Aug

3 Reasons Why Social Media Forces You to Talk Like Your Customers

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3 Reasons Why Social Media Forces You to Talk Like Your Customers

People are learning how to play guitar on YouTube. Yes, that is correct. They are using YouTube as a search engine for guitar lessons. YouTube? A search engine? You bet. In fact, more searches are conducted every day on YouTube than are conducted on Yahoo! or MSN. So yes, YouTube is a search engine, and a really important one.

Here’s another familiar advertising/marketing discussion:

Internet Marketing Company: “This customer made a great YouTube video about your product. It has had 20,000 views. It sent 5,000 visitors to your website and drove ,000 in sales.”

Client: “Yes, but our logo was the wrong color blue in video.”

And while we’re all getting used to letting go over our brand a little when it comes to content consumers are producing, it gets really hard when the social media content you produce internally is forced to break with your own brand guidelines.

You’re asking yourself, “Why would I ever break with my own brand guidelines? Here is why:

1. Consumers don’t care about your marketing meetings. Maybe you sell integrated electronic study aids. You absolutely don’t sell “cheap online text books.” Guess what? No student on Twitter, Facebook or any other social network is ever going to search for “integrated electronic study aids.” But I bet a lot of them are looking for “cheap online textbooks.”

2. Google is showing search results based on your social media connections. Stay with me. You and Mr. Bill are connected on LinkedIn. Mr. Bill owns an SEO firm in Columbus, Ohio. You search Google for “Ohio search engine optimization agency.” If Mr. Bill doing a good job in all my social media activity, Google will say to itself: Hey, this person is connected to Mr. Bill. Mr. Bill uses the keyword “Ohio search engine optimization agency” frequently on LinkedIn, Twitter and Facebook. Then Mr. Bill links to his company’s website. This searcher just searched on “Ohio search engine optimization agency.” Therefore, I’m going to rank the Mr. Bill’s website very high for this person.

A side note? From a branding perspective, Mr. Bill would probably never call his company an “Ohio SEO agency.” It is likely that his agency has other areas of focus than SEO and clients in areas other than Ohio. But guess what? No one searches “nationally recognized integrated online marketing strategy agency.” So, Mr. Bill lets his pride go. Bottom line: let the branding go and focus on driving business.

3. Your very best customers come to your site…maybe once a month. Really, is there a reason to come more often? Guess what? They spend about 14 minutes on Facebook every day. If you’re in their news stream talking about the things they care about, they will find you. If you’re only giving your corporate blah-blah over Facebook, you’ll never make the connections.

Here’s another example. You may have a patent on a cutting edge nutritional supplement that promotes holistic wellness for young adults. You may cringe when people say, “Oh, you sell children’s vitamins?” You have a laundry list as long as your arm as to why your product is absolutely not a children’s vitamin. You refuse to put the term “children’s vitamins” anywhere on your social media sites because it fundamentally goes against your brand.

Any marketer or advertiser (online or offline) worth his salt would argue that you need to talk like your buyers talk, even if your ego says that you’re so much better than what they call you.

Does this mean that Tweets should be as impersonal as title tags? No. But don’t write in your Twitter bio that you offer lifestyle communities for young professionals; say that you build condos. Don’t write a blog post saying you offer a unique health centered environment for female executives; say that you run a gym for busy women. And don’t have your LinkedIn profile say that you’re “a strategic leader in go-to-market, best-of-breed solutions” … because that’s just stupid.