Is There Anything New About Social Media? More Rehashed Garbage?
Http://LeonardSipes.Com and Http://MyLifeAudio.Com
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“The same rehashed garbage!” Comment from Frank Angelone on ProBlogger discussing blog content marketing strategies.
Is there anything new to be said about social media?
I read a post by an editor for a well-known social media publication who opined that there was nothing new to be said about social media. We pretty much know what it is and how it functions.
I agree:
As someone who writes about social, marketing and public relations I can tell you that there’s little new. We can freshen old concepts and bring new insights to a particular field.
I write for government, associations and nonprofits and I try to use business and marketing related research to drive home points to a new audience. But I’m fairly sure that most of my observations have been made before.
Regardless, most in my audience do not know how marketing, social and public relations can be combined. I bring knowledge of all three and for most, what I have to say “is” fresh and new.
I help them cut through the clutter and get them up and running in the shortest amount of time. After all, I did social media and public relations long before most.
My most important observation is that social is about quality, not quantity.
Is Anyone Paying Attention?
I pulled 1.4 million page views last year for my work-related social media site (offering radio, television a blog and transcripts) yet I wonder if anyone is “really” paying attention.
Then I get a reporter who devours my radio and television shows and is influenced and writes favorably about what we do.
Then I get an expert telling me that my agency is doing something wrong and tells me how to fix it.
I’m arranging for an Associate Director to speak at a national conference based on a TV show.
I’ll finish my examples with a Congressional aide who was impressed with my blog and radio shows and reported favorably back to her colleagues.
I could provide endless examples of the power of social media and while I can roll out numbers with the best of them, it’s not about page views.
The Quality Web:
All of us wonder if all this work is having an influence (i.e. average time on site for long-form video and audio isn’t encouraging) yet I can cite dozens of examples as to high quality prospects who are favorably influenced by what we do.
This is what I refer to as the “Quality Web” and it makes all the difference in the world.
The numbers are meaningless; it’s the ability to influence those important to your business or cause that matters.
Twenty percent of business customers will buy eighty percent of the product.
We don’t have to influence the world. We just have to reach the right people.
And that, in my opinion, is something new and vital that most people doing social media just don’t get.
Best, Len
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