The 4 Rules of Professional Social Media

The mouth has spoken: If you're going to be successful social media professional, best to play by the rules.

I belong to the club of people who like numbered lists. I feel like I've really accomplished something if I can check off some preordained order. That's probably why I love http://www.meosphere.com/ where you can check off everything from visited countries to watched Keanu Reeves' movies (I'm the list leader for that one).

So here's a list for you of the 4 rules of professional social media. I'm sure there are more, and you can add to this list through comments, but here's what the mouth has to say.

1. Embrace Transparency: don't try and fool your audience by "pretending" you are just another influencer. In Matthew Nelson article for clickz, "Teens want Branded Online Content" he points out that in a recent survey by Grunwald Associates states that "55 percent of teens in the past month have participated in some kind of advertiser-branded activity like visiting company profile pages, taking company-sponsored quizzes, and entering sponsored contests. Ninety percent of tweens and teens said they’d like to hear about one or more types of entertainment products on social networking sites, and 45 percent were willing to hear about special interest products, such as technology, sports, and automotive."
   
   In other words, people don't hate advertising - they only hate advertising that isn't relevant to their needs. Or in the mouth's word specifically to social media, people don't hate advertising, they hate advertising that acts to much like an ad and ignores the social platform.
   
   A good example of a transparent myspace page is for Jack-in-the-Box. www.myspace.com/jackbox. You can tell it's accepted because it has over 183,000 friends. And I would hope that EVERYONE knows that the page is really content for Jack-in-the-Box.
   
   But what people really hate is being tricked or lied to. PR powerhouse Edelman learned this when not disclosing that Walmart was the sponsor of a couple's cross-country RV jaunt up in http://walmartingacrossamerica.com/. Even though this is old news, it is probably still one of the best examples of bad social media.
   
   The example that might be the exception to the rule is a fresh look at lonelygirl15's postings on YouTube. The mouth is convinced that the videos became so popular because they were fake. So if you can build buzz around "is it or isn't it" I suppose you might consider breaking this rule.
   
   


2. Go for quality not just numbers when defining your target audience: Social media isn't just for reaching teens. And your social media success doesn't have to be measured in millions and millions of views. Although it might be diffult to believe, in October 2006, comScore released that more than half of myspace profiles are from people over 35. And if you count all the people who are really over 40 wh0 say they are only 24, well that number jumps up even more.
   
   So let's stop the naysayers who say the only audience to be had are tweens, teens and young adults. Hell, I'm over 40 and I can text and twitter as fast as the best of them.
   
   But that being said, the other part of this rule is that your target audience doesn't have to be numbered in the millions to matter. I coined a phrase awhile back (and I think I'm the only one who uses it, so feel free to run with it) called "vertical viral." Vertical viral is defined as something that appeals and is passed on within members of a vertical market or community. For example, a joke that nurses might find funny but others wouldn't (i.e. Interns think of God, residents pray to God, doctors talk to God, nurses ARE God). Wow that's a knee slapper, eh right?
   
   In marketing, vertical viral leads to more sales because you can more closely define and target your audience to the people most likely to buy your products or services. I wonder how many marketing managers for unfunny products are trying to come up with something witty to YouTube about. When you know what does really well on YouTube? Insructional videos.
   
   This video on how to play an Eagle's guitar solo http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aJeBfcpT3HE has over 181,000 views. So sure you can occasionally have a funny product video like the "Will it Blend" series (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=B8H29jU8Wrs), but it is probably easier to teach your target audience about some aspect of your industry, product or service.
   
   So don't get hung up on huge numbers or thinking the anyone outside of the usual suspects are the only targets for social media.
   
   


3. Don't ignore reality and live in "brand land": As a social media professional you know that how companies define their brand isn't nearly as important as how the consumer defines it. That's probably why I find the Hyundai comparison commercials laughable. I'm sure most of the target consumers don't "buy" the message that the only thing Land Rover has on a Hyundai is the number of cupholders. Call the mouth elitist but I don't know what's worse about a Hyundai - being seen driving one or trying to get more than couple hunderd bucks on a trade-in on one after your wife laughs you out of the driveway. But honey it's better than a Land Rover.
   
   
   
   So unless your client is going to spend hundreds of millions of dollars making over their brand, it's best to understand what consumers think about it - and start from there. I'm sure the ad geniuses for Hyundai started with the premise we have to let consumers know the truth about their misconceptions that Hyundai is shit on 4 wheels. But the mouth thinks "thou does protest too much" and tried to jump a few in-between steps like a teenager on prom night.
   
   So what would the mouth do with Hyundai's millions? For a fee, I'd be happy to tell them. This rule tells me to embrace what made the brand great and stretch it. Old Spice is doing a much better job embracing and stretching their brand with new spots that poke fun at the reality of customer perception - it's a stuffy old brand. From the unrealistically long paiting to the fantastic casting (Bruce Campbell no less) these commercials seem spot on.
   
   
   
   You might think that TV examples have no role to play in a social media rule. But since the mouth is blogging about it expressing my social opinion and influence to my faithful 3 readers, it's appropriate.
   
   


4. Define Success and Measure it: As marketers we love to talk alot about "branding" advertising especially when we are pressed for details on success measurements. Marketconscious.com defines brand advertising as "advertising that creates a distinct favorable image that customers associate with a product at the moment they make buying decisions." Or course when done correctly, social media marketing can work wonders for brand advertising. However, especially because social media (or at least the latest online iterations) is relatively new and untested, the mouth thinks social mediasts need to carefully define and measure anticipated outcomes of social media efforts.
   
   The complexity here is compounded, however, because it is almost impossible to predetermine what is going to be consired worthy of being passed on by target influencers.
   
   That's why any good social media plan includes a healthy portion of "testing" dollars where the expected outcome is simply nothing but information. And maybe the information is, "wow, that idea really sucked." I think we owe it to our clients to be upfront with them about the unpredictability of social marketing.
   
   But with good tests in hand, we can expand, redefine, restructure, abandon and do it all over again until we find something that works. At least until it doesn't. And then we try something new.
   
   However don't use unpredictabilty as an excuse for lack of planning and stucture. Your social media plan has to be based on the solid strategy and your clients appropriate social media search optimization standards.

So follow my rules or post a comment with your own. Or do both. Thus sayeth the mouth.