subject: Sociable Media (Feminine) Vs Traditional Advertising (Masculine) [print this page] The huge social advertising news of the week is Facebook's new Teams. Like with any great tool, there are ways to use it for positive outcomes - and techniques to abuse it.
In one of the web marketing forums I'm a part of, somebody posted recently that he and his Facebook Marketing Agency are excited about the new Teams features simply because, in his words:
Now you can automatically add "friends" as group members. Previously you could only send an invite that required to be accepted - now enrollment is automatic... The next key change is that you can post to the group wall and an email will be sent to each and every group member (awesome). I sorta cringe to hear individuals highlighting these "benefits" of teams. Teams - just like everything in sociable advertising - is not about the automation. And to focus on that would turn your "friends" against you.
Just yesterday I interviewed Matt Bacak for a compilation CD I'm putting together referred to as "What's Working in Sociable Marketing - Lessons From the Experts." And he spent a great deal of time talking about the fact that most web marketers don't "get" social media. They believe it's about the (extremely maculine) tactic of blasting your message everywhere; when in fact it's about the (significantly much more feminine) art of listening and supplying value.
He also said folks are missing the boat when they're seeking for immediate EPC from their sociable media. He went so far as to say that although he doesn't have the tough numbers to back it up, he feels certain that the individuals who acquire from him are doing so simply because they're also connected to him through a Facebook Marketing Agency.
That is an argument I've been making for a long time - that your conversion rate with your emails or immediate mail will skyrocket when you're also communicating with those exact same individuals on interpersonal marketing. And not just blasting them in a various medium, by the way - but rather, chatting about their dog and kids and travel. Those "waste of time" topics that do nothing but create rapport. Oh yeah, that thing. Keep in mind it?
In this way, sociable advertising is not unlike the newsletter - the tried and true standby of immediate mail. Not the content material newsletter that individuals pay for, by the way, but just the chatty "here's a little way for us to stay in touch during the month" newsletter. Why does it work? Simply because it lets your consumers get to know you a bit as a individual. Same as sociable media.
The person who I quoted at the beginning of this article has really carried out a fantastic job over the last year and a half, using social media to build a large and responsive list for himself. And he's succeeded at that not due to the fact of the automation methods he uses, but due to the fact he's put a Great deal of time and effort into communicating authentically with his folks, and offering a good deal of good content and fantastic value. And all that real "work" is one thing I'm afraid gets lost in the shuffle when newbies are searching for the magic pill and they read something like "you can now automatically add friends, and all your messages go to their inbox."
Sociable Media (Feminine) Vs Traditional Advertising (Masculine)
