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Today I read Fluent, Razorfish’s recently released report on social influence and the state of marketing in social arenas. With pen and highlighter in hand, I searched for juicy tidbits in their study and survey that could help small businesses, organizations and anyone who’s not able to spend tens of thousands of dollars in their marketing efforts. While this report was largely targeted toward audiences who invest quite a bit of time and resources in their marketing efforts, there are some valuable things that any organization or company can take from the report.

Aside from the standard spotlight on the fact that social media is changing the face of traditional marketing (which we all know already), the data that they collected in their survey show a couple of things that stuck out.

Somewhere in the middle of the data analysis section (there are no page numbers), the authors discuss authenticity and believablilty of brands on the social web. This describes how consumers and audiences view a brand (defined as an organization, company, product, service) and if they trust it or view it as authentic. From what I have seen over the last few months, this is an area of social media research that has been lacking in terms of case studies, numbers and data.

The report shows that from the survey group, blogs had an “inauthentic” rating of 42% and a neutral of 37%, while brands on social networks were rated inauthentic by 36% and neutrally-held by 42% of respondents. These are very high numbers for what we’d think would be a very effective medium for companies and organizations to reach out and become more genuine to their audiences. However, as these numbers illustrate, brands are not working in the right way to become more authentic. And this is kind of obvious: it’s really easy for a brand to not have that feel as a “friend” on social networking, lacking the sense of personalization or connectivity that a social media participant would expect from one of their human friends.

This quick bit of data shows us that companies and organizations can do much more to create more personable and authentic interactions with their social media and other marketing efforts. When working with clients, I believe the key to this is abandoning the one-size-fits-all idea of traditional marketing and develop ideas and campaigns that genuinely try to connect with the intended audiences.

The fluent report states this very well, reminding us that “actions speak louder than advertising” and that “brands can’t simply push messages anymore. Brands must do.” If they’re not doing it already, companies and organizations need to actively participate in the areas in which their people participate. If an organization or company is already working on these efforts, there are always ways to improve. Poll some sample customers or members, find out what they need. Try becoming one of your clients. Think in terms of what they’re looking for.

If you were your own customer, would you find your efforts cheesy, fake, or unauthentic? Usually that’s a good litmus test for starters…

How can you start to make things less fake and more personable? It takes thought, action, and custom application – no article book will tell you one way or the other. However, by reading articles like this and reports such as the fluent report, you can gain an understanding of what has worked for other organizations and collect ideas that can be applied in your own efforts.

Categories: Best Practices, Resources, Social Media and Web 2.0, Successful Messaging, Web Strategies

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