Today's web marketplace is full of noise. Three hundred million Twitter updates, three billion YouTube views and millions of new blog posts are posted each day. Whether you are looking to capture your audience's attention on major social networks or dominate search rankings on Google, just showing up is not enough.
Everyone seems to be promoting the benefits of embracing the use of tools such as blogs, online video, Twitter and Facebook, but too few are willing to talk about how much marketing using social media fails to generate results. One of the biggest marketing truths is that if you sound like everyone else, you're not the market leader.
So how do the most noticeable people or companies raise themselves above the crowd and become thought leaders in the marketing of their brands?
There are three essential traits of a marketing thought leader that, if you adopt them, will elevate you above the noisy or irrelevant marketing mob:
1) Thought leaders understand their market almost at a forensic level. By using social media monitoring and management tools, they tap into the online conversations of customers, prospects and potential markets. By doing this they develop an intimate and nearly real-time understanding of their goals, dreams, challenges and preferences.
2) When thought leaders have a truly intimate understanding of their market, they do two things really well:
- Have relevant conversations. You must use social media not only to push out marketing messages but also to have focused relevant conversations with customers, prospects and communities. Social media offers the opportunity to have an intimate, focused, relevant conversation with your market. This type of engagement deepens relationships, humanizes your brand and builds trust.
- Create relevant content. Just creating blog posts, Twitter updates, video, podcasts or any other social media content is not enough. Your content needs to speak directly to the needs, values and goals of your market. Thought leaders develop a content strategy that helps their customer base and positions them in a unique way.
3) Thought leaders create opportunities for like-minded people to connect, share and collaborate. An example of this is mystarbucksidea.com, a site with thousands of customers who submit new product and marketing ideas and vote on them. Some of the best ideas are put into production and become new drinks, products and marketing campaigns. The customers become no longer merely passive recipients of marketing messages but are actively engaged in a whole new level of personal connection with each other and the brand.
The key to driving results from social media in most cases will not come from one brilliant campaign. It will come from knowing your market, engaging them consistently and building a community around your brand.
