Study the Science But Don’t Forget the Art
It’s been a while since we’ve enjoyed a “purist’s rant,” right? You should absolutely feel free to call B.S. when I’m done. Here goes.
One of the most wonderful things about Social Media is that it essentially removed the mass media filter between everyday people and brands. There was a sense of genuine delight when a brand representative linked to your blog, or retweeted you, or shared your Facebook Wall post, or simply responded to you in some way. It was a “WOW” moment for a while there; made even more special because much of the interaction occurred in public. Not only did someone from BRAND X respond to you promptly on Twitter, but all of your friends saw it happen! Think back to the 80′s and 90′s. This kind of thing did not happen.
For the first few years – and even today – as brand representatives continue to decipher “what this all means” for marketing, they essayed to continue or even increase such interactions. Meanwhile, though, they are trying to get more scientific about the whole shebang.
- What is the anatomy of the perfect tweet?
- What time of day is optimal for getting the most retweets?
- How can we get the most fan interaction on our Facebook Timeline?
- How do we get more traffic to our Pinterest page? How do we boost our Pinfluence?
If only we could engineer the “optimal tweet/pin/post” and unleash it on the interwebs at the “scientifically-deduced perfect time” to make everybody love us, forever.
I get all this. Aww, hell, yes, of course, I contribute to this mania. (So if you call B.S. on me, keep in mind that I’ve already called B.S. on myself!) … But I also dread the prospect of turning the WOW into a science.
As marketers, we need to figure out the ROI equations to keep the bean-counters at bay, but in the process let’s not forget the art of delighting people with our genuine interest.
So – click those links above. Learn from them. The advice you’ll find is not bad nor wrong. Just don’t spend all your days searching for the Social Media Marketing Gospel. You don’t need a hymnbook to sing along.
Posted on: June 18, 2012 at 12:02 pm By Todd Defren
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Cool post and concept, right here. It’s easy to get swept up in the nuggets of information the ROI tools & tips can mine, but there won’t be much to measure without the art.
No matter what you do in social media, it’s how you interact and engage with your audience that counts. It’s not just about what you know, but how you share them that can spell the difference.
Hey Todd -
The thing is, all the people out there making decisions based on things like “timing the perfect Tweet” based on macro trends aren’t making effective data-driven decisions (time normalization is a fallacy: http://thefuturebuzz.com/2010/04/05/social-media-fallacy/).
You need to make decisions based on YOUR data. And when you use your data to make decisions, it actually enables the framework for you to be far more creative.
For example, if you see your top 10 blog posts over 6 months (or long enough amount of time) you can see what generated huge amounts of organic impact. This can act as a guide to brainstorm your next set of “big hit” posts.
Or you can analyze your landing pages and determine which are converting, why they are converting, which social assets sent conversion-oriented traffic there and replicate.
But trying to fit every Tweet and micro interaction into a formula? Please. Silly.
Know when / how to apply data and it should enable creativity.
Thank you, Todd. We need to remember that it’s people, people, people. Optimizing our marketing is very important, but it in the end people have to like us, right? That’s the art of social to me.