TFM&A 2011 — A black swan event? (March 6, 2011)
We [ www.auros.co.uk ] were exhibiting at stand D6 TFM&A, Earls Court, London. It was the first outing for our new stand — the counter-intuitive design worked well. And it gave us quiet space to introduce a new idea to marketers eager to learn and explore. This was the first show in our history (that I know of) that we signed a deal at the show — significant and definitely not a black swan event.
Tipping point
For me this show marked a tipping point for social media. Oh sure, it's been around for a while (some might say decades) but the tipping point is about how it features in marketer's minds and hence budgets, it is a transition from *ad-hoc dabble* to *consciously adopt and strategically implement*. Marketers have been presented with a rather negative scare tactic to date: "you need to listen to what people are saying about your brands!" I reckon some have reacted anywhere from negatively-followed-by-obstinacy through to *OK, I'm doing the listening, now what?*
Listening is important
In most control systems, feedback is important. The thermostat on the wall tells *the heating system* it's time to make some warmth. The feedback information in that example is a simple binary on/off, it's easy monitor and make decisions based on simple information. Sentiment analysis is tricky however. There's lots of chatter to listen to online — that's OK, the tech can handle that. There's the problems inherent in language and the way it's used by humans and analysed by machines: "that's wicked" get's a negative sentiment score. Even so, to not listen is to miss some useful feedback.
From listening to dialogue
You own your website, you control its content, you execute email campaigns and you track who looks at what. You know your stats and KPI's. Then social media arrived along with the millenials — the audience that doesn't email or tweet come to that. In addition, social media introduces its own tipping point: people control is greater than brand control. You may not be marketing to millenials yet — you will be soon. What do you do? Take your content to where the people are and figure out how to move from broadcast-and-hope to listening-with-intent. This is the social media world of many-to-many communication. Marketers with a mental model that can be summarised as communication-entitlement or *I talk, you listen* will have to re-learn their craft.
It's no longer enough to recognise your buyers in the market place. You need to recognise the mavens, the influencers, the individuals that endorse your brand/s but may not be a customer. In Facebook terms this could be the positive comments and Likes in the *earned* space. Dialogue with coolhunters or mavens is therefore important but traditional targeting methods won't get your message to them — in a traditional marketing sense influencers are invisible.
Unexpected consequences
Don't confuse social media monitoring tools like Alterian's SM2 with social media management. The two are complimentary but the latter goes beyond monitoring-only to solve problems associated with managing and maintaining many channels: scaling, security and control, and reporting. The unexpected consequences come in the form of insight. Web analytics could tell you how many visitors came to your site but not who they are, who they influence or who influences them.
Conclusion
Wikipedia defines a Black Swan Event this way [ http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Black_swan_theory ]:
- The event is a surprise (to the observer).
- The event has a major impact.
- After its first recording, the event is rationalized by hindsight, as if it could have been expected (e.g., the relevant data were available but not accounted for).
So what was the black swan event of TFMA? That the vast majority of the people wanted to talk about social media and didn't particularly want to talk about WCMS. Oh sure, it's important but it's a bit like air: we all need it but no one talks about it!
