The eOK .network

Last Friday I spoke at an workshop hosted by the certain government organisation. My portion of the workshop was about using the social media as a marketing and communication platform. I approached the topic in an allegorical fashion by looking at the impact of the social media as the ripples in a pond produced by dropping a stone in.

Here are some the points I made regarding approaching the social media.

1. Bloggers aren’t always the best way to go
Most people look at the social media like a shopping spree. They run right into the mass of bloggers and grab randomly a couple of popular ones who they think will blog about their product or service and wine and dine them in hope of a blog post. While this approach can be useful for certain popular consumer products which do end up spreading like wildfire, what impact does this approach really have among the approximately 200 million other blogs worldwide?

2. Start by leveraging your existing stone
Most corporations forget they already have an existing ripple generating platform (read stones). It could be a website, a product, or even what the public are searching for. By grabbing the random bloggers to pitch to is like creating multiple tiny ripples with limited influence. No one knows where the impact came from, and the influence can be easily forgotten. With a little bit of research using Google Insights, for example, you can easily find out what people in any market are searching for when it comes to your product or brand. Leverage their habits you can communicate with them on what they’re already fascinated by. Here’s a simple example: Searches for BMW spiked around interest in F1 in Singapore. Did BMW take advantage of that to reach out to people searching for it online?

3. Create a resource
Resources as opposed to corporate brochure sites are a great way to utilise the social media. Not only do people share them with others they know need them, but they often get bookmarked and referenced when needed. A resource could be anything from a niche search engine like ExpatFinder or a simple blog post like this one which was bookmarked on delicious by over 700 people.

4. Be your own media
Traditional PR tells us to communicate to the mass media and make use of their platform to influence the public. In the social media we get the chance to be our own media. One of the best examples in Singapore is Yesterday.sg. This is a blog run by the National Heritage Board and it is not only a marketing tool for the organisation, but also a really useful media resource for anyone interested in heritage and history in Singapore.

5. Create content that spreads
Everyone loves viral videos. But what’s better than one viral video is a viral series. A lot of marketers try for that one big viral campaign. But why stop there when you can make a whole show? The prime example is definitely Gary Vaynerchuk’s Wine Library TV. All he does is sits behind a desk, talks about wine and goes crazy over the New York Jets. This simple production has become a real hit online. What’s interesting here is that while he could have sold the show to TV networks or cable channels, he continues to provide it free online. Why? Because when things are online with a permanent link, they spread! People share these in email, on their blogs, in social bookmarks. Try that with TV shows.

6. Build community
The final point I made was the importance of building a community. Not just getting eyeballs on your fancy campaign, but get them to come back again and again. Get them to contribute content, make them talk to each other, make it worth their while in participating on your platform. Every organisation I believe can build community from their base of fans to the smallest of niche user groups. Communities make people realise that they’re not the only ones using your product and can easily get support and feedback from the community. Marketters should also think about growing these communities empowering existing members to help new members. Software companies such as Six Apart are especially good at this.