Future of Social Marketing

The future of social marketing is not linear, it’s layered as much of it is already here, with much more yet to come.

I’ve been tripping over the social web for a few years now, initially just as an user, then later trying to manipulate it for SEO and traffic generation purposes.

I have made the mistake of blazing in stinking of spam and tripped the occasional scam detectors. I have been desperate for attention and also made the mistake of starting and finishing the conversation all in one post… Not leaving any room for others to participate… Like there is no future to social marketing.

Now! I am more realistic, more open and more transparent. I think we all begin our journey by edging into the social sphere with only one aspect of ourselves exposed. Clinging on to privacy like a baby to with a security blanket. Wanting everything but not prepared to give anything away for free.

I started my journey in the social web as ‘JD’ but it’s not my real name or even a nickname in real life… But online it’s how everyone knows me. It feels weird if someone uses my real name online and even weirder when someone uses my virtual name in real life.

Just 2 hours ago I had a conversation in Google chat with an old mate from a virtual world ‘Entropia Universe’ where everyone is leading two lives. This is Timm in the perceived persona of Dreamdancer talking with Paul in the (my) perceived persona of JD about Timm’s other persona of Rothorsekid. Whats interesting here is that even after years of communicating online I still have 3 separate impressions of each character and the only thing that would merge those is a sharing a beer in real life.

Dreamdancer: hey mate. I find you are not following me on twitter. twitter.com/rothorsekid
Me: ahh… which of twitter accounts LOL
Dreamdancer: _JD_ I believe lol
Me: I split up my multiple personalities into different accounts
Dreamdancer: hehe… I did the exact opposite, i went all out on the web, fuck privacy linked my real name with the rothorsekid nick via twitter …you can even follow me on latitude it’s kind of an experiment.
Me: yeah I’m think of eventually changing the JD to my real name.
Dreamdancer: I feel, at 35, my notion of privacy became outdated… Actually it feels weird… I was the archetypal privacy advocate… I believe it is not about shuttering off your so-called ‘private life’, but about actively modeling other people’s view of your ‘private’ self. There are things in our ‘private’ lifes, like friendship, sexuality or political views, where the digital natives showed us disclosing them is not bad at all. we have the laws in place to handle each and every problem that may arise from that view. But I also learned from my kids that there are things in life that do not belong online. ever. what these are varies individually, I guess.

The ‘Digital Natives’ that Dreamdancer refers to are those born after 1980.

The last wave of digital natives (born after 1990) are the MSN and Myspace Junkies, not quite on Facebook and Twitter because that’s where Dad hangs out!

Twitter at the moment is at the front line of the social web and a good way to understand it is the birth, life and death of this post… I’m writing about the Future of Social Marketing, but what do I know about it? What does anyone else know about it? A Google search is only going to favor outdated articles but Twitter is a different story. This post was inspired from a tweet on twitter which linked to a blog which I have also commented on, this article will be broadcast on twitter, have a short life depending on retweets, later it will get picked up by my RSS subscribers and in the future it may get served up in a few Google searches. It’s a whole new circle of life for the original post that I will link to shortly.

First, lets go back to the start.

I Prepared this search using the Twitter Search tool » Future of Social Marketing - I hope that when you click on that link you still find mention of a guy who really knows what the future of the social web is becoming, I was lucky to stumble across his informed thoughts due to my daily social web activity.

In his career blog article ‘The Future of the Social Web: In Five Eras‘, Forrester Analyst - Jeremiah Owyang covers a few of the aspects covered in the $749 report compiled for the big name brand subscribers of Forrester.com

His 5 eras are a little corporate so lets see if I can sum them up in under 140 characters each
But first, its important to note that the eras are layered and not linear.

