Two of my colleagues just issued me a challenge. They wanted me to reach out to my good friends on Twitter and ask them for their definition of Social Marketing in 100 words or less. I won't bias you in any way other than to say I already know what the Wikipedia definition says so no need to parrot that back to me. ;)Best answer (as voted on by my two colleagues) gets a $20 iTunes or Starbucks card (your choice). Please submit your 100 word (or less) submission in the comments below. If you don't want to submit your choice publicly, e-mail me at stroutmeister AT gmail DOT com.
UPDATED 2/26 - I neglected to mention that my esteemed colleagues, DP Rabalais and Natanya Anderson chose Shannon Paul as the winner. Her definition is below (congrats Shannon!):
Social marketing injects humanity into the delivery and reception of business communications by emphasizing relationships and meaningful experiences with people rather than simple transactions with publics.
54 comments:
Being able to write off fun challenges as real work…why because they work.
jj
Jenna@verticalresponse.com
According to my “Social Marketing: Improving the Quality of Life” text that I used several years ago when I studied this subject:
Social Marketing is the use of marketing principles and techniques to influence a target audience to voluntarily accept, reject, modify, or abandon a behavior for the benefit of individuals, groups, or society as a whole.
Nice definition in 35 words that I’ll stick to.
Talking and listening to the market in a public way.
Social Marketing means being BFFs with everyone in the whole world!! :)
Great question! I ranted about this very topic a bit earlier today on my blog.
How we use Social Media is what people usually describe when defining the term (i.e change the world, interact with friends, find romance, market to customers, customer service, etc).
However, Social Media is simply (drum role)
“a type of online platform used to interact with other people online.”
Social Marketing (your Wikipedia link) is simply
“leveraging social media platforms to develop and/or build relationships with a target market”
Social marketing is communicating WITH your customers, not AT them.
Posting on behalf of my good friend @justtamar...
Here's my attempt to define Social Marketing. Thanks!
"Social Marketing is leveraging the power of one's peers/social group to market themselves, their product, service or information. By opening up a two-way conversation with their audience through online or face-to-face social networks, people can build relationships and trust, address issues as they come up, and benefit from the word-of-mouth buzz generated by these conversations."
Direct marketing where the people involved actually know each other.
Social marketing is the best execution of one to one marketing yet.
Social marketing injects humanity into the delivery and reception of business communications by emphasizing relationships and meaningful experiences with people rather than simple transactions with publics.
Infectious excitement inducing product/service evangelism leading to the best form of marketing-Word of Mouth... a.k.a. Social Marketing.
Throwing yourself out to the world and proving how great you are by how you interact with the positive and negative repercussions that the world throws back at you.
Highly sophisticated ponzi scheme. I kid, I kid. How many words do I have left?
Social media is about individuals. You, me and everyone else. We're in one big living room with a glass of wine and a raging fire. We're all connecting, conversing and participating.
Social marketing is what happens between product idea and customer loyalty.
You should know that by now :) :
Social media marketing is not about doing marketing using social media tools it's about enabling the social, with all its messiness, in all marketing processes...
Don't know if you're accepting multiple entries, but here's another one! :)
Social Marketing is the act of starting a two-way conversation about a common interest, and by nurturing this dialogue builds a relationship in which both parties get something out of the connection.
Great suggestions. Keep 'em coming. Voting will happen tomorrow or Friday.
-Francois, I already know the answer but want to make sure my definition aligns with everyone elses! ;)
Who needs 100 words? Maybe social media jocks who have been caught using the juice.
A better challenge would be a little Social Marketing Haiku.
So, here's my submission...
Social Marketing by Tom Humbarger
all voices are heard
I is we and mine is ours
helping everyone
Social marketing is putting the customers, real people (not numbers) -- their cares, their conversations, their questions, their community, their creativity, their individuality -- at the center of every campaign, where the product once was. And proving to those people that product and the people who make it can live up to their trust.
Social Marketing is conversational marketing. Meeting people in a person way enough to know their real thoughts on an issue, connectiing with that issue and trying to solve the issue while subtly promoting that what you represent may possibly solve the problem.
Social marketing is simply Word Of Mouth but in a landscape with some nice powerful tools and social practices that both speed up and amplify that ancient practice.
I think participants in this contest are confused about Social (Media) Marketing VS Social Marketing. Please see a link to a wikipedia page(link in the instructions above) and see for yourself of what type of Social Marketing Aaron is referring to.
