Fishburn Hedges

21.04.2010

Social media is a fad, but most people who say that have misunderstood why, and don’t know what to do about it.

For anyone who’s taken Marketing 101, you know that one thing comes first in the world of business – customers.

Communications people talk of the customers much as actors or film directors do – as an audience.  That’s natural, and there’s nothing wrong with thinking in those terms.  But nevertheless, customers they remain.

Communications disorder

In the past few years, it seems like a tornado has swept through the formerly sleepy world of communications.  Rumours abound that the customers are in control, that they are having conversations between themselves.  Without us.

For some in communications, this is either blasphemy, or laughably naïve.  For both camps, it’s easier to deny than to consider the implications of this.  “It’s a fad”, they say.  Well, here’s some news they will enjoy hearing: it is a fad.

But not in the way they think.

How communications has changed

In the eleven years since the Cluetrain Manifesto (a seminal digital communications text that started with the single thesis: “markets are conversations”) was written, an entirely new way of communicating with customers has emerged, based partly on a set of new communications channels.  These have become known, more or less, as social media.

From early review sites for books, films and holidays, online spaces have sprung up where customers can converse among themselves, without even a nod to the brands or corporations they are discussing.

As the web has been built on the principle that customer conversations are more “relevant” than corporate speak, these conversations have become immensely powerful.  Corporations and brands have naturally gravitated towards them.

For the communications industry, this has led to an unprecedented opportunity.  Our ability to grasp the methods, channels and strategic implications of communicating in this new world makes us valuable to our organisations and clients.

How communications has not changed

But many in the industry have scrabbled to become social media experts by merely learning the names of these new channels, like waiters with the daily specials. 

They are able to reel them off in pitch meetings: “today we have Facebook, Twitter and Vimeo.  I tried the Posterous and it is really great.  And I’ve heard loads of people say the LinkedIn is excellent, though I don’t quite get it myself…  Oh, and I’m very sorry, but the MySpace is off”.

These people have completely forgotten that communications doesn’t start with channels, but audiences.  This has not changed, and nor will it.

Getting away with it

Some of these people are enjoying success today, thanks only to a quirk of fate.  It turns out that the people they can reach using these channels do, in fact, constitute an audience, and a sought-after one at that (young, middle class, urban, tech savvy, early adopter, probably spends quite a lot on gadgets…etc.).

So they have, merely by serendipity, delivered the results of a communications expert successfully targeting a very important audience.  The problem is, as soon as the users of these communications channels become a diverse, multi-faceted audience (in case you hadn’t noticed, that’s now), this success is liable to evaporate.

The fad ends here

So, to all those with flecks of grey in their hair, who have bemoaned social media for the past few years as a fad: well done.  You were right.  But not because social media or the new world of communications disorder are going to go away again.

You were right because the unhealthy focus on social media channels has only delivered success only by chance.  This focus – this obsession with the channels – this is the fad.

And as soon as we return to thinking about the audience, then the fad will be over.

Social media will last

What does effective use of social media mean?  First, it means we need to accept that it is already a mass-market tool.  It is not only for geeks, trendy brands and web entrepreneurs.  Social media is a highly effective way to reach the people you want to reach, which is just as powerful for private equity fund managers and OAP lunch clubs as it is for political hacks and journalists.

The real job for communications people is not to explain to corporations and brands how to use Twitter (it’s easy), but to help our corporate and brand clients how to engage directly with their customers, in some cases, for the first time in their history.