or when a customer calls into a call centeror goes onto a Facebook Page, what is it? Social? Customer service? It’s both. It’s neither. It’s everything.
Where social starts and ends is indiscernible in the best brand work out there. Every customer touchpoint with a brand is an opportunity for social.
Marketing in a Post-Social World
So what does this mean for social media marketing? It means marketing with social as an assumption, rather than a second thought.
Social ideas instead of social components. Instead of adding social components to existing ideas, the ideas are social in nature. They’re grounded in an insight around how people talk and share, so that when they see it and interact with it, the reasons and means to share are already there. Social should be part of the DNA of any idea.
Always on and always there. The brand isn’t just there to reach the user. It’s also there to respond to their questions, their advocacy and their other interactions with the brand.
Puts the brand in the hands of everyone. The brand embraces how all people create content with the brand at the center. This means, not only encouraging people to create but enabling it as well. This is true for employees and consumers alike.