Why All the Confusion with Social Media?

I have been prepping these past few weeks for an onslaught of speaking
engagements for different organizations. I am also coming fresh off the recent
EdSocial Media Summit in San Francisco, an excellent gathering of some the best
minds and industry best practices in social media. Each of these experiences has
me a bit perplexed about the confusion in the industry about the use of social media.
I hear from so many attendees and clients that they are “confused” with social
media, or just don’t know how to get started.

Here’s the deal about social media from my vantage point. We have never had so
many intuitive, audience-friendly, engaging, inexpensive tools available to engage our
audiences before in this industry. My hot words are bold here for a point.

1. Intuitive – Come on. Social media is really easy to use. If you can run an app on
   your iPhone, you can run a social media site.
2. Audience-Friendly – This is where our audience is. On social media. We don’t need
   to work so hard to find them if we become one with them.
3. Engaging – Social media allows organizations to stop promotion and start
   engagement. Our audiences are tired and skeptical about promotion.
4. Inexpensive – Social media is cheap. Really cheap compared to the print and
   advertising alternative.

Now, before we elect social media as the panacea to marketing, let’s be clear about
a few important marketing issues. We tend to confuse activity with meaning. Just
because we can easily publish any photo or video we want, that does not mean we
should. Social media is still like any other marketing communications tool in that it
needs to be consistent, integrated, and have effective messages. Again, I’ve
underlined my hot words for a point.

1. Consistent – No matter what tools your school uses, let’s make sure that you are
   being consistent in all media the messages that you want to convey. Volvo is not
   just about “safety” in some materials and not in others.
2. Integrated – All marketing communication strategies need to be integrated so that
   the tools in a system work in concert.
3. Effective – What are you really trying to communicate? Make sure that the key
   message is crystal clear. “What” is conveyed in a viral video should be the same
   message in a website or print media. It is the “how” that message is conveyed that
   is different.

It’s pretty simple. Social media offers a great new set of tools that we all should
embrace. And, it also opens up many challenges for the organization that does not
have clear or consistent messaging. In fact, adding social media to an already faltering marketing organization will likely accentuate the negative. Translation: If
you don’t have your act together, social media will demonstrate that for all to see.

If we can look at these tools for what they really are – a new set of tools that allow
us much more freedom and flexibility – and use the same common sense that we
should be practicing anyway – I think we are going to be just fine.