Tuesday, June 22, 2010

People who are good at Social Media know this...

When I worked at FreshBooks the thing I got asked most was "What exactly do you do there?"

The reason people were unsure was because when they met me they would see my title was "Head of Magic" and that was an immediate conversation starter. I've explained my role there 100 different ways but the core message included "a convergence of Social Media, Marketing, Customer Service and PR."

People are always debating the point of where Social Media falls between Marketing, Customer Service or PR and I am here to tell you that if you are doing it really well it will falls into all of them...or even better it's a new category all together and can be run beside traditional marketing departments because when you combine them all, Social Media becomes about one thing and one thing only.

[Wait for it]

Idea Integration.


When you are integrating ideas you are not replacing anything (some people think Social Media is a "cure" to all that ails ya) but rather enhancing what you are already doing in any of your traditional buckets.

What says you?

3 comments:

Unknown said...

Saul. I get into this argument all the time with people. So many of my clients tell me 'they want a Twitter because everybody makes money off Twitter'.

I don't believe on it's own that social media is a standalone powerhouse (well for relationships yes, but it rarely pushes those relationships to a sale). Integration with broader communications strategies just makes sense. From my experience integration at the front or back end of the funnel is the most optimal place (creating those relationships or supporting buyers remorse at the end).

David Fung said...

Saul, thanks for the good insight, it reminds me of the teenagers who stick a big spoiler on their dad's 30 year old, beat up VW...it ain't going to make it faster.

In the same way, if the core product or service is bad, putting a spoiler (e.g. social media) on it is not going to make it better.

Hope that analogy makes sense?

Pablo Edwards said...

@David, Great analogy... Ha, I can picture the car vividly! Salu, Spot on again.

Apture

 
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