Social Media Mythbusters Session #sxsw

I first heard @peterkim speak in 2009 at Web 2.0 in San Francisco. The session was titled "Why Social Media Marketing Fails - and How To Fix It." Ever since then I've been following him on Twitter @peterkim and his blog, Being Peter Kim.

Make me laugh, make me famous or pull at my heart strings are the keys to social media engagement. This brought me to a quote that I discovered yesterday by Mitch Lieberman in his post titled The Perception Gap in Social --

Brands: "Social media is cool, let's interact!" Real people: "Wait, we just wanted product info & discounts."

Brand really need to dig deep to engage with consumers. You can't just engage on your time-frame and terms.

Social ads driving to "likes" on your Facebook are the gateway drug. You may have to actually advertise to get someone to "like" your Facebook page. Once you have earned that "like", then it is your responsibility to make them laugh, famous or pull at their heart strings. If you are just driving those ads to your wall, you are already behind. Create a custom landing tab that speaks to the consumer. You can create custom tabs with an iFrame application.

Peter's 4 myths of social media include:
1) Fail fast - I'm not sure where you work, but if I fail a client fast, I might as well fail myself out of a job. Fail fast means not having a clear strategy or no strategy. If I'm going to fail fast it should be in the planning stages before it makes it to a clients strategy. A great example of failing fast is Motrin Moms or Chrysler's social media agency.
2) Focus On People, Not Technology - Focus on people, process and technology, don't just focus on people.
3) People Are In Control - Consumers are not in control. Marketers have more control then we let on. We buy media and create and provide the content for consumers to react to. A great example of this is the TV series Jericho. It was pulled off the air and a few select viewers went nutts. Because of all this backlash, CBS brought it back and the viewership wasn't there and they pulled it.
4) Brands Don't Need a Facebook Strategy - Facebook has over 600M users, and it valued at almost $80 Billion. You probably should have a facebook strategy. Every day I have clients telling me they need to be on Facebook. I always push back and ask "why and what are your objectives". A Facebook strategy should follow awareness>>engagement>>conversion.

I'll leave you with this
lamestream media = mainstream media