The Rising Social Network Dilemma

The age of Facebook, Twitter and the mass social networks is here. Marketers have embraced the platforms for their potential to reach large numbers of consumers, deliver customer service and create highly targeted ads through the context of personal relationships. Now, a new type of social networking is on the horizon, and marketers are going to have to contend with the fact that the rules for social media marketing are changing… again.

Whisper, Snapchat, Kik and even Jelly are all social platforms that are mobile only and designed specifically for small groups to interact and share. Whisper lets users share anonymous secrets with friends and friends of friend. Kik allows users to share messages with friends and strangers alike. Snapchat creates short content that lives for only a few seconds. It's designed to be disposable and short.

These platforms are private, making achieving scale difficult. The lifetime of content is measured in the seconds, and the conversations are private and between friends. They certainly aren't providing the environment most brands would expect to leverage.

Still, users are going to these platforms by the millions, and they are younger and younger. Brands have choices to make, and investing in a new platform means not investing in something that has proven results. These platforms don't come with best practices or metrics. 

This new era of mobile, private messaging social platforms is changing the way social media marketing is done and will be done because they're changing user behavior and expectations.

Brands face the dilemma of getting involved and embracing the new, while risking having an initiative be unsuccessful or worse, hated by the communities they're trying to reach or hanging back, letting others take the risk and possibly getting left behind.

There isn't a right answer, but there are certainly some things worth considering:

• What can this platform do that we can't already do? New platforms come with new opportunities and features. Does new platform X offer an opportunity to communicate in a way that wasn't possible until now? If the answer is yes, it may be worth more investigation.
• Can we use it? The platform may offer an opportunity to communicate in a different way, but your organization might not be set up to use it, or you might not be able to use it in a way that makes it worth the investment. If you're going in, make sure you invest the resources needed to succeed. Give it a chance to be successful. Start with a trial plan with short-term objectives and measure against those KPIs.
• Are your customers there? Will they be there? These are the big ones. Don't go after something because it's new. Go after it because your customers are or because they will be.

The good news is that the social web usually rewards first comers. The first to get there has the opportunity to set the rules and get the attention that comes with being an early adopter, but that doesn't mean it's wise to go after the latest and greatest. Think before you act, but also pay attention to how the landscape is changing because tomorrow certainly won't be the same as today.