TAP SOCIAL MEDIA

A great friend and business client has been helping spread the word about our social marketing company TAP. He recently told us that he is getting a lot of feedback from business owners who believe that “anyone can do social marketing … so why would they pay for a consultant?”

It is an important point of view, which we feel is shared by far too many, but is worth addressing.
The perception that anyone can manage your brand’s social media strategy successfully is dead wrong. We don’t blame people for thinking this way. The rapid success of social media platforms like Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, Tumblr, and Pinterest, are at the heart of this misconception. These popular sites have traveled from start-ups to household names at lightning speed. They also all have the shared focus of making it easy for the user to exist on their platforms.

However, success in social marketing takes tremendous passion, sweat and emotional equity, and most importantly honesty. TAP Social Media has proven that PUSH MARKETING fails. We encourage our clients to share content of value that is not solely focused on self-promotion.

Take a long look at your social marketing plans and think about how much an ongoing conversation with your audience is worth to your business. If you decide that you need help call TAP and we will work with you.

I was listening to a musician interviewed on the radio the other day and she called herself part of the Post Internet Generation. She went on to explain her belief that anyone born in 1988 or beyond has a brain that works differently than all the rest of us. She explained how if she were born ten years earlier she would have been spending her time learning how to play the piano instead of the countless hours she spent learning how to navigate Napster. She said like it or not the Post Internet Generation has a different working brain, whether that is good or bad.

Besides making me feel really old, this struck a cord with me. Sure, there are tremendous benefits to being a member of the Post Internet Generation especially the ability to learn and adapt quickly, but there are also huge benefits to being part of the Prior To Internet Generation (PTIG).

PTIG’s appreciate where we currently are with technology and the potential implications for business. We know how slow and difficult communication and brand building truly was in a world Prior To Internet. And most importantly we hold a hybrid of old skills and new.

Don’t believe me? Take a look around your company the next time your Internet goes down. I guarantee that the Post Internet Generation will be gathered at someone’s cube within seconds bitching about it, while the PTIG’s will find something else to work on.

There is something amazing about starting to build and promote a brand’s audience from scratch. If you ever get the opportunity to do this in your career, jump for it. You will learn new networking skills that you never imagined.

Traditional lists are overrated; so don’t waste your money on them. Most people change jobs often these days, so lists usually come with useless dead email addresses (which people are starting to use less these days anyway).

The Internet has all the contacts that you will ever need. If you can’t find someone on Google, try searching on LinkedIn or Twitter or Facebook or one of the other amazing platforms.

Traditional email list building was a numbers game. For years companies requested email addresses and some even paid a lot of money for email lists in their industry. Your web and creative teams then blasted out emails playing the numbers game hoping to avoid spam filters and hit some of your targets.

Today, we have LinkedIn. If I want to reach clinicians in my industry of the wound care segment of healthcare, I just have to search on LinkedIn. Most people list their email address on this platform. I can contact individuals with real unique emails and this is a game changer for business and why LinkedIn is a valuable source for you.

It has never been clearer that some companies fear social change more than anything else. When you think about it, it is actually quite shocking but at the same time it makes perfect sense. For them, this change where the client and consumer have more power than ever is a scary world. These companies fear what social media is all about … The Conversation.

Fortunately, the modern business world has no room for insecure people with egos larger than their products. Integrating social into your business takes the key ingredients of thick skin, honesty, passion, patience, and believing in what you are doing. Organizations that roll forward with social change and figure out how to use it for their business are going to crush it. Companies that slap up a Facebook, Twitter and LinkedIn page and call it a day are doomed.




For example, say that Joe’s T-shirt business is a company that lies to its customer base about the number of T-shirts it sold last year, thinking it will drive future sales. In the social world, no one cares about how many T-shirts Joe sold that year. Lying about numbers sold will not get consumers to purchase a T-shirt and will actually cause them to reject and speak against your company and your product. Providing a great product that they can’t live without and offering excellent customer service are once again the cornerstones to success.

The great news is that if you are a company built around honest and open communication with your clients and your customers and you make great products, then you have absolutely nothing to fear. The social world was built for you to shine and showcase your passion. In the same regard this spotlight will also shine on your competitors whom are suspiciously absent from the conversations.

Smart CEO’s and business leaders have already figured this out. They are actively blogging on their company’s website. They are genuinely interested in understanding why users use their products as much as they are focused on the bottom line. In the future they will interact with and seek out their company followers online. They are playing by the business rules of 5 to 10 years out and not 10 to 15 years in the past.

If you think the fact that these social platforms all favor open and honest businesses surviving is just a coincidence, we urge you to look a little deeper into the founders of today’s most popular social sites. Sure, these people wanted to do great innovative things in business. But they were also tired of the push marketing movement that had existed in advertising and marketing since the beginning of business. They wanted to empower the audience and level the playing field for the consumer. Take a look around, it has worked and this is real.

People are always shocked that the secret to succeeding at social media for business is as simple as the age-old statement of … Just Be Yourself.

