Sales messages in social media; does it work?

Posted on 10. May, 2008 by Michael Brito in Social Media

This morning while on Linkedin, someone who I am connected to asked the following question to their network:

Which are your 3 best SMM (Social Media Marketing) tips?
Looking at primarily Facebook and Youtube, as well as social bookmarking tools such as; del.icio.us, digg and twitter - which are you top 3 advices to succeed with sharing your sales message.

I have yet to answer the question but I am planning on it.  I thought I would first chime in here.  As I consider myself somewhere in the middle of a purist and corporatist, I often find myself torn on the most effective way to execute social media. I realize that most users of social media despise marketing messages and/or filter them out anyway.  I also realize the true value of having “real conversations” with “real people”.  I believe that it’s not just about conversations, but the content of those conversations. As a consumer, I want to talk about topics that I am passionate about. As a marketer who spends most of my time in social media, I want those conversations to be relevant to the product or service that I am responsible for. 

This is the dilemma. How do you have authentic conversations (relevant to both you and the consumer) without pushing any sales or marketing messages?  I believe that this is the golden nugget; and when marketers can master this, they can potentially create loyal brand ambassadors, gain significant credibility in the marketplace and achieve ultimate sales success (geez, I sound like a slimy marketing guy, don’t I?).

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8 Comments

Posted in Social Media

8 Responses to “Sales messages in social media; does it work?”

  1. Bren

    11. May, 2008

    You’re not slimy, but the question isn’t much of dilemma either. The path to authenticity is by literally loving/beliving in your work (or product, whatever) AND actually caring about helping your customers and prospects.

    If we ever find ourselves trying to “figure out” how to do either one of those things, it’s time to reevaluate some stuff.

    How to execute this? Again, pretty easy but, like any real conversation, tough to scale efficiently. When you care about someone, you offer help selflessly. Pointers, tips, tricks, shortcuts, advice. All without expectation of return. Because that’s one of the ways to express caring. Further, if you’re selfless, then it’s no problem to point out your own solution–even if you’re “pushing a sales/marketing message.” That’s because the heart of intent comes through clearly.

    I know it still sounds paradoxical…marketing without marketing; selling without selling. But I’ve read enough of your stuff (longtime listener, first time caller here) to suspect that you are comfortable with the mystery. But the semantics of the language of mystery never ceases to be fun to mess around with. :-)

  2. Michael Brito

    11. May, 2008

    @Brendon

    Thanks for the comment; excellent point(s). Perhaps dilemma was not the appropriate word. Maybe it’s opportunity. It’s pretty easy to “theoretically” talk about social media best practices; but it’s another thing to actually “walk the walk”. Still today, I see many companies that use social media to push marketing messages just like in every other marketing channel; so the opportunity would be for them to “rethink” their approach and as you said, discover that “The path to authenticity is by literally loving/believing in your work (or product, whatever) AND actually caring about helping your customers and prospects”

  3. Kenny Lauer

    12. May, 2008

    See, the thing is it has always been “about the content” of the conversation not the conversation itself. Talk to anyone in a call center, they know that. They always have. Now that we have shifted to more relationship building in contact centers, it is even more important to focus on the conversation.

    What we have now is simply more vehicles to communicate with (through?). Yes, companies now have to go to where their customers are playing and use the tools their customers play with, but the conversations should still be authentic, genuine, and serving for the customer.

  4. Michael Brito

    12. May, 2008

    @Kenny

    We are so on the same page. I am working on a post right now — titled “it’s the content of the conversation that really matters”.

    Thanks for the insight!

    Michael

  5. Tom O'Brien

    12. May, 2008

    Hi Michael:

    At WOMMU last week the Dell guy said that Dell has already sold over $500k worth of gear on Twitter - so they are selling something!

    Interesting.

    TO’B
    MotiveQuest LLC

  6. Bren

    12. May, 2008

    Sold $500k worth of gear, or replaced $500k worth of gear?

    I kid, I kid…. :-)

  7. Kenny Lauer

    12. May, 2008

    tom, I’d like to know how exactly they have done this. Because this would be real ROI.

    After seeing and talking with both Richard Binhammer (a la richardatDell) and the sony playstation guys, I have notice a crucial piece in the whole social media company infrastructure that is missing. Even Felix Serna of Sun Microsystems agrees that learnings from social media interactions are not integrated into other customer facing parts of the organization like CMS or CRM systems have done. This process would provide metrics that could link to ROI

  8. stuart brown

    16. May, 2008

    You say; “I want those conversations to be relevant to the product or service that I am responsible for.”

    Perhaps if these people are talking to you then the conversation is relevant to the product or service, even though it might not be specifically about that product or service.

    The relationships you build and the opinions you affect during these conversations may not immediately pay off in a sales way, but IMHO they will have a positive effect. The crucial aspect is finding a way to prove this of course.

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