Not persuading to purchase, but influencing change that matters.
Social marketing is the process of directly or indirectly marketing a product, service, brand, individual or organization through largely Internet-based channels and venues designed originally for social communication and content sharing. Or to put it another way, it's about getting the word out on Twitter, tumblr, Facebook, flickr, Flixster, FriendFeed, LinkedIn, MySpace, Plurk, Pownce, Plaxo, Jaiku, IM, hi5, YouTube, Ustream, Revver, Reddit, Mixx, Digg, Delicious, Diigo, Bebo, vimeo, Youmeo, Photobucket, Smugmug, Fuzzyshot, Ping, Ning, Blogger, Wordpress, Typepad, Yelp, Identi.ca, ePinions, Citysearch, RSS, Newsgator, PBWiki, Wikipedia, Second Life and Stumbleupon, to name a few.
Social Marketing is defined like adding “in bed” to fortunes from fortune cookies. Just add “leveraging personalized interactions” to the end of any definition of “marketing.” For example, borrowing from a HBS definition for marketers in general:
Marketers concern themselves with acquiring and retaining customers, who are the lifeblood of an organization, leveraging personalized interactions. They attract customers by learning about potential needs, helping to develop products that customers want, creating awareness, and communicating benefits leveraging personalized interactions.
Social Marketing seeks to build a relationship, rather than a one-off sale.
Anti-Social Marketing seeks to club you over the head, steal your wallet and move on to the next victim.
Warning! Buzzword-Bingo-Free Zone.
Social Marketing is the process of using a variety of technology tools and information from personal and peripheral contacts to present your product or service to potential buyers and/or partners and/or media.
A haiku definition:
Social Marketing
Marketing that is Social
Human to Human
/kff
Non-profits, and for-profits with a cause-related mission, leverage social marketing to engage its current and potential donors/volunteers/participants/citizens/consumer-base, increasing contributions/volunteerism/activism/awareness and support for the brand/cause initiative. It's most often related to NPOs making money that goes right back into developing and furthering its cause.
Like a song that never ends, getting passed from friend to friend, Social Marketing is getting the public to embrace you, your company, your ideas and products and shout it out to the world in a million small ways that build a mountain of good will, small but meaningful recommendations and success over time.
I'm not interested in winning the contest, but just want to inject some clarity into the words that we're defining, so this will be more than 100 words. As a social marketer who goes by the original definition used since 1971 to define the discipline called social marketing (ie, using marketing tools and techniques to promote behavior change related to health and social issues), the trend in the past few years of using the term "social marketing" for "social media marketing" has only sown confusion. If I asked a similar question on my own social marketing blog, the majority of respondents would talk about the health and social behavior change aspect.
The overlay of the existing term with a new, completely different meaning leads to massive confusion when, for example, people google the term and find totally unrelated information, or during conversations where two people are speaking from different understandings of the term.
Here are a few of the many posts I've written about this issue on my and Rohit Bhargava's blogs, for more info on why this is not just an issue of semantics:
http://www.social-marketing.com/blog/2006/02/open-letter-to-new-social-marketers.html
http://www.social-marketing.com/blog/2006/09/social-marketing-vs-social-marketing.html
http://rohitbhargava.typepad.com/weblog/2007/11/whats-in-a-name.html
Thanks for listening!
If it's a very short elevator ride:
Social marketing is getting people to do good things.
Social media marketing is getting other people to spread your marketing message for you.
Social marketing is taking the opportunity to engage with people where they are comfortable, rather than broadcasting at them where the company is comfortable. By building relationships with consumers, companies hope that consumers' own conversations in social settings (on and offline) will build positive reputations for the brand.
Social marketing takes advantage of the power of the Web to make transform the vast global community of buyers and sellers into a group of friends with common interests. It lets the CEO speak directly to the consumer and, more importantly, lets the consumer speak to the CEO while the rest of the world listens in. Social marketing is more powerful than traditional marketing because it’s personal. It really is a small world, after all.
Dr. Ward's Ferris State University MKTG425-Social marketing is about building a relationship with your target consumers in a non-invasive manner. It utilizes a number of marketing mediums and lets the consumer receive the companies message and respond in a way that is ultimately the most effecitve.
Aaron,
I just want to echo Nedra's comments about the confusion between "social marketing" and "social media marketing" which are two completely different things. Nedra even has a side-by-side comparison chart to help folks understand:
http://tinyurl.com/2vvksn
My two cents...
