Think “long term” in social media marketing

I am now reading the book "The New Rules of Marketing & PR" by David Meerman Scott. I want to mention one little line that I read in the beginning of the book that is really important to think about. The author lists the "old rules of marketing" which he means are ineffective and have to be transformed. I don't completely agree since he claims that marketing before only meant advertising and branding, which is far from true in my sector. The performing arts sector has for many years been working with audience development and relation building programs to reach new audiences, young audiences, socially and geographically disadvantaged groups etc. 

But now let's get to the thing that really caught my eyes in a positive sense. Meerman Scott writes that in the old rules "advertisement was based on campaigns that had a limited life." This means that in the "new rules", in the world of social media, you should think the opposite:

Social media marketing shouldn't be based on campaigns with a limited life. I understand "don't think short term and don't expect short term results in social media" from that. 



This is being confirmed by a post that Mitch Joel wrote today on his blog Six Pixels of Separation. He is trying to answer a question he is always getting from people: "What should I do online?" He means that it is not important whether you are on Twitter or Facebook, but to network in a "real and authentic way" and that "It's not sexy and it doesn't add to your bottom line... today.". But the underline is that networking eventually will get sexy and add to your bottom line if you are one of VERY few people who do it in the right way. The "rock stars" of their industry.

The long term perspective is really important to have in mind in a sector which is based on productions/events which always have a limited life: Productions take over after others, and fast and frequent changes can make long term marketing strategies difficult to maintain. It is easy for performing arts marketers to get into a treadmill of campaigning without taking a step back to really overview the benefit of the strategies. In the rush of not wanting to miss out on the "hype", social media could easily be used according to the "old rules", as a way of advertising, a one way communication.

The performing arts sector should use social media in a long term perspective, which means a real investment in time and long term objectives. But since we are, as I wrote before, already really good at relation building and at audience development programs, and sometimes have whole departments working on education for young people, this should not be an alien approach to marketing. Marketing in terms of "campaigning" and audience development in terms of "building relations and outreach programs" are often parallel paths done by different people in a theatre. These paths may have to merge to create a strong social media strategy.