Nic Hodges has written an interesting post where he expresses the view that now that social media is getting real, mainstream attention in business, he believes it has a branding problem.
I’ve said this before, and I’ll say it again. I don’t think it’s a branding problem per se, but a problem of language.
Those of us who understand social media and how it works are so excited by the possibilities we try to communicate to our clients (or whomever) about it in our language rather than their language.
It’s not enough to explain the collaboration opportunities of using wikis for knowledge gathering, or of the ability of Twitter to forge connections between disparate and dispersed people, or of the power of blogs as a communications tool. We need to engage in our perfectly natural, enthusiastic evangelism in the language of those with whom we’re talking.
Failing to do so is belligerent, blind and foolish.
Once we talk to people about this stuff on their terms, in a way they understand, a number of possibilities emerge:
- they will build comfort with it
- they will begin to understand it
- they can begin relating it to their problems
It’s only at that point, they can surmount the hurdle of experimentation and participation with social tools. It’s only at that point can we get them to try something that looks new but really isn’t.
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Hi Stephen
I’ve been saying the same thing for years about the warm’n'fuzzies associated with PR: if we can’t talk about it in terms that the bean-counters understand and value, they’ll never understand and value our work.
I figured it out (to a limited extent only, and I’m definitely no expert) using the good old Balanced Scorecard, back when I was at NRMA years ago.
I look to measurement experts like Angela Sinickas and Katie Paine (@kdpaine) for guidance on tying ‘new’ or ’scary’ or ’soft’ activities to the ‘hard’ business targets.
Just some thoughts…
excellent post, and when it comes to talking about it in their and our language, web 2.0 is now the most hated buzzword among marketers:
http://www.thisisherd.com/2009/01/how-to-get-non-techie-marketers-back-up.html
I’m not surprised at all at that list. Sometimes, using these terms is unavoidable. But let’s all agree not to saturate, and to think about who we’re speaking with (not to or at) before we say anything.
I also find that sometimes you just need to show people how it works. Interestingly enough, once it becomes hands-on, people will start to find the way that they want/need to work with it. Goes for Facebook, Twitter and yes, LinkedIn.