Proverbs 16:18



Posted: Friday, January 07, 2011

by Anne Lee
MyMark

"Pride goeth before destruction,

and a haughty spirit before a fall."

There is no doubt that social media has fundamentally changed the way people market goods and services. The problem is, do you know how to do it in the most effective manner?  I watched a little drama unfold on one of the Social Media sites I use recently that I felt highlighted this fact.  A marketing director (and I use that term very lightly) posted a comment on a social media site that the gym he works for, 24 Hour Fitness. He was going to give away two 7-day passes to the person who could come up with a new word; one not currently found in the English dictionary.

From a marketing standpoint this is actually a great post.  One of your main goals needs to be to get people to interact with you e.g. "be social".  However, remember that people can not hear the tone of your voice or see the expressions on your face.  Depending on the statistics you look at, up to 80% of communications comes from your body language.  So, if you are using the one dimensional form of communication called writing, you need to make sure you are making your meaning clear. Ultra clear.  As the supposed marketing director made his post for a new word he had an immediate response from a potential client.  Score one for the marketing director.  The word was exactly what he had asked for: made up.  He had not defined parameters for his competition, rules, regulations or even told who was going to make the final decision on which word was the winner.  I was actually trying to think of a word when the marketing director responded back to the first post.  He began his post by saying that the new made up word was not in line with english grammar, that it did not make sense, and that the client should have ended the word with an "ist" instead of an "ism"(take away a point from the marketing director).

The mood of the entire conversation had gone from an engaging and entertaining competition to one of tension and confrontation.  Unbelievable. All the work done to that point was completely eradicated by the pride of the marketing director.  He professed a knowledge of the english language that I found questionable at best and immediately cemented in my mind that I wanted nothing to do with 24 Hour Fitness.  I know, I know, this is a pretty rash judgment from a post on a social media site but the fact is I was an innocent fly on the wall and if that is how the executives of that company act I don't want anything to do with them.  Now everybody is not going to be as decisive as I am but I guarantee that I am not alone.   To the credit of the potential client she defended her position on her word which she had obviously put more thought into than I was about to put into mine.  As soon as the potential client had made her post the marketing director (at this point I had started to think of him as the destroyer of marketing) instantly responded again negatively continuing on his tirade of the made up word (take away another point).  Moments later the potential client deleted the marketing director from her list of associates (take away another point).  The only way I know this is, the "destroyer of marketing",  made a post about it and ridiculed the would be client (take away another point), and that is when I deleted him from my list of associates (take away two points—c’mon, I'm worth more than one point).

The moral of the story here is two fold, first of all social media is powerful but you need to know how to use it.  At MyMark we have an entire book entitled "How To Be Social 2.0" that helps address some of these issues.  You need to make sure you have a specific plan in place for your marketing activities, swallow your pride, and remember the goal is to get more people to interact and get involved, not to offend people.  And finally as my mother always said "if you don't have anything good to say, don't say anything at all!"

For this and other articles by Tyrell Gray and the MyMark team please visit http://www.mymark.com/blog. Tyrell Gray is Chief Evangelist and co-Founder of MyMark. I made my mark with MyMark, providers of an integrated personal profile, blog, and home base for professionally branding you. 
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