“Our customers don’t use social media, so why should we make it part of our marketing?” That’s a question I hear a lot, and one that Marshall Kirkpatrick over at ReadWriteWeb addresses in his post “5 Ways to reach people who don’t use social media.” Here’s a summary. #3 is especially good.
- Develop relationships with people who bridge the gap inside organizations. (Reach out to younger people who use social media and influence decisions.)
- Use Web 2.0 tools to learn about real life public events. (Find out what they are attending and reading using Web 2.0 tools.)
- Make your blog an email newsletter. (Yes!)
- Look harder, your audience probably is using social media. (Think YouTube, LinkedIn)
- Use the Internet to make yourself smarter in real life. (Even if your marketing organization isn’t adopting social media, you can use it to propel your career and performance.)
Hi Lois,
I run a social media marketing consultancy in the UK (www.itsopen.co.uk) and was interested to read your piece about customers not using social media.
Our approach when talking to clients and prospects about social media is to recommend that they find out what their customers are doing first on blogs, flickr, youtube etc before deciding how they are going to engage with them. Better to support and encourage them than to impose ideas which could be totally irrelevant.
I find it surprising to hear that some company’s customers don’t have any social media activities…It might be an idea to look at what is happening in their industry as a whole and see if there is evidence of blogging, podcasting, videos etc.
best wishes,
Justin
http://www.itsopen.co.uk
I agree that gaining an understanding of their customers use of social media (or lack of it) is paramount. Forrester calls it the Social Technographics Ladder. If a company discovers their customers are lower down the ladder, that will have bearing on the social media tactics used, or even whether they should be at all. To do otherwise, is to have the tail wagging the dog don’t you think?
Also, I like #3. Been a big proponent of that for years. Don’t throw email out with the bathwater. It’s still the #1 Internet marketing tactic in use today. Why? Because it still works.
Number 6: You don’t have to use social media to be influenced by it. Mainstream news media use the internet for all kinds of research. Today, more and more journalists are either writing blogs or reading blogs to explore ideas. The notion that social media may not reach people who don’t use social media is another way for people say “I don’t want to try.” I am not a true PR man, because I don’t actively pitch media on a regular basis. But when I do have to opportunity to speak with journalists, I am not surprised to learn they are using social media as another source. If you need proof, then wander on over to Daylife (http://www.daylife.com). Find the Labs section and click on the second link: “Daylife Does Link Analysis (View Project). If you choose to do this, then you will see “blogs and the mainstream news articles to which they link.” Social media works.