Social media is turning cold and ascetic. One of the consequences of mainstream adoption of social media for sure. But despite all the tools and measurements that are so crucial to success in social media, I rather like that certain aspects of social media continue to confound me. Personally, I don’t want to know exactly how social media works. I enjoy the simplicity of having to practice a little faith. Especially in something I believe in.
When does the magic happen?
We start our Twitter accounts, we set up our profiles. As I train more and more clients in the finer points, there is one look of absolute horror that I have become very familiar with. It is the look on my clients face when they JUST. DONT. GET. IT!.
And there is nothing I can do to assuage this. I’ve briefed them on why we are doing this specific act, and what it will get them in the future. But beyond that, whenever I first start working with a client, mind you a client who has paid me knowing full well what they are getting into, at one point or another I am confronted with “the face.” The look of complete horror on a clients face that tells me “I don’t know why I hired you. Not only do I not get it, but the way you are explaining it to me, showing it to me tells me that you could explain this to a five year old, and they would instantly get it, but I don’t and it kills me that I don’t.”
That’s the face I get when I first start working with clients. And then the magic happens.
I never know what exactly what it takes for my clients to turn the corner. Sometimes its that first batch of new followers on Twitter. Or when one of our Google Alerts pings us to let us know a blogger or website has picked up our activity, mentioned us in a blog post or retweeted us on Twitter. Sometimes its the first time a customer mentions a clients social media campaign directly to the client. I can’t really explain it. It just kinda happens.
Why Social Media Magic?
So much of social media does make sense. Follower counts, page views and unique visitors, newsletter subscribers, e-commerce sales, new leads, press mentions, “likes”; there are so many available metrics and sure-fire ways to achieve our goals. This is the part of social media, and marketing in general, that does make sense. And just as traditional advertising and marketing has aspects to it that must be felt and not seen, social media carries with it components that just don’t compute with our definition of metrics.
Call it faith, belief, magic, wizardry, alchemy, sorcery, witchcraft, asceticism.
I have no problem maintaining a high level of faith in social media. I believe it to be one of the supreme tools of conversation, of marketing, of listening, of being tapped into whatever the great mass of people find important, form high to low, from A to Z. I am a believer.
I have faith that by doing the right things, performing the appropriate actions in a programmatic and structured way, you will get the results you seek in social media (provided they are somewhat rational and realistic). But that doesn’t mean I fully understand exactly how or why I hit those achievements.
And I am not so certain I want to know. It’s nice to have a little magic in our lives.
Image Courtesy of flattop341 on Flickr
