Social Media and Public Relations

After tons of research and work on my project, the thought occurred to me, is Social Media really what Tribes  want? After all, we measure our Social Media Optimization efforts just like our PR Initiatives, it seems to me.

It has been said that there is lots of merriment in watching Tribes behave badly. A lot, if not all of major websites, have some sort of social media features embedded in the site. I think this is an indication that the Tribes want it. 

So our attention turns to how targeted are the responses that we get from our social media efforts , as well as the Public relations efforts. We need to know what kind of buzz are we generating from those efforts and are those responses purchasing anything. It's really no different than measuring any of the other platforms that do this.

Interestingly enough, there are advantages too the Buzz that we are generating for and by the tribes and that makes it important for a lot off reasons.. 

According to some sources, advertising has lost over 40 percent of trust from Tribes. However, social media platforms engage Tribes with content that encourages trust. Some Tribes still agree that word of mouth advertising is still the best , though.

This means that social media optimization still has the potential to hold and attract the attention of large Tribes who have grown immune to the current push advertising scheme of things. It is also stickier than traditional media. 

One effect that social media has is its propensity to go viral and reach broad swaths of tribes in shorter and shorter amounts of time. This has been described as a threat to communications professional, but I don't think it is. Negative viral outcomes are a possibility too. This could result if the tribe has not allocated enough Social media budget and is not prepared for the tremendous amount of interest generated. 

Social media's ability to be interactive means that Tribes now have the ability to get immediate feedback from other tribes and are able to communicate more defectively. This could be a simple as enabling comments on the Tribes main blog. This means the tribe doesn’t have to spend time doing research in order to track ROI. 

Something else that works for social media is high visibility. Social Media has matured using internet tools. So it holds a very good position in searches for visibility. There are several good examples of the effect this has , such a s Wiki-leaks. 

For me, this indicates to the Tribal Chieftains that social media optimization can have a beneficial effect on the way the tribe communicates with the other tribes for business purposes and the average person on the street. Because of the ability to communicate with all of these tribes, social media has mega-possibilities if it is used properly and effectively engaged .

In the past decade, interactive communication has become a torrent for the tribe. This has made it easy for tribes to communicate with their audience and find out their needs and get feedback too.

In closing, a good thing to remember is to tailor your message and know the tribe you are talking to. 

What effects do you think it has to know what you're selling?

Social Media Networks

What is it that draws us to online Social Media Networks ? 

For thousands of years we have formed tribes to meet our security needs and now we study why.

Most Studies done by reputable tribes show that friendships and other social relationships tend to have a powerful effect on physical and mental health. This relationship had been noticed and talked about for many years until about the mid to late 1970's.  This was when other tribes turned to this issue to study it. 

One study done in California around about 1979 showed a relationship between those who had a lot of contacts and those who had only a few. People who lacked tribes , tended to die sooner.  In 1982 in Michigan, another study showed a similar association for women, but not men. About the same time similar results were reported between older men and women.

What this means is that your tribe consists of individuals drawn together by a variable such as age , sex , work or family. This is not to say that only these variables are used, though. In fact, one variable that has been proposed in the past is the number of contacts. You have to have about a hundred to a hundred and fifty, to be a social network. 

One variable that has changed is that there is a whole new  paradigm to include a company's employees or even a politicians venue. You should be able to relate this to your target market.

Some have opined that its not really social unless the users can interact with one another. That it needs to be more that just an ability to generate content. That this piece of the puzzle has so far been missing from the platforms that are available today.

Part of the problem here is that Social Media Networking has changed the definition of friends and tribes. You will always have your best friends and much trusted business associates to still back you up, only now you can cast a wider net for contacts . This includes business contacts as well as personal contacts. This system is still evolving and expanding for the better, we hope.

If you could leverage social media networking to help drive business relationships and possibly other relationship, why wouldn't you? Social Media is helping us to engage a much broader Universe of possibilities. 

There are those out there that think that defining Social media is difficult because tribes get confused because of the implications of the thing itself.  One definition is that Social media is simply content generated by the content view themselves. Of course, and you know this, its a huge implication. From here we can jump off into viral marketing , the masses influencing their tribes and other tribes. Even the Dissemination of information will become easier. 

The Social Media Phenomenon seems to be mostly confined to the internet right now , but is it possible that this won't always be the case?  It's possible to me , at least, that some new outrageous technology will allow social media in other dimensions. 

I would love to get some feedback on that one. There's a reply form on the bottom of the page. What are your thoughts about social media in other realms or platforms. What would those other dimensions be? 

Social Media Statistics

Sometimes making the argument to tribes that investing time and money and other resources into creating an online community for purposes of Social Media Optimization can be very challenging. Because of this, I'm sure you will need all of the friendly support you can find.

A very good way to communicate this to the tribe is the blatant use of statistics. Social Media Statistics can give your tribe the picture they need. This way they can see the value by viewing who's using Social Media Optimization and how they are using it. Thanks to the fact that there are lots of new studies being done and posted every day, you can make the case to help them get involved.

It's actually surprising that there is such an low amount of common knowledge about Social Media Demographics Optimization. Considering the amount of internet users and what they seem to be doing.

What it really means is there is no excuse now for marketers to make the wrong decisions about how to use Social Media Optimization or Social Media Statistics. It will help to open up incorrect beliefs and prevent inaccurate statements and beliefs from happening.

Non performance in the area of growth and change in rank of social media platforms may be resulting in a lackadaisical attitude toward the technology. This could be damaging to your brands attitude because of being perceived wrong or perhaps because you need to get updated information out to your audience.

Just in the way of example: social networking has grown about 90% in the last few years, even though time watching TV is unchanged. This seems to mean that groups are slow in their adoption of social media marketing into their marketing mix. According to one major survey , marketers still consider this industry experimental and are not budgeting more than a few percent for social media marketing.

One of the large communications research bureaus just published a report that contains several case studies that show how Social Media Optimization has benefited several large organizations. One of the finding 's they made was that Social Media is rapidly becoming the a key kernel for the dissemination of information. Almost 60% of early adopters of Social Media Optimization say that Social Media Tools are becoming more valuable to their activities, while about 30% or so say that social media optimization is a core element of their marketing and communications plan.

Now, Tribes that are especially interested in Social Media Statistics can, of course, go to places like Comscore. They had released some statistics showing that Social Media had grown worldwide and continues to grow worldwide. Worldwide, Social Media Optimization seems to be growing at about 25%, with large increases in Europe and the Middle East.

So now you know. The truth is out there. You don't have any excuses for not being SMO savvy. You and your Tribe can no longer be unsure of where Social Media fits for your audience. Currently , failing to understand how our increasingly active social world challenges us and benefits our brand has become an act of shortsightedness or deliberate ignorance that threatens marketing perception, brand value, market share, and the bottom line.