Are you crazy if you don’t use social media?

by Monday, November 15, 2010
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An astoundingly mediocre flick starring Dudley Moore came out in 1990, called “Crazy People.”  The gimmick of the movie was an advertising exec who decided to tell the truth about their clients’ products.  One tag line was: “Metamucil: It helps you go to the toilet. If you don’t use it, you’ll get cancer and die.”  Right, so not funny.

Here’s a clip from the movie, with another “crazy” pitch for Volvos.

 

Honestly, maybe none of us want to hear the raw and unvarnished truth about products.  The mission of advertising is to create slogans and ads that make us want to buy products, and the truth can quickly become a casualty in marketing campaigns.  Inevitably, the best marketing for a company is word of mouth.

So how does that silly Dudley Moore movie actually help make the case for social media?  First, here’s some rather telling data about how people make buying decisions:

•   84% of consumers trust recommendations from friends

•   70% trust online recommendations from complete strangers

•   Only 5% of consumers trust advertising*

Let’s examine these figures a little more closely.  84% of us trust recommendations from friends. Makes sense, right?  Many of us found our doctors that way.  There’s a reason one landscaping company often maintains the yards of several houses in the same neighborhood.  Or that all the kids in a neighborhood play on the same soccer team.  It’s human nature to trust recommendations from friends.

What if it’s something your friends can’t recommend?  A company that sends you attractive specials in a flyer isn’t going to give you the name of a disgruntled customer as a reference.  This is where that 70% number comes into play. If none of your friends have used this company, the next best source is online websites where people provide unbiased reviews such as Kudzu or Angie’s List.  These reviewers often either love or hate a company.  If you’re lukewarm, you’re less likely to go online and leave a review.

The final number says only 5% of consumers trust advertising.  This figure is rather indicting of traditional marketing.  But as the movie “Crazy People” demonstrated, can you imagine Don Draper creating an ad that told you “the food tastes oily and artificial”?  That’s right, you can’t.  Because companies don’t badmouth themselves in their ads.  In fact, Jeff Hilimire, Chief Digital Officer of Engauge likes to use a phrase: You are the least credible person to be talking about your company.

If you’re the least credible, then who is the most?  Your customers!  Social media is all about companies giving customers the opportunity to engage in conversations with each other and the company.  Imagine you see an ad for an orthodontist in the newspaper.  Maybe you’d check them out on Facebook, and wouldn’t it be persuasive if you saw loyal patients commenting, showing off their favorite braces color combinations or demonstrating their beautiful new smiles, singing the praises of this orthodontist?  Social media is an invaluable tool in the marketing tool box.

Now back to my original question… “are you crazy if you don’t use social media?”  You could be missing a huge opportunity to provide a forum that allows potential customers to trust you… BEFORE they ever use your product or services.   If companies aren’t “crazy” enough to tell the truth, let the customers do it for them.  After all, 70% of people will trust the words of the customers.

You do the math.  Social media may not be for everybody, but if you employ as your sole marketing technique a tool that only 5% of consumers trust, then you be the judge of whether you’re crazy.

*Alterian White Paper – “Your Brand At Risk”

 

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8 Responses
  • Barbara Ling, Virtual Coach
    November 16, 2010

    Social media is THE way people nowadays buy (methinks) – it used to be SEO (whatever ranked on top of the SERPS was where people looked).

    However, social search/social media is far more effective I believe. We’ll see what shows up next….

    • karen
      November 16, 2010

      Hi Barbara,

      Clearly, I think all companies should at least consider whether social media is worthwhile for them. I’m one of those folks who checks to see if companies have Facebook pages when I’m researching whether I want to use them. For me, it’s a determining factor to see if a company is “media savvy” so I do think social search is extremely effective!

  • Richard
    November 16, 2010

    I think social media is the wave of the future. It gets your message out to so many people. Also, it’s allows you to push your site out, instead of waiting for someone to stumble across it on some other medium.

    • karen
      November 16, 2010

      Hi Richard, that is definitely the beauty of social media… you’re able to get your message out to folks who normally wouldn’t find you. And even though writing this blog is a lot of fun, I publish these articles so people will see them. Social media allows me to tell people about what I’ve written, as opposed to sitting around and waiting for people to find my blog.

      Thanks for your comments!

  • rachat de credit
    November 25, 2010

    Man, really want to know how can you be that smart, lol…great read, thanks.

    • karen
      November 27, 2010

      Well, thank you! And thank you for commenting on my blog. Glad you enjoyed it!

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