New Comm Biz

We have reached the tipping point.

• 90% of US adults are online*
• 80% of US online adults participate in social media**

Unless you are targeting the very poor and/or the elderly, as marketers, you do not have to target those who do not participate in social media.

Everything you create has to be social.

Everything you do had better have social media at the heart of it. I am not saying it is the only thing you do. I am saying that everything you do had better be social. Your goal of all marketing communications should be to get your content into the social media conversation.

Sometimes the main stream media will accomplish that for you, but they are no longer the goal. I’ll give you a tip, the media was never the goal; the customers were, are and always will be.

“But the key decision makers I’m targeting don’t use social media that way.” Maybe not but I promise the people they get their information from – analysts, search engines, coworkers and reporters – do.

What other arguments are there? By targeting social media you will hit almost 3/4 of your users. Then how much of current news media is generated via social networks? You will still hit a significant portion of those remaining 1/4. Quit talking to the media and start talking to your customers. If the conversations are good the media will cover that. But the media, like your customers, are more interested in good conversations than your announcement.

The challenge is identifying the right social media activities to enable based on who you’re actually trying to reach.

Here’s the new process (which *shouldn’t* be that much different):

1. Create great socially enabled content. (Is it compelling, shareable and embeddable?)
2. Seed that content to key, social networks, conversation starters and influencers. (This can be anyone from reporters, bloggers or key customers.)
3. Monitor and participate in the conversation as it grows. (What’s working, what’s not. Share other people’s conversation/content with above influencers.)
4. Continue the conversation with more great content. (Story telling is non-linear and cyclical not a one time shot.)
5. Repeat.

Yes, Europe (Forrester link) and Asia are still a little behind. But by next year-ish this should be globally true.

Why are we still having this discussion? I’m over it.

*(85-95% depending on which survey’s you choose to believe)
**(According to Forrester’s latest research)

Photo credit: HI-LITE

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