Social Media vs. Social Marketing

It isn't unusual for folks to use "social media" and "social marketing" interchangeably in conversation these days. Although similar sounding, they are actually quite different. You will hear many different definitions of both, but the basics remain distinct.

"Social Media" refers to social interactivity and content creation/collaboration tools/plaforms on the web. The most commonly referenced examples of "social media" are Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn and YouTube; however, there are many different ways for users to share their thoughts, ideas, expertise, as well as collaborate and network online. "Social Media" is an extension of "Web 2.0," which is a term used to describe web applications that provide user-generated content. Web 2.0 encompasses things like blogs, wikis, and podcasts, as well as the social media sites mentioned above.

"Social Marketing" is the use of marketing techniques to influence behavior or social perception, as opposed to marketing a particular product or service. Examples of well know social media campaigns include: environmental behavior change (Crying Indian Campaign), seat belt usage (Dummy Campaign, "You could learn a lot from a dummy!"), Forest Fires (Smokey The Bear Campaign), Anti-Smoking (Truth Campaign), etc... Internationally, "social marketing" is used to combat malaria, AIDS, water and environmental degradation, gender violence,. drug abuse and much more. These "behavior change" campaigns leverage social norms, competition, social networks, careful messaging, and precise targeting effectively influence their audiences.

Democratization Of Information and Voice

Thanks to Kate Rowland (@katerowland2) for this blog post from a recent conversation we had. It is an excellent snapshot of why utilities should care about, and pay attention to, social media. Welcome to the new reality.

http://www.energyblogs.com/rowland/index.cfm/2009/10/16/Tweeting-Up-the-News

The Social Media Four Step

The fundamentals of social media are no different whether a utility or Proctor & Gamble. Across industries, I see four basic steps that most most companies generally work (sometime stumble) through:

1. Ignore
2. Listen
3. Engage
4. Lead

This isn't a new or unique concept and is very high-level; however, it does provide the framework to think about where you are and where you are headed.

Let's start with the fact that ignoring social media is not a viable strategy. If nothing else, you should at least be thinking about it. One good way to begin that process is to better understand where your organization sits in the digital/social media space. Listening will help you understand how much chatter there is about your utility (a lot or a little?), who is doing the talking (mainstream media, bloggers, micro-bloggers?), what they are saying (good, bad or neutral?), and other data to points to help provide some direction. Although E Source (www.esource.com), my employer, has a more advanced, utility-focused social media monitoring and analytics platform, which we provide to all of our clients, the no-cost options (like Google Alerts, TweetDeck, Technorati, etc...) are a great place to start.

Armed with better information, you can start to develop a strategy and potentially engage in conversations at an appropriate time and in an appropriate manner. Engagement is about becoming a consistent and trusted voice within the various communities you decide to join. If you are a credible source of good/helpful information/service, you will be able to eventually start conversations, influence discussions, obtain feedback, and have people actually listen to you. The bottom line is that leadership is earned over time and I think it should be a goal for most (not all) utilities.

Utility Social Media Cross-Functional Teams

I have been impressed with the increased sophistication of utility social media strategy teams. Although obvious to utility professionals, social media is a different animal for utilities, as compared to a small business or even a large consumer products company, so we need to take a more coordinated and planned approach.

One trend I see more and more across North America is the creation of cross-functional teams to outline social media goals, strategy and work flow. Communications has been the traditional home for social media in most utilities; however, these newer teams often include communications, marketing, customer care, legal, IT and sometimes even HR and investor relations.The purpose and focus of each team changes from organization to organization, but the issues I see them tackling include things like:

• Organizational goals, within the context of departmental goals
• Channel selection
• Departmental responsibilities/boundaries
• Use case planning and associated work flows
• Governance
• High-level metrics
• Strategy
• IT requirements
• Legal exposure
• Management case development
• and much, much more…

The bottom line is that social media potentially touches on so many different aspects of a utility’s operations that these cross-functional teams are not only a critical vehicle for the initial planning and implementation phases, but the ongoing evolution of the organization’s social media strategy.