Context and Content within Social Media
I was at the Heavy Chef Session at Deloitte last night and I was privileged enough to listen to Rich Mulholland speak on the misnomer that is ‘Social Media’. What follows here is my interpretation of his talk, as well as a hypothesis of my own, and some problems that we may encounter in the future with this “social” world that we live in.
What went down!
Rich was talking about the lack of context int he social media world; about how there is a lot of content being generated about any topic that you can think of, but if you take a break from being online and interacting in social media networks like Rich did for a week you will quickly realise at least 2 things : (I am paraphrasing a bit here)
- You will not miss the conversation
- The conversation will not miss you
Now this epiphany is rather ground breaking; especially if you are lucky (read popular) enough to have a couple of hundred odd followers; these people that hang on your every word for a drip of wisdom to fall from your lips (erm… fingers)!
But there is the kicker! These followers don’t know you; they “know you”, but they don’t really know you. They follow you because you ,at some stage, had something of value to say and they were, at that moment, impressed enough to take action on what you said and clicked on the all powerful Follow Button!
Where am I going with this?
What this boils down to is context! There was context between what you were saying and what they were looking for. A correlation between a supply and a demand at that moment in time. Sadly though this was, in most cases, a fleeting meeting of minds, likes and dislikes. There is no relevant or credible reason as to why this person who follows you would now be interested in your choice of deserts, holiday destinations or advice on which car to buy. All that they will now be getting from you, when following you, is a lot of content that is not in the slightest bit relevant to you.
So does this mean that we should only follow people that we know really well and would have more than one small thing in common with?
No.
Our social media networks need to converge to give the world a holistic image of ourselves and not an image fragmented by space and time with different algorithms scratching and pasting together bits of info about us.
Perhaps the answer is not within social networking; but rather in context networking. A network that (borrowing from Richard again) underpins the wide range of networks we are currently a part of and gives us true value by showing us information from sources who know us for more than a fleeting second because we both happened to think an orange sofa was hideous!
Context is key and context is, for my money, the future of media – and not just the social kind!
Planet Fitness : Not Making Friends or Winning Members
My usual disclaimer when starting a controversial post. This article is a real rant about the last few communications that I have received from Planet Fitness. I want to illustrate how business operations can greatly affect your marketing campaign and leave you with little control over the backlash is to follow.
Setting The Scene
Around 2 weeks ago, I received an email from Discovery letting me know what my monthly rates for Planet Fitness would be for 2011. That’s where my first inkling of annoyance started. I am on Discovery as a medical aid primarily because of the fact that Vitality allows me to – for a minimal monthly fee – be a member of the fine fitness institution that is Planet Fitness. There was no talk, when I joined up, about additional monthly fees.
To further my love for Planet Fitness, I then received a further sms, from Planet Fitness themselves this time, letting me know that my bank account would be double debited on the first of December for my membership fees.
(Cue the boiling blood…)
Now a few questions sprang to mind at this point :
- What on Earth is going on with Planet Fitness and Discovery’s relationship!?
- How dare Discovery pass my banking details across to Planet Fitness?!
- Where can I find a new gym?
Luckily I went to gym that afternoon and joined the picketing masses at the front desk demanding to know what on Earth was going on. We were curtly told that, “these messages were not meant for you, delete them and move on.”
Which I did. Ready to put this whole tirade behind me. But then….
The plot thickened…
This morning I received the following sms from Planet Fitness :
“Due to SA power demands, Planet Fitness will reduce our operating hours from 1 Jan 2011. We will nolonger be open 24 hours. Contact your club for details.”
The thing that really irks me is that Planet Fitness must think that I am stupid. Don’t lie to me and pretend that you are closing early to reduce the load on the Eskom power supply within the country. You are closing early because you are not making money between 02:00 and 04:30!
Let’s look at the damage.
From the beginning Discovery and Planet Fitness have been guilty of database mismanagement. They should have segmented their database enough to realise who on their database was a Vitality member and then NOT send the fees messages to them. Both of these messages have left bad tastes in their members mouths. Couple to this the fact that the Planet Fitness level of service delivery has dropped significantly (my opinion) over the last few months and you have a lot of members not loving Planet Fitness.
