If you have been in any social network for more than ten minutes you have seen businesses propagating the live feeds with their logos and product photos as their avatar. What is important to realize is in 99% of the cases there is a real live person behind those logos or product photos they set up for you to view. This is where the confusion begins with businesses who use social networks to market.
Battle Lines Drawn
Studies are showing consumers are not falling for the slick ad campaigns many businesses use as their form of social networking. Consumers know there are real people behind the Facebook status update or Tweet. It is the person behind the logo who the consumer want to talk to not the logo or product. Consumers can Google all the information they want outside the social network to find out about the product or service. The consumer today wants to socialize with the live person posting the product promotions to find out if what is being advertising is real.
This is where marketing firms and businesses marketing online today fight the ‘Social vs Business’ battle which most all of them are losing. Most businesses blindly take the side of the “Branding’ of the product being their mission when in reality in today’s consumer savvy social networks their posting of a logo or product is getting little if any attention. Many businesses debate the success of their Logo Only social media campaigns by measuring the number of Followers or Like’s they obtain when most of the popularity they achieved is from other businesses or representatives of a business jumping on their coat-tails. Any sales increase that is seen through this type of ‘Business Only’ social media is usually offset with refunds, bad customer service or bad product reviews.
Marketing online has changed. The consumer is not interested in being pitched a product or dragging around unresponsive businesses in their Following or Friends. Interaction with real live people is what is driving the change and interaction with a sterile logo is not what the consumer is after. ‘Social Networkers’ are people who have grown up with social networks and are demanding interaction with someone as a form of social validation. Gone are the days where posting a slick slogan or tagline with an associated link will get attention to a product. Now days, to promote a product or service a person’s face needs to be posted.
Consumers who are in the social networks are drawn to a person’s face..not the logo. Why? When was the last time you walked up to a product brand on a billboard and got a response? A product or business logo is not Social. Only a live person can give a response. A person’s face equals Social.
Battle Continues
This battle will continue for sometime to come since most marketing firms and advertising agency have invested heavily into what is now the Old Way of internet marketing. Their push to get a return out the investment in what was popular ten minutes ago will keep the insanity of logo and product photo posting going on for sometime now. These businesses’ unverifiable reports of their way of marketing as being successfully would naturally be their way of validating their efforts. Meanwhile the businesses who hire real people to be the face of their product will gain their market share faster.
The battle between Social vs Business will rage on for awhile. Who will win? History shows the consumer is who leads the way out of a recession and the businesses who do not bind to consumer’s needs lose. Being social is clearly the way to an improved economy. Let me know how I can help.
