How we present and "teach" social marketing

Based on our growing but still limited experience, a good rule of thumb when presenting the concept of social markerting to clients or friends is to remember that everyone's needs and level of understanding is different.

As a group we have now done this a number of times and you can gauge the room or the individual you're talking to by either the glazed look on the faces or the flashes of recognition.  Those reactions are usually based on they are using social marketing in their current personal or professional lives.

Some of the things that we have found helpful are:

• Create a baseline presentation:  This includes information about platforms like Facebook, LinkedIn, Twitter, etc.  Also, some persepctive about history and the current social marketing landscape is also helpful here as are examples of best practices by other groups or companies.

• Find a point of view with which you are comfortable.  For example, I have blogged before about aggregating audiences to platforms and then interacting with them using content.  I can usually explain that basic concept and get nods when I use slides or better yet on a whiteboard and thereby show how all these things are interrelated.

• Do some research on those you're presenting to:  That way you can use their Facebook Page or Twiiter account as a prime example of what they are doing or should be doing in the future.

• See if you can project a live computer screen:  That is extremely helpful as you can show platforms in real time and introduce them to add-ons like Tweet Deck or applications on Facebook.  Being able to navigate on a larger screen in real time is critical.

Even with all of that, you have to remember to use these as teaching sessions and not as sales meetings.  In most cases the questions range from "What marketing will social marketing replace?" to "Are we going to have to hire someone new to do this?" to "I'm not sure we really have the time for this?" to the ever popular for us, "How can you help us?"

Is it the answer to that last question that we have been spending a great deal of time discussing internally.  It is the fine balance between wanting to sell full "campaigns" and knowing that we will have to educate incrementally and how can we make that affordable. 

I think we have figured that out, but I'll let you know how that's working in a future post.

Comments

[John Sternal]

I've actually been thinking about this as well. I think it would be important to offer up some case studies of how SM PR has worked for other clients and/or companies. Naturally, it's always best if you can talk about how you personally have helped another company. If that's just not possible, it would still be very valuable to do some research on other companies. SM is really intimidatingly new for so many companies. But if we can put aside the charts, graphs and jargon for a second, and explain it to them in a way they will be able to see how it was beneficial to another company, I have a feeling we will then see some great results and buy-in.

[Jon Newman]

John, exactly right. We are using some anecdotal examples and some of the things we are currently working on to reinforce.

Every day we are working in this arena is another day of experiences we have to share with others.