Having someone ask you to explain the value of social media on their business is like having someone ask you to explain to them what their customers mean to their business model. In 2012 this is the truth. Everyone, and I do mean everyone at all levels of any organization, must take the time to learn what we are talking about here and the patience of understanding the long term value of a customer.

Do you remember when we laughed at our parents for not being able to figure out how to set the VCR [for the kids (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/VCR)] or how long it took to convince them to get their first cell? Now times that by infinity to arrive at the realization of how far your business will be behind without understanding the true power of social media.

The focus group and market research period of figuring out or finding the value of social is far over friends.

If your organization has not gone all in, with investing in social media you are currently hemorrhaging massive amounts of revenue. The reason that you don’t believe us is because we are not talking about first quarter 2012 revenue or even the second, third or total 2012 revenue numbers. TAP Social Media is talking about all of the revenue you are leaving on the table 5,10, 20, and even 30 years from now.

Someone right now in a room with a laptop could be planning to take over your community as we speak. No community is impenetrable.

Stop making excuses of why your audience isn’t ready for social media and learn how to have open and honest communication with your community before it is too late.

PS: The first step is hiring someone who knows what they are doing to run your social media department.

Being right about something is not always fun. When horrible diseases and other events come into play, people lead with emotion and not logic. But there is a business lesson here for any brand thinking of jumping on the failing “Like Us And We Will Donate To This Charity” train.

A troubling trend in business and social media are the brands that are trying to guilt people into getting them more Facebook fans. Recently, one of my favorite local news stations has been doing just this.

The formula is simple; you donate a relatively small amount of money to a charity that pulls at the heartstrings, but then make the amount that you give up to your current Facebook fans generating new fans for you. This brand told the audience that for every new like on their Facebook fan page in 24 hours, they will give 50 cents to this charity, up to the $2,000 mark. If the campaign works it gives you 4,000+ new Facebook fans.

It looks great on paper in the marketing department, 4,000 new Facebook fans in 24 hours. So what exactly is the problem?

The problem is that you are using guilt to get new Facebook Fans and these people don’t really care about your brand. You are also treating your current Facebook fans like mindless minions who you believe will do whatever you tell them to do.
By looking at the responses on this post, maybe you are right. Maybe your audience is mindless.

When I see bullshit in social media I feel like I have to call it out. I posted a quick comment on the thread.

And then I got slammed.

I realize why people are upset here; it is because Cancer is such an emotional topic, and especially Cancer in children. Who doesn’t want to see money raised for fighting Cancer? My problem is with the way this news organization handled it. They could have donated the money and helped raise even more. They could have easily donated the 2K to this charity without using guilt.

Here is how brands that respect their Facebook fans would have done it.

… We just donated $2,000 to Kisses for Kyle, a wonderful organization dedicated to helping children with cancer and their families who reside in the Delaware Valley region. You can also donate to this cause here www.kissesforkyle.org Share this update if you want to encourage your friends to donate to this great cause.

This status update is concise and causes less confusion because you are urging to share and not to like. (The word LIKE still confuses many in social media because you can both like a page and a status.) This post would have both spread the word about this charity and had your Facebook fan page reached by a ton of new people who most likely would have liked your page. Not because you were telling them to, but because they respected what you were doing.

These were the results from the organizations original post.

A lot of people just liked the status update and thought that they had contributed to this cause. They were confused, including our “friend” Trina.
They got a decent amount of shares from their original post, and they most likely resulted in a lot of new likes to the page. However, how much traction for their Facebook fan page (clearly what they were interested in) and how many additional dollars raised by the community for this cause did they just leave on the table?

When building a community, you do not just want anyone you can trick into following your brand to follow you. These brands are continuing to pump up their social numbers at any cost because they think that down the road they are going to be able to flip those numbers (YOU) to their advertisers. They believe that they will be able to blast you with promotional status ads in the future. They still don’t understand that in social networking, the USER has all of the power. When these brands continue to treat social networking like old mediums (radio, TV, print, billboards, etc.) they will fail.

Why else would this news organization run a TV ad around this “Like Us And We Will Donate” campaign. I predict as we all use social more and more, there will be great backlash against these “Like Us And We Will Donate” campaigns.

Most companies (like the one above) are failing in their cross marketing of social sites. They slap a “Like Us On Facebook” Or “Follow Us On Twitter” on their print mailing piece and call it a day. Where is the incentive for someone to jump from that print piece to following you online?

The solution is simple … give them something.
For example: Like us on Facebook for regular coupons and discounts.
Or if you are running a contest with a chance to win promote that opportunity.

A friend of TAP’s founder recently asked, “What is with all these companies wanting so many LIKES on Facebook?” He saw one brand that said if they got 50,000 LIKES by the 29th they would donate money to some charity. It is such a great question that we thought we would blog about it quickly.

If you are like our friend Steve you probably have seen these campaigns on Facebook.
The LIKE War has gotten out of control. Brands want LIKES at any cost and they are willing to sacrifice their reputation by doing this horrible tactic.

TAP Social Media does not recommend the donation in exchange for LIKES campaign. It is natural to want more LIKES (Facebook Fans) but most companies don’t even know why they want them and are just chasing the LIKES to keep up with their competitors.

