The tone of my social market voice is ‘human’
Thanks to the web, people (aka your customers) are becoming better informed, smarter and more demanding of their favoured brands. They are using social media to do this and creating in the process something that is being termed ’socially networked markets’. As these markets organise themselves, companies that have traditionally served the needs of these people (your customers) face a real choice - join this conversation or risk missing out on perhaps the most exciting opportunity your business has ever had.
But how do you join this conversation? Is social media marketing the answer?
If you read the latest blogs by Windchimes, Doc Searls or Brian Solis or the Cluetrain manifesto you’re likely think, probably not; and here’s why.
Social media marketing is not …
Social media marketing is not about “delivering messages”. It does not involve “talking to” an “audience”, or “driving the conversation”. It does not include “demographic sectors”, “surveys”, “positioning”, or “announcements”. In short, it is not social media + marketing.
Social media is about conversations between people as equal partners. It’s about an open and frank exchange of experiences, ideas and personal opinions; and it uses a language that is natural, open, honest, direct and funny. It can be critical and shocking and is sometimes offensive. In other words, it has a human voice that is unmistakably genuine and can’t be faked.
Compare this to the vast majority of company communications, including your own marketing material, where the voice is usually a soothing, humorless, monotone that is both contrived and artificial, and has been selected and carefully managed to ensure a consistent “tone” across all touch points. It is a style of communication that has probably severed you well up to now; but to quote Dylan, “the times they are a changin”.
With over 500 million users on social networks, socially networked markets are the new markets; but they require a new form of customer relationship and a new tone of voice.
It will be the nature and form that these new relationships take that defines your profile in these socially networked markets, and is why “relationships are the new metric” for the return on your marketing investment. While the voice in these socially networked markets is unmistakably human. Do you speak it yet?
Credits: Thanks to Windchimes, Doc Searls, Brian Solis and the Cluetrain manifesto for the inspiration and some of the words
Tags: Cluetrain manifesto, human voice, social media marketing, social media voice