Social Media - How to Apply it as Technology and Marketing - Part 7

Part 7 is a review.  As we've now discussed various ways to be using and linking social media, it's time to review the rules.

Marketing Fundamentals - What we used to do is NOT the same as the present.

Let's remember the highly recommended book.

Let's not get stuck in the paths of the past.  Let's treat the customer how he / she wants to be treated and let's interact and listen.

The Old Rules of Marketing and PR:

• Marketing simply meant advertising
• Advertising needed to appeal to the masses
• Advertising relied on interrupting people to get them to pay attention to a message
• Advertising was one-way

o   Company-to-consumer

• Advertising was exclusively about selling products
• Creativity was deemed the most important component of advertising.
• It was more important for the ad agency to win advertising awards than for the client to win new customers.
• Advertising and PR were separate disciplines run by different people with separate goals, strategies, and measurement criteria.
• Advertising was based on campaigns that had limited life.
• The only way to get ink was through the media
• Companies communicated to journalists via press releases
• Nobody saw the actual press release except a handful of reporters and editors
• Companies had to have significant news before they were allowed to write a press release
• Jargon was okay because journalists all understood it.
• You weren’t supposed to send a press release unless it included quotes from third parties, such as customers, analysts, and experts.
• The only way buyers would learn about the press release’s content was if the media wrote a story about it.
• The only way to measure the effectiveness of press releases was through “clip book,” which noted each time the media deigned to pick up a company’s release.
• PR and marketing were separate disciplines run by different people with separate goals, strategies, and measurement techniques.

The NEW Rules of Marketing and PR:

• Marketing is more than just advertising
• PR is for more than just a mainstream media audience
• You are what you publish
• People want authenticity, not spin
• People want participation, not propaganda
• Instead of causing one-way interruption, marketing is about delivering content at just the precise moment your audience needs it.
• Marketers must shift their thinking from mainstream marketing to the masses to a strategy of reaching vast numbers of underserved audiences via the Web.
• PR is not about your boss seeing your company on TV.  It’s about your buyers seeing your company on the Web.
• Marketing is not about your agency winning awards.  It’s about your organization winning business.
• The Internet has made public relations public again, after years of almost exclusive focus on media.
• Companies must drive people into the purchasing process with great online content.
• Blogs, podcasts, e-books, news releases, and other forms of online content let organizations communicate directly with buyers in a form they appreciate.
• On the Web, the lines between marketing and PR have blurred.

Again, reflect on these changes and continue the journey of how to think about these changes and how to implement them into your social media efforts.  Embrace the new and have fun.