Jean Ghalo Blog Where it all begins!

Social Media “Everybody is Riding but Where To?

Been almost a month that I want to write about this, but lot of things happening around preventing me to do so. Social media, online communities, community managers, social media managers, the SM revolution, how SM changing the Arab World regimes, and many other words that we hear or read on Twitter and blogs every single day.

Everybody wants to have the biggest fan page on Facebook, if they know a little more about SM, they would ask for a better presence on Twitter with much more followers, and if they want to think outside the box YouTube is what they will go for. This is the first time ever I think about the "X for Dummies" book series and if they did create one called "Social Media for Dummies". The answer is surely yes and not only one, but many (refer to the picture below). There is no shame to read this book whether you are a professional, or normal person who wants to know more about this big thing that everybody is talking about and investing load of money for it. If you are a professional that might be the best gift to give a client or a colleague, if you really love them and you want to gain their respect give them something that would help them more in what they are doing and where they are investing their money.

Clients really wants to be leading in their category, but most of them come and give you numbers that doesn't meet their industry audience penetration in the SM channel they ask for. 10,000 Twitter followers for a real estate brand in Lebanon, or 30,000 likes on Facebook. Let us go back to the basics and ask them. Do you need to be on FB or Twitter? Is your target audience active there? Can your brand be communicated on these channels? Why do you want to exist on SM? Did you know that social media is a very big place even bigger than FB and Twitter? Well the list is too long, the client should go back to the branding process, and see the brand character, voice, audience... Don't be laughing at me, yes branding, I know that most of these clients marketing people don't know what does MarCom word mean but that's why they come to us, for a real solution and our job is to deliver the right job by spending days and nights convincing them to go our way.

Time to talk about other SM channels, YouTube, LinkedIN, Blogs, Forums (yes web1.0 but what if you are in KSA, people spend most of their time there), Digg and many others. It is not how popular is the channel, it is about where are your audience, no? Before you spend all your money to build a fan page that one day the guys at Facebook might decide to close it or put restrictions on, start by building your brand website, blog or community site, than let us focus on the SM presence. Digital world gave you the chance to own the Media, so why don't you benefit from? SM is there to help you but it is not everything you need to do.

Agencies are working hard to cater to clients, big agencies are investing too much in this, small to medium ones are doing it right and wrong, some others didn't even think of it yet. The funny thing is that everybody wants to open a new business or claim that they have the department for that "Social Media", I (and many of you) pray that they are doing the right thing because it might revert back in a bad way on those who are doing it right, and maybe the whole industry in general.

We do know that big agencies/groups are doing many workshops, bringing different speakers to get their team ready to do the right job, but we don't really know if they are inviting clients to these workshops. I believe the smart ones are doing so.

In today's world, communication has changed, we moved from Linear to anything. We have different touch points with our consumers, it is not through mass media only, no we have to be everywhere but in the right place. So social media is part of it, yes it is a positive and good thing if we know how to use it and what to use it for, and might be just waste of time and total loss of money if we are still thinking about number of likes and FB pages only. No SM is made to get engaged with your consumers, create a certain relation between the brand and the consumer, make us better know what our consumers want, and because they are digital they make the relation and response faster. Marketers doesn't need to go sit in focus groups to know what is happening, but they are living it with the real consumers in the real time, they can act faster.

Well after all, SM made us live in a Chaos, and we need to analyze this Chaos first in order to know who are we talking to and where?

On as side note, though I am not into politics at all. What about that the Arab world revolution wouldn't happen without Twitter and Facebook? This is ridiculous, SM helped it happen faster, but this was being prepared since a long time. People made it go faster through SM channels, but never happened because of SM. SM was another communication tool to make it happen. We all agree on that now, so let us not give the credit to FB they don't deserve it, maybe Twitter do more.

Personal Views:

Twitter simply is like water for me, I use it whenever I hold my phone (80% I use it via my iPhone TweetDeck application). It keeps me connected to the world as I want it "through those who I follow". If I get spammed or bothered I unfollow the person and it is over. Twitter lists are amazing, I can categorize people, If I want to read tweets about Dubai all I have to do is go to my Dubai list and see it all, Advertising I go to my advertising list, and so on with the other lists. That's amazing. Twitter gets me connected in a very customized way, in a simple way and just the way I want it. It has 1/3 of FB global number of users but it is much more effective. Why? As we all know it, Twitter is an open circle and FB is a closed one.

YouTube is a gold mine, personally I almost use it more than Google search today. Video Tutorial, Superbowl Ads, WWE previous match, Missed on a nice live talk show scene, Royal Wedding, Scene from a Movie, Live Concert footage for a favorite band, and many others...  Rich media is the future of the web and nothing else. YouTube is the greatest invention on the web, hard to say it but with Twitter they constitue 60% of the web.

LinkedIN I believe in this tool a lot, recruited lot of talents for the agency through it (since 2008). The most corporate network, all professionals you need to know are there. You loose your address book? You want to stay up-2-date with your contacts? All other tools failed at it, LinkedIN could make it. Not only you can hire and keep track of your contacts, but you can engage with them, know what they are doing on a professional level, hear interesting stories. Groups are a good tool, get into a community of what you are interested in, or simply ignore invitations. One thing I hate when people think of it is Facebook and start sharing with us their silly news (how lame they are, and sorry if you are one of those).

Facebook is a place to hang out online when you want to have a coffee break or a good place for my little cousin who likes to play games. It is a nice network to get connected to friends especially if you are living abroad, with no doubt a very successful one having over than 600million registered users, but it is a trendy thing. I've been into the digital world trends in live messaging and live communication since 1994 (mIRC, ICQ, Message Boards, Forums...) all had their good times, people were using them and felt it is the future of communication than they disappeared. FB wont disappear (but nobody knows) but let us start from ourselves, in 2007 we joined the network, didn't stop updating our photo albums, spend lot of time on it adding school friends, colleagues and get our network bigger, how long are we logging to it these days? 20min per day, once every week or maybe once per month and I am saying that based on personal experience and other friends experiences. I know few that deactivated their accounts and some others do not have one. I feel that FB started loosing ground when they converted their wall to what it is today trying to be like Twitter but for a closed circle. I personally could live without it for almost a year but had to return just because to the nature of my business.

Blogging and MicroBlogging are something that we 100% own and control. Same as if you own a house, FB pages are like if you live in a rented apartment the landlord will come and kick you out anytime (or maybe just leave you there as much as it is paying off for him).

"Social Media: Its like riding a village bicycle, everyone's riding... but where are you going?"