08.26.08
When conversations only go one way
There was a lot of debate in the local blogosphere last week about spam and social media spamming particularly.
While there are several very salient points here – I think the two questions that occurred to me most profoundly were: how much reach does social media really have in the South African context, and, what is spam?
The first is a little more tricky to answer, so I will tread carefully and deal with the spam question first.
The definition of spam is broadening. It has gone from merely being unsolicited mail, to meaning noise generally. An article published by eMarketer last week highlights a study conducted my MarketingSherpa and Q Interactive in November 2007, which indicated American users’ attitudes to spam are changing. The main finding was that just because users opt into an email list, this does not give marketers the go-ahead to send endless, irrelevant material to them.
The study showed that while the main reason respondents reported email as spam was still because they didn’t sign up (52%), 41% percent marked email as spam if it was of no interest to them. A quarter said they marked email as spam if they received too much email from a sender.
I am sure the same rules probably apply to all mediums, such as Twitter. Probably the best analogy I can think of is that it’s like when an alarm is going off and eventually you can hardly hear it anymore. People tend to tune superfluous noise out.
The challenge for marketers then, is to stay interesting.
Now, to move onto the second question about social media reach.
There is no doubt in my mind that there is enormous power in social media, and that referrals are undoubtedly the best leads and the future of marketing. Also, I really do feel that there is enormous reach through social media networks in South Africa. When one considers the growing abundance of internet-enabled cellphones – this reach is sure to mushroom in the coming years.
I think that there is a tendency to target the SEO/Internet/wired crew who follow Twitter, update their Facebook profile regularly and read tech blogs. There is no denying that this is a relatively small group of people in this country.
With reference to the Jail4Bail social media campaign specifically, I am reticent to say that anything “went wrong” - because I can’t say for sure that anything did in fact go wrong. Perhaps the message was far wider reaching than I anticipate and perhaps people were sending off their SMSs fast and furious.
I think what can be learned from this however, is that it’s important to know your audience, and what they care about.
As a marketer, you can’t shout your message and expect people to listen, or care.
Social media marketing is about conversations – and those by definition have to be two-way and engaging.