1. People connecting online
   We are at the peak of this right now; Myspace, Youtube, FaceBook, Twitter
2. Social operating systems
   Everyday there is a new Twitter or social application to play with on our computers and phones, but while this era has started we have a long way to go before there is no such thing as surfing to a social media site to participate.
3. One ID to rule them all
   How many social sites have you joined and trialed in the last year? Imagine a future where every experience is social and its your operating system that you sign into… Only! There is no need for any other passwords… convenient or scary?
4. Content is no longer fixed
   Currently you post content to a fixed place like a website or blog, Twitter hints at the idea that when you tweet, your content gets retweeted and starts its own journey for as long as its relevant. The future - one would hope - is that content will become more accurate and the authors will become more transparent. The motive for writing the article becomes just as important as the subject matter, when deciding if it is of value to the reader. My fear is that, as more people and more marketers jump on the Social Web it will just become a useless mess unless era #2 arrives early.
5. Shared social and commercial experiences
   This one is crucial to understand, if indeed, you are here to get a glimpse at the future of social marketing as opposed to the future of the social web. Long term success in social marketing does not come from a direct approach. In social communications the author and his motives are easily read and trust comes from transparency and honesty. Good, clear social relationships with your clients and potential clients will recreate the word of mouth effect online. Give an actively social person a good experience and they will share that experience with others. Your product is not as good as your claims, it’s only as good as its visible, independent and easy to find recommendations.

I think the recent developments with Google profiles appearing at the bottom of matching name searches is a hint that Google may be preparing to dominate the concept of ‘One ID to rule them all’ or at the very least it allows you to have the ability to have some say in your own digital biography.

I passed Jeremiah’s article on to a colleague across the road who is just getting his feet wet online - eluvius (AKA Frank) - I dragged him into the social web kicking and screaming so his thoughts are always worth publishing…

So how does all this become useful to the social marketer?

1. In your niche world of social marketing you will easily find your competitors and have to look harder to find your potential customers.
2. Buying is often impulsive and then justified by communicating the benefits of your purchase to others. Therefore, you will easily find customers you have missed rather than customers ready to buy your product.
3. If your selling ’sleeping bags’, climb up your vertical market and create a social broadcast that is valuable to a broader community of active campers. You may even have to create the community yourself.
4. Short term social marketing may be about having 20,000 followers on Twitter, but long term social marketing is about having 20 connected friends that listen and will go out of there way to get your message out. Knowing 20,000 people might make you $20,000 dollars but having Oprah know you, can make you 20 Million!
5. Clearly define which aspect of your identity is the most valuable to the most people. Start connecting with your niche community now, well before you have realized the ideal product to offer them.
6. If you choose not to participate in the social web, be prepared for the social web to interact with all your content and presence online.
7. Start identifying and connecting with connected people in your market, go out of your way to help them out, offer them free use of your products, give them 110% support and convert them into passionate advocates of everything you offer.
8. Get all your technology and online assets ready for a more social web.
9. Design your content so that it can survive in a nomadic journey across the internet. Publish your content and conversations to as many diverse URL’s and social sites that you can discover.
10. Identify the 20% of your social efforts and social media sites that are increasing your traffic, subscribers, followers, friends, reputation, perceived value and ultimately sales. Let the other 80% go so that you can be more vigilante, more active and valuable to the biggest and most attentive crowds.

The real future of the Social Web is in the hands of - and I quote Donna Seaman here from her Booklist review of “Born Digital“, a book that tries to understanding the First Generation of Digital Natives born after 1980 - “the myriad ways downloading, text-messaging, Massively Multiplayer Online Games–playing, YouTube-watching youth are transforming society.”

The real future a social marketing is one where we - as marketers - will first of all, completely abuse the current platforms to the point where every tactic we use on them will become completely transparent to the web savvy Baby Boomers and Generation X’s with money. And on the flip side, the always online lifestyles of the not so cashed up Digital Natives will mature into a new benchmark for the term ‘web savvy’.

The future online consumer will be; an expert at the Google search, connected to every one of your previous customers, able to uncover scams in a single click, faster than a manipulative internet marketer, and sickened by the mass launch, squeeze page, viral script, one time offer, upsell, down sell, cross sell and future sell approach to marketing.

I will sell your product for you because:

• I really did buy it
• I really, really loved it
• I told 20,000 people that already trust me
• My comments are public, well syndicated and easy to find
• And I feel that I owe you something

But don’t get too hyped by the buzz of the social media phenomenon because the people who are not using it are not here to have there say, which in itself may be thee best reason to get onboard before them. Twitter was once a community that quickly became dominated by work at home marketers craving some social interaction and will soon skyrocket as more and more publicly followed celebrities break the current record breaking followers mark.

Saying Twitter out load in your offline communities is still a bit like say ‘dungeons and dragons’ in the 80’s and owning a mobile phone in the 90’s

The real power of social marketing is simply being proficient and efficient at searching and responding to the daily conversations happening around your; niche, vertical markets, and products.

The rest is old school communication and networking.

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