Social marketing is the art of listening people that might be interested in your product/solution and responding with honesty and transparency. It's asking your customers for ideas and then implementing them. It's giving enthusiasts access to your plans and ideas and asking them to help you succeed.
Social Marketing=leverage technology+build network+crowd source marketing+maintain
In other words: use whatever technology is appropriate, video, blogs, Twitter, Facebook or iPhone apps to attract an audience (fans, followers), empower that audience to spread the word, making them your brand ambassadors. Don't just seed a community and drop out of site. Keep communicating with your brand ambassadors, give them new ways to spread your message, listen to ideas they have about it.
“Social marketing” is the same old message told in a new way. It eliminates the middleman – in the corporate world, this is PR, Legal and assorted useless directors and executives who bog down the traditional approval process and inject jargon into the message along the way until it becomes incomprehensible.
How does “social marketing” work? By enabling the writer to share a specific message instantly with everyone connected to his or her online world. People who like this message then share it with the folks on his or her networks. And so on.
Great topic Aaron.
I'm a bit late to the party so I have the luxury of distilling some of the previous posts.
Here's my attempt: Social Marketing is facilitating conversations about your brand, both online and offline. And, when appropriate, engaging in the conversation in an open an honest way.
(Perhaps I'm a bit different that I don't think "engaging in the conversation" is necessary. Facilitating and listening is the most important aspect).
Interested to see you you pick a winner from so many good ideas.
Rusty
Hi. My first visit here, and I like this idea. Thank you for the opportunity.
My attempt: Social Marketing is essentially a philosophy or a mindset that's adopted (really, indoctrinated) by professionals searching to connect with (not 'to')their product's consumers. Real connections transcend physical and in most cases, mental exchanges/attributes and instead are made at an emotional level. By reaching (marketing) to constituants on an emotional level, the relevance and value offered by the product/service can create a memorable experience. (and we intentionally repeat or repurchase those positive, memorable experiences.)
"Social marketing" was created in 1971, when Phillip Kotler and Gerald Zaltman, marketing profs. at Northwestern University, described how to use commercial marketing principles to strategically plan intervention that social problems and improve the quality of life for individuals and society!
More than messages, the heart of social marketing is learning what barriers and facilitators an audience associates with doing a behavior, then developing programs, products, messages, outreach, education and policy change to reduce the barriers and increase the facilitators--making the behavior "fun, easy and popular" to do!
Social media is sometimes called social marketing, but that is like having a bowl of lettuce and calling it a healthy salad! (I know this is more than 100 words, but the clarification is important!) Thanks!!
Social marketing has brought about real time, two-way communication with target audiences and beyond. The SM tools are expanding the reach and measuring impact and influence of marketing(good and not-so-good.)
Marketing professionals have always professed to want to know if their audience got the message and what they think...social marketing makes that a reality.
social marketing is power. the power to find and discover. prospects. customers. loyalty. the power to relate. to interact. to influence. to understand. deeply. the reasons you lose. the reasons you win. how to be better every time than you were the last. social marketing is power. to succeed.
Social marketing is a global online chamber of commerce meeting going on 24/7.
At its most boiled down, and I think everyone above was pretty much getting at this: social marketing is talking with people, instead of at people.
I hope all the other contestants have success with this program as for me I am still learning the tricks of this field.
I'm late to the party, hope there's beer left...
Social Marketing: Keeping and energizing your customers/audience by acting like human beings with them. Listening, responding, serving and giving value.
(Notice I didn’t say online- it’s both a given and a concept that transcends online).
Social marketing is the art of using social networks to develop conversations with customers, market building word-of-mouth, and online influence that drives search rankings.
Social marketing is just an online evolution of Word of Mouth Marketing as defined by WOMMA (http://womma.org/womm101/). Word of mouth marketing: Giving people a reason to talk about your products and services, and making it easier for that conversation to take place.
Social marketing is
"an always evolving and developing marketplace of ideas where users actually have input and communication is instant!"
BTW, forgot to mention that @shannonpaul is our winner - noted this in the initial post:
"Social marketing injects humanity into the delivery and reception of business communications by emphasizing relationships and meaningful experiences with people rather than simple transactions with publics."
Nice job Shannon! ;)
Just a quick note: Not everyone wants a "relationship" or a "conversation" when buying a product or service. I work with some very wealthy (and not so wealthy) clients who frankly will give their business to whoever supplies the item the fastest at the best price. If anyone can see a way to apply "Social Marketing" to that situation, let me know.
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