Social Media Marketing, An Hour a Day: The Marketer’s Dilemma

Word-of-mouth, from a consumer, is generally considered trustworthy.  But what about when the source is a marketer?  How can you use word-of-mouth in your own campaigns? There is a basic, healthy human skepticism present whenever someone is making the case for why you need what he or she is selling. -Dave Evans

The other night, I was in bed watching a television program.  As soon as the program broke to commercials, I got up and went to get a snack before returning.  When I saw that the program still hadn’t returned, I busied myself with other things.   What I was doing was what Evans refers to as filtering.  Filtering, or separating what we need to know from what we don’t care to know- is something that is ingrained in us as humans.  So, are the commercials a waste of marketing dollars? No.  Chances are that there is someone out there who LOVES to sit through commercials.  However, if you think about it, the number of people who cannot stand to be interrupted with ads is numerous and growing each day.  After all, that’s why the DVR was invented, right?  You cannot discuss marketing, advertising or commercials without mentioning the “A” word: Avoidance.  As human beings and consumers in a free market, we are growing less tolerant of what we deem to be an encroachment upon our personal lives at the hands of marketers, ad agencies and general salespeople.

Building Trust & Getting the “Word” Out

Remember that saying, “honesty is the best policy”?  Well, it still holds true today- the thing is that many “marketing experts” fail to realize this.  They think that if they tell consumers what they’re up to that the consumer won’t want to consume anything that they have to offer. Tsk Tsk! On the contrary, transparency is of the utmost importance because it helps you to build a valuable relationship with other people.  And as we all know, you can’t build a solid relationship with anyone if you don’t trust them.

In marketing, one of the most powerful things you can do is establish trust with the consumer by disclosing exactly what you’re about.  As Evans stated:

If I am willing to disclose my own self-interest, then there is good reason to consider ‘truthful’ the balance of what I might say.

Being Transparent

According to Evans, part of the main reason that there has been a backlash against traditional advertising (giving way to the rise of the Social Web) is because people are sick of the intrustions, falsehoods and the general lack of respect for the individual.  The Social Web takes media and advertising in a whole new direction because the consumers control the conversations.  For example, if you buy a vacuum cleaner from a certain store and then it breaks down, there’s a good chance that you’re going to head straight for the Internet to write a review about it.  Similarly, when consumers are preparing to buy products, more of them are reading each others online reviews before making a decision.

As a marketer, being transparent is incredibly important.  You can’t stop consumers from talking about you or your product (whether good or bad), so why not embrace it and make the most out of the situation? Evans suggests that it’s when the advertising and marketing is low-key or quiet that the “trust” factor is the highest.  For example, according to Evans, a company might say:

Here, I made this.  It’s for sale.  Buy it and try it out.  If you like it, great.  If not, you can give it back and I will refund 100 percent of your money.

Some examples of companies who have done quite well with these types of word-of-mouth campaigns include the likes of: Starbucks, Red Bull, Hotmail and Amazon.

According to Evans:

• Marketers are facing a dilemma: Giving up control in order to gain a presence in the conversations that matter.
• It is the interruption that is driving the backlash that advertisers are feeling.
• The importance of disclosure as a means to establish trust cannot be overstated.
• Trust is essential to any form of conversation on the Social Web.
• Robust metrics and measurement are available that can be used to track and prove the effectiveness (or lack thereof) of social campaigns