Social media stand for community and collaboration

The past weekend and I've been doing some more sophisticated reading about social media. A friend handed me a research report in the subject. It includes all the basics, and since the ultimate way of gaining new knowledge is to start from "go", I'm thrilled.

I found a very simple thing interesting: What social media are not.

Social media are not newsletters that people can subscribe to. Social media are not comment systems, where people can post comments but not go further in their exchange. Social media are therefore not one way communication systems where one person, company or association stands as the remitter. Social media are signified by community and collaboration. This might seem very basic, but considering the use of existing social media sites (and I am then in particular thinking about Facebook that is so widely spread) it is obvious that social media are not by far reaching its potential when it comes to marketing arts and small non-profit organizations. What I have seen so far, with only a few exceptions, is by definition not considered as social media. The positive aspect: there is a lot of potential, and according to the report advertisers are in the process of exploring campaign possibilities right now. So there is still time.

There is a built-in problem when it come social media and marketing for commercial purposes. A social media site is depending on the user community to create content and spread the site. This participation in a site generates a sense of ownership within the community. So, if the members of a community suddenly get the feeling that they are being used for commercial purposes, they can easily experience this as a betrayal and lose their engagement for the site. It is therefore important for the social media site's actual owner to be very careful when it comes to exploiting the community for commercial purposes. However, the marketing ads or campaigns on the sites are of course not only coming from the actual owners (google ads etc) but within the community itself. And that's where it is specifically interesting for local arts and small non-profit organizations, because here the marketing is free and the success is based on creativity, and the report also says that many users are willing to participate in and drive viral marketing campaigns if they are designed in an appropriate way and that the users feel that they can gain something themselves. So the door is open.

One very successful campaign from last year, which used the gain for the community as an important diffusion factor, was the IKEA facebook showroom campaign. Facebook members tagged happily their names on photos of IKEA products, created within a facebook account, with the intention of winning them. By tagging their name they also spread the IKEA campaign (and the IKEA products) to all their facebook friends. This is certainly a great way of using an existing social media function to spread a commercial product and still get goodwill for it. A big part of the success was however the worldwide buzz about the brilliance of the campaign itself. Smart social media marketing can of course be effectively used for arts or non-profit organisations working an a local market, but the worldwide wow-factor of the IKEA campaign is not necessary to get local audience in the seats of a theatre. It is enough with a local buzz. You just have to find the way to get it. 

The thought for today: Respect the community and think collaboration.