Social Media Marketing: It Is All About Community (Except When It Is About The Platform)
There are lots of consultants claiming to be social media experts out there, promoting whatever the social service is the current flavor of the month. As our SEO company has already pointed out, social media marketing is not just about creating profiles or submitting a few posts to digg, reddit, and the like - and as SEO ROI pointed out yesterday, it is important to realize that there is a difference between a social media platform and a community.
As Gabriel Goldenberg from SEO ROI says, “The difference is that a platform offers functionality while a community has shared characteristics like interests, beliefs, etc.“ For instance, Twitter is a platform while Sphinn is a community - both have social aspects, but Twitter has users who discuss all sorts of topics and form their own networks, while Sphinn is focused on SEO and internet marketing. Furthermore, Gabriel writes, this difference matters for content creators and marketers, because creating viral content/applications for platforms requires technical knowledge but creating content for communities necessitates deep knowledge of their particular niche or topic area.
However, there is one common thread that ties together content creation for types of social media - it can’t be all about you and your brand, because people don’t really care about that - they care about what you can do for them.
2 Responses
Social Media Marketing: It Is All About Community (Except When It Is About The Platform)
August 14th, 2008 at 10:10 pm
I like that this post isn’t just a trackback, but adds commentary.
I have my ideas, but I’m curious to hear how you would classify a “Dove Evolution” video. What’s that doing for social media users?
August 18th, 2008 at 12:14 pm
Thanks for your comment, Gabriel (and for writing that great post)!
I always try to add at least a little commentary when I link to a post in order to give my readers context, participate in the conversation, etc.
In regard to the Dove Evolution video, I think it is an interesting tactic on Dove’s part to become a social media talking point and to gain some mindshare - it is a step in the right direction, at least (a brand joining the conversation and creating content/adding value as opposed to simply advertising).
I do wonder if the Evolution video had any direct impact on Dove’s sales, however.