Factor 3: Applied Creativity

As someone who’s something of a social media agnostic, I find it ironic that the majority of my blog articles of late relate to social media. Maybe it’s because I still find myself on the fence that it’s still my major curiosity! It is also a complete coincidence that our next digital seminar will tackle the question that still remains on the lips of so many... ‘is social media right for our b2b business’?

It is yet more ironic that more people will read this article as a result of discovering it on Twitter, LinkedIn or Facebook than as a direct response to visiting our website. Yet still, I remain agnostic about the benefits of being a social b2b business... but why? And am I doing more harm than good by stating my concerns in this very public forum? I’m a firm believer in the concept of transparent marketing, so for better for worse I want to put this out to those who are interested (whose numbers seem to be growing by the week).

My last article was topical and timely, talking about the onset of Google+ and the +1 button on the same week of the beta release. This article found its way onto the homepage of Radio 1 DJ Aaron Balick’s site, amongst many others. This is some pretty widespread attention, and demonstrates that our insights are credible, digestible and ‘mainstream’. We tweet and retweet amazing material we’ve found from across the web whilst staying abreast of trends; our twitter following is growing daily as a result. We’ve gone from zero to three hundred followers in only six months, without directly leveraging social influencers or incentivising people to follow. 

So we are spreading awareness of our agency, raising our profile and fulfilling our ‘thought-leader’ positioning, which was the whole reason we started our blog in the first place (with SEO benefits a secondary concern). In social media terms, even for an agnostic, I’d have to say that we are achieving some great results in a short amount of time... when evaluating the results in the same way that a strictly social agency would evaluate their contribution to a client. 

This is where my agnosticism is laid bare; so far, all of this communication is one way. We’re doing a lot of talking, but this is yet to lead to conversations (on or offline) with those who remain complete strangers to our organisation. At the time of writing, we have yet to hear from our social audience at all. Just in case we have omitted the fact that not only are we approachable but we want to be approached, I’d like to take this opportunity to shout ‘HELLO’! How are you? Do you like what you’ve seen from us so far? Is there anything about our musings that are making you feel shy?

The lack of response has led me to question what impact all of this time and energy has had on new business. Not one existing or prospective client has called as a direct result of something we’ve ‘put out there’. I’ve had several suppliers tell me they’ve been following our blog posts and enjoyed reading them, despite the sometimes lengthy word counts; but suppliers cost money, they don’t make money. As mentioned above, high profile people have felt that our posts are worthy of space on their homepages, which has done great things for our traffic, but not one new business opportunity has come along as a direct result. Our bounce rates have also increased, but that has more to do with us needing to make our blog landing pages work harder than they presently do.

Our twitter followers are made up majoratively of others who operate in the same fields as us. Whilst this is flattering, it’s just giving our advantage (our skills, perspectives and experience) to our competitors. No offence intended to our twitter followers, I’m just stating the facts!

As I write this I feel like a hypocrite. In this industry we talk so much of above the line and below the line activity and go to great pains to explain that not all benefits of marketing are tangible. In this age of analytics, ROI and integrated comms, people are caring less about the intangibles and quite rightly so in these austere times. It is because of this that after months of pontificating, I haven’t been able to climb down from my fence, on one side or the other, much to my bemusement.

Before working for Factor 3 I had my own business. In the early days I recall very clearly the amount of door knocking, cold calling and disappointment that ensued. Undeterred, we kept hammering those doors and cellotaping the receivers to our hands in the hopes that we would one day make a serious breakthrough. No sooner had one big breakthrough occurred than many others followed. The same has been true here at Factor 3 since becoming the first and founding member of the digital team, and despite my little rant here about the merits/futility of social media, I still sit here with the same hope that a breakthrough will occur as I did in those early days of new business for a new business.

I have said in previous posts (and in the literature for our latest seminar) that no marketing channel is more controversial than social media, and in one case study I find myself reaffirmed in my cynicism; in the next I find myself questioning my own logic. In ‘marketing week’ last week there was an article by Mark Ritson – an associate professor of marketing, award winning columnist and consultant to some huge brands. It was like reading a catalogue of my own thoughts on the misconceptions of the medium. Yet in the next moment I’m watching a social campaign for a client deliver some impressive, tangible results.

I’m not sure what my point is here, and the more I write the more convicted I am that I don’t want to make one. What I really want as a result of this candid rambling is some feedback from others. For good or for bad, I want to delve deeper into the realities and move further away from the hype of being a social business. For some reason, it seems that it's ‘bad sport’ to bash social media as a viable channel at the moment - most probably due to the huge number of specialist agencies whose lifeblood relies on the success of the medium, yet I still hear of more disappointments than successes. 

As mentioned above, there are many industry insiders following us. Don’t just follow... engage. Lay your souls bare. Talk candidly and openly without fear of reprieve from your clients or your masters... and just in case our message boards are too public a forum for you to be honest, just contact me directly. Whether the outcome is a forum of social or anti social media, it’s time to look at the facts without the rose tinted glasses. Just click here to contact me personally and maybe we can all separate the reality from the fairytale.

We all want to look after the best interests of our clients. It’s in OUR interests to look after the best interests of our clients. It would be fantastic to be able to say assuredly, one way or another, whether endeavours in this area are fruitful for b2b businesses or a monumental waste of time. Please take this as an opportunity to get in touch.