Page 281 - Social Media Marketing

No More Interruptions 259

By repeatedly intruding into the personal attention streams of an audience, marketing ■ ╇ W hat I s a S ocial O bject ?
has created a challenge for itself when it comes to social media. Unlike traditional media,
where interruptions are part of the media stream’s inherent properties, the opportunity
and mechanism for an interruption is decidedly weaker on the Social Web. Interruptions
are replaced by choice-based actions, under the control of the content consumer rather
than the content provider. This makes the social object—the point around which social
exchange occurs—fundamentally important. It also makes the way in which a marketer
uses or participates in the context of that social object critical to success.

The shift in perspective—from the position of control to respect for the now-in-
control participant—means that it is not always immediately obvious how to partici-
pate as a marketer in a social setting. Default behaviors—placing Facebook display ads
like so many street postings scattered around a popular part of town—abound in the
hopes that with so many people collected around Facebook activities that someone will
notice the attendant advertising. Guess what? Some do. Facebook ads work, but they
aren’t (by themselves) social.

To be sure, this traditional approach to the Social Web can work in the same
way that traditional advertising works on TV (through interruption and exposure),
which is to say “can work pretty well.” Display ads and similar traditional advertising
efforts ported to the Web can be effective. Even better, they are measurable and can be
tuned through established A/B testing efforts. So, display ads will likely be part of your
overall program for the foreseeable future. But again, display ads aren’t social, beyond
the conversation that sometimes forms around the ad itself, for example as with Super
Bowl spots.

The important aspect to understand here is that social media marketing is an
extension, a complement (and sometimes the fundamental driver) of an overall market-
ing program. Getting the design of the social media marketing program right means
tapping an additional and nonduplicative set of resources—social technologies and
the social interactions and the connection points they enable. These social activities
can help you sustain interest and activity around your business beyond the immediate
awareness and point of sale advertising efforts: These social activities are ultimately
built around one or more social objects.

This is why the social object—and your approach in creating, sustaining, or
otherwise connecting the interest and actions that form around it to your brand, prod-
uct, or service—is important. Because you can’t easily interrupt people on the Social
Web—at least not twice—you have to choose a social object that is inherently mean-
ingful to some portion of your customer base and implement a participative strategy
that naturally connects your business to your audience, through that social object.
Figure€10.1 shows the Pampers Village community. The social object—babies, along