Cover image for To succeed with social, you need to dunk in the dark

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The true value of social media is in its potential for exponential reach. We leverage the people we know to market our products. And they’ll take notice, because you’re not a marketer. You’re a friend, or, at the very least, an associate.

It’s a powerful referral system.

But, to get any part of that exponential effect, you need to be creating content that's worthy of sharing. There's millions of people (and bots) out there, yammering away -- so you need to be different. You need to be interesting. You need to be daring. You need to say exciting things. And most of all, you need to stop worrying about vetting content by ten different people -- or legal departments.

Consider that Millennials, in particular, like to be entertained. They reward content that is enjoyable and/or informative, and they'll react by sharing it – they understand the value of their personal networks.

We’re dealing with a powerful brand awareness movement here -- one that is driven by content, people, and ideas. The main factor for excellence -- consistent with all marketing efforts -- is creativity.

The winners are the ones who break free from the norm and are willing to dunk in the dark.

Performance comes down to Good Content v.s. Bad Content

I'm lucky enough to work with a great team at IBM that understands content strategy, and pushes the envelope. But on the side, I moonlight as a consultant to the enterprise set (usually pro bono) and there's a common theme: many companies produce cripplingly-bad content, and it's because they tend to stay on the safe side of things.

Their tweets look a lot like this, which is something I call "drivel" for the purpose of this exercise.

  • “My company is the BEST. Did you hear me? We’re the BEST!!!!!111!”
  • “OUR PRODUCTS ARE AMAZING CLICK HERE OH GOD PLEASE CLICK HERE YES HERE. WHY AREN’T YOU CLICKING AHHH-“
  • "Here is our solution. It gets 10 million gigabits per second and eats all the competitions' faces right off. Click here for a free trial."
  • “<Insert boring, legal-approved standard press release here.>”

But they don't consider the elephant in the room: most of this content is churn, which no one will care about. White noise, and talking about yourself, doesn't get results. Good content, storytelling, and uplifting others, does.

So what might good content look like, in comparison? A lot of it comes down to good old editorial judgement, and one's ability to curate. Here's some examples:

  • "I love this product. Look how I use it. LOOK HOW I USE IT!!!" – A real, random customer's Tweet, sourced via social listening.
  • "Here is Grumpy Cat sitting on our desk ((((and there's a picture of their software UI in the background))))" – A picture shared by a creative person who works at your company and has mad connections. Maybe you ran a company-wide contest for the "coolest picture taken of your product" or something. And this was the result. Congratulations. You're winning.
  • "Something something [COMPANY NAME HERE] is absolutely fantastic. They did my nails for me, and sang me a song." – A URL to a reddit thread, identified via social listening.
  • "Here's Jim from development. He loves working here. (((Jim looks pretty cool, he has a beard and might be a hipster or something. The company logo off-focus and in the distant background)))." – Sourced and photographed on-site by your Social Media Manager.
  • "(((Some crazy cool dinosaurs are creating weekly, weird, viral content and are sporting your brand logo or doing stuff with your products. They're also tagging your social handles. Nice job beating everyone else to the punch and sponsoring them)))."
  • "Our Product A goes together with Product B like peanut butter and jelly!" (((accompanied by cute and relevant social tiles))). – Sourced and created on site by Social Media Manager + Graphic Designer.

Proof in Patterns: Commercials v.s. Programming

If social content strategy was a pattern, the corporate default would look something like this:

drivel drivel drivel drivel drivel drivel drivel drivel drivel drivel drivel drivel drivel drivel drivel drivel drivel drivel drivel WHAM drivel drivel

The big “WHAM” amongst all the drivel? That’s the one piece of content that actually performed -- it was "good" -- and it stands out. It's got edge. It got clickthroughs. People shared it. 500,000 impressions! It's a winner. But why is it the singular success out of 22 posts?

To gain a better understanding, we should compare the pattern to a more traditional one. Such as content on the television:

commercial commercial program commercial commercial program commercial commercial program commercial commercial

There's a greater proportion of quality content versus "drivel" (commercials). What happens if we take that model and apply it back to social?

drivel drivel WHAM drivel drivel WHAM drivel drivel WHAM drivel drivel WHAM drivel drivel WHAM drivel drivel WHAM drivel drivel WHAM drivel drivel WHAM.

"Drivel" on social media = commercials. WHAM = good content that gets followers, gets shared, and gets people excited.

So. Be smart. Balance your commercials and focus on creating quality programming that gets ratings.

TLDR: WHAT DO???

Often, companies are too focused on their KPIs: promoting products, getting clickthroughs to certain landing pages, netting product downloads -- to create good content.

Perhaps they're also afraid to post content that's too risque for legal, or to share pieces produced by brand fans: they might, after all, get sued for re-purposing an Instagram picture.

And perhaps their fears are justified – we’ve become quite the litigious society.

But the social streams will keep moving, and those who are not present will be overshadowed by those that are.

So shake off the fear and get dunking.

Free up your social media managers, protect them and encourage them to run. Let them find the happy balance between commercials and programming.

Open source your content and stop chasing down those who reuse it. Embrace your advocates, don’t sue them (cough IKEA cough). Support your advocates -- and try to find easy ways to re-use content they create for you. And while you’re at it, share the pictures and videos of fans with impunity.

Try new things and be interesting on social. It’ll be delicious.