Social Media Is Rocket Surgery
22 Oct
In an excellent blog post, Amy Mengel lists five reasons why firms are failing at social media. To support her conclusion that social media “isn’t rocket surgery,” Amy says:
Social media isn’t complicated. When you boil it down it’s about listening to your customers, being helpful by offering your knowledge and giving them interesting content to share and thereby advocate for you.”
I have to disagree with Amy. It is rocket surgery.
Rocket surgery is, of course, a proxy for something really, really difficult to do.
But there’s one really, really big difference between rocket surgery and social media: A lot of people have been doing rocket surgery for quite a while now. True, there may few people who are good at rocket science or brain surgery, but there’s a science there.
There is no science with social media. There are no documented processes or best practices. And despite the popularity of some social media bloggers and authors, there is absolutely no one certified as a social media expert.
To Amy’s point, it doesn’t sound complicated. But, for years, firms have been “listening to customers” (market research is hardly a new field), “offering their knowledge” (plenty of salespeople in stores and in call centers have helped me make product decisions), and providing “interesting content” (I’ve received excellent newsletters from Vanguard and Fidelity for years).
What we’re talking about when we talk about social media is something different. And despite all the folks rushing to publish their books and get hired to speak at conferences (the consultainers), there’s no science here yet.
So for the time being, social media is rocket surgery.
There’s a reason why this is important: While many marketers are (rightfully) excited by the changes taking place in marketing, in many firms (across many industries), marketing (the department) doesn’t enjoy a great reputation.
There are plenty of reasons why this is the case, and they vary across firms. Diagnosing the reasons why isn’t of importance to this post. What is important is understanding what marketers can do to change perceptions and demonstrate contributions to bottom line results.
Re-establishing marketing as a legitimate business discipline would be a good start.
The lack of process orientation and measurement discipline in so many marketing groups isn’t helping. And quite frankly, many social media gurus and experts aren’t helping either. Anecdotes and “best practices” which consist of nothing more than examples of what some other firm is doing is not helping to create a marketing discipline.
Nor are the ridiculous attempts to create new measurement approaches. For an example of what I’m talking about, see the YouTube clip in this blog post. As I’ve said before, this is mind-boggingly stupid.
There’s a mindset that exists in the social media — no, make that marketing — community today. That it’s “easy.” Marketing isn’t easy. It is rocket surgery.
One last point: While I disagree with Amy’s assertion that social media isn’t rocket surgery, her description of the five reasons why firms are failing is excellent and spot on. It’s a great blog post.
That is certainly an entertaining title for the post alluding to the perceived difficulty of a socail media strategy for corporations. What you are bringing to light is the unknown of how to measure it, how to implement it, who to involve, and per your post who to trust with managing it. I couldn’t agree more that “experts” who are emerging aren’t really well versed or experienced with this strategy or implementation of a concept, which social media really is. Social media is that ambiguous blend of technology and human capital that organizations tend to not understand very well at all. These two elements are the most expensive and sensitive resources for companies and decisions related to them are often approached so carefully and at times, with such fear that the ultimate implementation of a solution is half baked and falls short of the real value that it can deliver.
The bottom line with connecting to consumers or your client is that you have to be prepared for brutal honesty. The most profitable best liked companies who engage with projects that solicit input and feedback from their clients WILL receive negative feedback. It is inevitable. P&G is a model company that effectively leverages social media and consumer feedback effectively.
It’s what you do with that data, how you respond to those individuals, and the manner in which you truly embrace constructive criticism that will benefit a company long term and contribute to the success of a social media project.
Joe: Years ago (12 to be exact), a former colleague of mine wrote a report called The Third Skill. What he was talking about was that, at the time, businesses needed a new skill from their people. There were people with marketing skills, and there were people with technology skills. But “new media” skills — the third skill — was in short supply, and in fact, not existent at the time.
Today, we need a fourth skill — social media. I’m simply not buying the claims of some of the early attention grabbers in the space that they have this skill, let alone are able to teach it to other people.
I’m not sure there’s a great deal of science involved in social media marketing to try to uncover. I see it as more of an art–and some people have a gift for it while others don’t. It can be hard to translate social media art into best practice science, b/c so much of it is instinctual and personality-driven.
In which case, you are right: People shouldn’t be going around professing to teach social media marketing when the key to their success is their own super-special personality, and not some list of bullets that just anyone can spin into social media gold…
The other thing here to consider is whether or not the direct marketing team should own social media. I think pretty much all social networking sites are put to more effective use by PR and customer service (with PR being the top dog). Maybe I am biased, given my anecdotal, artsy-fartsy experience, but I think the best use of social media is for story telling, not driving immediate direct response. And that’s PR’s job.
I try to connect online with smart people who tell interesting stories on their Blogs and Twitter (like you, Ron), and have a very hard time understanding what kind of person would use Twitter to receive and respond to direct marketing. Imagine logging into Twitter or Facebook and seeing Mr. Clean on your homepage? I have a hard enough time as is dealing with all those Kanye Wests out there.
JC: The body of “science” around social media is growing. But I think it would be wrong to simply conclude it’s all art.
The following links are some examples of what I’m referring to as “social media science”:
http://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=1480088
http://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=1460183
http://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=1344756
http://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=1418625
http://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=1261751