On another level, with Planet Fitness choosing to cut their operating times, they are losing what I deem as being one of their biggest differentiators. Now their offering does not differ significantly to Virgin Active.
In my opinion, Planet Fitness now have a huge mountain to climb to re-elevate their brand. They would need to start managing their online reputation. Second to that they need to evaluate what it is that they are bringing to their target market that makes it different from their competitors.
Let’s hope they don’t choose a wannabe comedian to be their spokesperson though…
The Business of Buzz Words
Going forward let’s be sure to space bank the Web 2.0 technologies that we are currently utilising and ensure mind share and top of mind awareness. This will allow our social media to gain traction and stickiness with our top line strategy.
How many times have you come across most of the buzz words in that sentence!? (With my personal favourite being “going forward”…. Well we sure as hell aren’t going to time travel and sort it out now are we?!?)
The point that I am trying to make with this post is actually 2 fold and a personal bug bear of mine as well as that of some notable copywriters. The 2 guilty groups of people are.
Sales People maskerading as marketers.
This one has caught all of us out from time to time. Buzz words get thrown around as a way to trick and confuse us. Think about a car salesman who has sold you a car with SDI; VVT or HDI. They all sound incredibly awesome and we nod our heads and agree that we must have these things! But the truth of the matter is that we are too embarrassed to say that we actually have no clue about what we are being sold.
The trick here is to ignore the buzz words “wow” value and ask what it means and how it really adds value to what they are selling you and what it actually means. Very often the sales person has learnt that they can get by with only learning the acronym and as such don’t learn what each letter stands for.
Copywriters trying to fill out their content.
My other favourite is when copywriters use impressively fragrant and superlatively impressive words (see what I did there?) to fill out the space that they have to fill. These are buzz words as well. They might not confuse you – but an unnecessary adjective is there to fulfill the same objective as a normal buzz word : confuse and trick.
Turn The Buzz Off.
When looking at copy (as a copywriter or a consumer) cut out all the flowery language and get down to the real message behind what is being said! As a copywriter your copy will be far more compelling and easier to read. As a consumer you will quickly realise how often you are being lied to!
So the next time you are being bombarded with buzz words by a over zealous sales person; get them to stop and repeat everything that they are saying in plain old English; you will be better off because of it.
What to watch for with online copy writing
Traditional copy writing and online copy writing are essentially two sides of the same coin in most peoples eyes. But to a large degree they are wrong.
The base level intent of onilne copy writing – especially for SEO – is to convince the reader to take action in as short a time as possible. This means that there are a number of things that we need to look at when we are writing for online.
Sentence Length.
Probably the most important factor of online copy writing is sentence length. Readers need to be able to understand and grasp what you are saying quickly without having to re-read sentences a number of times.
Traditionally online readers are looking for instant gratification. They want the information they are looking for as quickly as possible and the quicker you can give it to them , the more likely they are to fill in a form or buy something right there and then.
Copy structure
The copy of all online copy needs to be written in such a way that as your reader moves through the content they are picking up on the relevant info as they go along. This is typically shown by writing your copy with a pyramid in mind.
- The main point you are trying to convey at the top of the copy.
- The key facts to support your point second.
- Lastly follow this up with less important details which will not immediately affect their decision.
Calls To Action
Online copy needs to encourage the reads to take action. This is achieved by” littering” your copy with calls to action which make it as easy as possible for them to, once they have the desired info, take the next step and give you dome info about them.
Quick Fire Tips
When writing copy online, it is important to make the article to your target audience as well as search engines. This means striking a balance between stuffing the copy with the keywords you want to be found under, and making it compelling for real people to read.
Always write for people first and search engines second.
Keep the sentence length short and make sure that you are writing at the correct level for your audience.
Use readability tools to check that your article meets with these guidelines. A great one to use is www.editcentral.com
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