SOCIAL MEDIA MARKETING ISN'T ALL ABOUT THE CONVERSATION OR RELATIONSHIPS

 If you've been exploring or reading about social media marketing for long, you've surely read and heard that SMM is "about the conversation" or "about relationships" and for these reasons, it is fundamentally different than traditional marketing.

Yes, SMM is fundamentally different. But I'm here to tell you, it's not all about the conversation.

Maybe it was at the beginning, when Facebook and MySpace were really the only social networks out there, and it was all brand new. At that point, the number of people using social networks was small, and as Greg Satell described in his excellent article about the primary forces driving the evolution of social networks, the growth of new social networks is driven in large part by small, dedicated, and close-knit communities.

But it's a different world, now. With Twitter, LinkedIn, a multitude of blogs, and all the social bookmarking sites like Digg and StumbleUpon joining the ranks of the old guard (in Web-time), social media marketing is not, in the main, about conversations or relationships. We're talking marketing, here. Sales is about conversations, relationships, one-on-one. Marketing and PR, by their nature, require a better person-to-customer or message-to-customer ratio than FIRST RESELLER PANEL requires building 1:1 or even 1:5 or 1:10 relationships, it will be short-lived.

Luckily, it doesn't.

As evidence to support my claim, let's look at the facts. Do you use LinkedIn? Originally a career aid, it's fast becoming a key B2B SMM source. Check out the discussions on LinkedIn groups. The vast majority of them, probably 90%, aren't discussions at all. The comments listed are a big, fat 0. It's a rare discussion or posting that generates any comments, and those are usually of the "Great post!" nature.

What about Twitter? For all the talk about the importance of connecting with your followers on Twitter, the vast majority of tweets get no response at all. 53% of Twitter users reported they didn't care that they didn't get a response (see Mashable's article of 4-22-2009 on Twitter attitudes). Not what you'd expect from those seeking conversation. The statistics show that the "top 10% of prolific Tweeter users account for over 90% of tweets."

Even Facebook groups and fan pages aren't a flood of conversations and relationships. For example, while 52% of women (the most active FB users) have fanned a brand or page, only 10% engage in product or brand-related activities. (See the related prnewswire.com article of 9-1-2009.)

Of the reasons for joining a fan page, studies indicate "The top five reasons for joining a brand or fan group are to "get news or product updates" (67 percent), "view promotions" (64 percent), "view or download music or videos" (41 percent), "submit opinions" (36 percent), and "connect with other customers" (33 percent). Meaning only 36% want to engage with the business at all, via submitting opinions, and only a third want to engage with other customers. (See the MarketingPilgrim.com report of 03-2009 on Facebook's page redesign, and low engagement.)

Nope. If you're trying to market through social media by having a conversation or building relationships with customers and potential customers, you're engaged in a time-consuming, low-ROI activity that is likely to reach about a third of your target customers, at best. That might pay off if you are one of the social media celebrities, like Gary Vaynerchuk or Chris Brogan, who makes a living to a large extent by being Someone on Twitter, etc. For most businesses, it doesn't make any sense at all.

But SMM is different That said, I do agree that SMM is different than other online marketing. Digital marketing to date has, for the most part, mimicked offline marketing. It's been a broadcast method. You advertise online, broadcasting ads just like on television, billboards, and in magazines-albeit with more granular targeting. You send out email blasts, like the junk mail flyers and postcards we all get in our physical mailboxes. You send out newsletters (or links to podcasts or videos), like the flyers real estate agents, financial planners, and so on send to our physical mail boxes.

And just as we tune out television and print ads, and throw away the junk mail and newsletters, people have gotten good at tuning out online ads and hitting the delete key for all the spam and newsletters.

SMM is different because rather than broadcasting, it's about congregating. It's about you, the business person, going to where the customers are congregating, and engaging them in that location, on their terms.