LIKES equal an opportunity to connect with your audience on a regular basis. However, it is important to stress the word opportunity because it takes a lot of real caring to break through all the social noise with your audience.

The main problem with baiting someone into LIKING your page in exchange for donating cash to a charity is that the people LIKING your page for this reason don’t really care about your brand. Charity guilt may be enough for most people to LIKE your fan page once, but in social networking that means nothing.

It is all about interaction and supplying content to your audience, which matters to them. If you are not doing those things then one of the following will happen.
a) People hide your updates from their news feed
b) People unlike your page
c) Since the person never interacts with the brand again, Facebook’s algorithm makes sure that that brands updates don’t show up in the news feed.

This topic is actually one of social media expert Gary Vaynerchuk’s pet peeves. To paraphrase him he says, just donate the money assholes. We couldn’t have said it better ourself.

PS: Only LIKE this article if you actually like it … in real life. Thanks everyone.

Everyone is searching for it. It is the Holy Grail that every business has been trying to figure out before their competitors. “How do we make money using social media?” This is also the question that I despise the most these days, because it showcases the vast lack of understanding when it comes to the value of social media.

However, I am an entrepreneur and well versed in the importance of not only recovering the resources spent on important areas of business, but also the value of turning a profit. This withstanding, I am amazed at how few companies really get it. Most think that they can still play by the old rules. These business people are trapped in the past and think that they can continue to treat their customers and clients like garbage. They yearn for the decades of the 1950’s through the 2000’s where consumers didn’t have much of a choice and more importantly didn’t have a voice.

This is truly a special time in the history of business. People have compared the birth of social media to when consumers first had access to the radio or TV, but this is the wrong comparison. In those inventions the conversation was the same as it was since the beginning of time—a one-way message that was broadcast out to a customer. This is so different.
Social media is simply a change so drastic that we will never return to the old way of business again. The fact that so many people have not fully grasped this is both shocking and excellent. Anyone who is reading this has a pure opportunity to capitalize on the future failure of so many businesses. It is excellent because people who don’t rethink business under this climate might as well be ancient museum pieces in an exhibit on failing business people.

Almost every company we have seen is failing at using social media to improve their business. The majority of social media channels can be set up for free. Yet, so many of you choose to take your company down the cheapest route possible. Let the interns and new hires worry about this crap. This is actually the most expensive route that your company will ever take. The majority of these individuals don’t have a grasp for business yet or the foresight for long-term business. Then again it can be argued that executives who aren’t actively pushing for more full time social media professionals who are paid what they are actually worth, are also lacking foresight.

If they really wanted to be innovative they would fire half of their employees today and replace them with warehouses full of people who are passionate and want to learn how to communication in the modern age.
a) Fire the ones who are doing things because that is how they did them yesterday or last year.
b) Fire the employees who are afraid of failing.
c) Fire the employees who don’t have a voice of their own.
d) Fire the employees who don’t understand the value of customers and clients.

That type of gusto is not for most. But there are basic understandings that you can learn right now to change your social media plans forever. This new landscape provides the following truths as we know it. Note: Pay special attention to #19.

1. The consumer is king, but the company that joins the conversation with the consumer gets to be part of the kingdom.
2. The barriers of entry for start-ups have never been so low. A group of high school kids in a parent’s basement can take down and replace a fortune 500 company that has been around for a lifetime.
3. Everyone and anyone can compete with a company who has ruled the market share for decades.
4. Lazy companies not investing time and money in social media will fall first.
5. Companies that still believe they know better than their customers are in for a swift demise.
6. Companies that are afraid of their consumer’s voices or “what they might say about us” are clearly doing a horrible job at their business?
7. Full disclosure is the real strategy that works in social media.
8. Companies that think they can “pretend to care about their customers” instead of actually caring, will be exposed quickly.
9. Companies just trying to keep up with the competitor (pumping up their social numbers with zero real impact or interaction) are wasting their time. They are sitting ducks for competitors and will be taken out one by one.
10. Companies that grasp that social media is fun and take a fun approach to it with their employees are going to thrive in this environment.
11. Companies that take the attitude that interns or new hires should run your social media program are fooling themselves. If your entire organization doesn’t have a role in social media, you are doing it wrong and heading towards failure.
12. The old rules don’t apply. Push marketing fails quickly.
13. People counting or bragging about social numbers don’t get it.
14. Shares are the new Likes.
15. The majority of people still don’t understand that social media is more than social networking and much more than Facebook, Twitter and LinkedIn.
16. Social media is not a new form of advertising, it is the structure to which ideas are born, grow and spread.
17. Use extreme caution when thinking about selling Tweets or Facebook updates to clients. You are devaluing the intelligence of your audience and they will spot it, call you out on it, or worse never interact with you again.
18. If you don’t care about your audience, sell off whatever parts of your company you can today and pack it up. You are finished.
19. When your brand representatives are passionate about your community and its members, it creates a bond that your competitors cannot buy or steal from you regardless of how much money they pump into their ad campaigns.