Social Media – Channel or Destination?

The past few years, the emphasis on businesses adoption of social media has been on how a channel designed for peer-to-peer interactions can realize its business-to-consumer potential. Some organizations understand they need to have a dialogue with customers and resist the urge to control the conversation, as they did in the age of expensive and exclusive media. These businesses are thriving through the transition to a world where social channels dominate the landscape.

As a marketer for a multi-channel customer service software company, I’ve followed the rise of social with particular interest since I've been in a position to dabble with it as a marketing channel early on. Today, MySpace is one of my company’s major customers, I’ve invested in LinkedIn’s ad evolution, run joint marketing projects with major community platforms, and been close to my company’s acquisition of a social media powerhouse. We’ve also developed a social monitoring tool, and released a major Facebook integration.

I now find myself in the unusual position of using social media to sell social media to social media companies. From dabbling and conceptualizing a few years ago, I’m all-in today.

Brands used to invite customers to engage on company turf like the website or retail locations but meaningful engagement is now predicated on going where your customers are. Where they are is on social media sites and their expectations are that brands respect protocol and participate in authentic and transparent conversations that are not sales pitches.

This has given rise to the concept of “earned media” and is responsible for the reinvention of the “media mix.”

Traditional Media Mix
Billboard / Print
Broadcast
Direct mail

New Media Mix
Paid
Owned
Earned

Paid encompasses traditional channels like advertising, the standard model where a brand pays for exposure.

Owned describes the channel a brand controls, the company website or company sponsored Facebook or Twitter page.

Earned describes the social enabled channel. If a happy customer blogs, tweets or posts about their experience with your brand, that’s earned exposure.

In just a few years, we’ve seen most major consumer brands become adept at encouraging and contributing to earned media. They really have no choice. We’ve all witnessed how quickly a brand can implode as the result of a negative video gone viral. Business can’t afford to play defense in the social realm.

Now, hybrid models are emerging. TV commercials (paid media) are beginning to direct consumers to brand pages on Facebook (owned media) instead of the brand website (also owned media.) My reaction when I noticed this was, what’s the point? A brand-owned Facebook page is still owned media. Isn’t it better to send consumers to your website where you have more control over the content and design?

Then I realized how trusted and familiar the Facebook interface is and how much it encourages interaction. A brand’s FB page may be owned media but it occurs within the framework of one of the most successful earned media models.

Now, social media, not long ago considered merely another media channel, is becoming much more. It’s transitioning to the latest brand destination and potentially the new face of the brand.

Will this encourage greater brand affinity? Will it drive sales? It’s too early to tell, but you might want to invest in spiffing up your brand’s presence on Facebook. Experimenting with directing customers there in your advertisements also couldn’t hurt.