Summary
Clients are actively being asked by their management in almost every effort, 'How is this social?' Every marketer should aim to educate themselves as to what makes for a viable effort that has social implications. But how can you gently tell colleagues and clients not everything can be social or should be?
Analysis
Last year, we had a challenge educating just about everyone as to why when our content providers Twittered their audience it had innate value for us as a brand.
And this year...
Sometimes I find colleagues or clients thinking about how their ideas are going to be picked up on Twitter. That may be fine for something that doesn't have an immediate acquisition effort. Even worse, sometimes people begin with Twitter and then try and back into the idea.
We've come around on a very tight full 140 character circle.
I can only advise everyone who's looking for social media ideas to make it simpler and continue to look for good ideas. I begin with a concept that's consistent with our brand, I look to ensure that it's topical for our audience and where this is potentially going to be marketed. Once I solve those two traditional digital questions, I think about how is this execution has enough sustainability and individual personality so that the audience would clearly find use. If all three pass our guideline tests, we'll begin putting the tools and utilities to try and grant some social best practices. We've learned the talent or brand ambassador involved in beginning the content dialogue have a lot to do with making it social. It's more of an endorsement or acknowledgment than a pure marketing ad.
It rarely works to say, "We should use Twitter," and come up with a concept or find someone with a big enough Twitter following. There may be a discussion but the brand won't be as involved.
And it never works to ask 'Why isn't Twitter on the plan?' Or at least not in June of 2009. We'll see where Twitter goes in time but it's not going to be this.
