Unusually for me this month I accepted an invitation from Nathan at Glass Times to write a piece for that splendid organ’s marketing supplement. We feel strongly here at VAST that we are here to promote the words of our clients and, perhaps unbelievably for some, my ego is kept in check despite many opportunities to plaster my views all over the place. But such is my alarm at how social media appears to be taken as gospel these days by people that purport to know what they are talking about, I felt compelled to speak out.
Social media has its place and, when communication with a mass audience is required then it can be incredibly powerful. Barack Obama set new standards with the social media campaign that took him to office using techniques that frankly destroyed his opponents’ efforts. And he still uses Twitter especially, with devastating results. Mind you, Obama has a ‘cool’ about him that could never be matched by any British politician I can think of so to copy his style would, frankly, bomb in the UK.
What I urge in my GT column is perspective. Social Media should be part of the marketing mix, combined with a balanced box of tricks that is appropriate for the audience you are seeking to influence. Even Obama’s crew will not have all of their eggs in the Twitter basket, no matter how powerful it has been for them.
As if by contradiction recently I have turned up my own personal efforts at social media, at least as far as Twitter is concerned. And the results have been exceptional. I want to find out the views of the window, door and conservatory trade at all levels and, frankly, I may want to influence of few others out there myself. I have been following many new fabricators and installers and many of those have followed back.
I have noticed how quickly many respond and how positively. I am particularly impressed by the sense of community that this has invoked, a sort of conspiracy that we are a step ahead of the others, those that haven’t Tweeted yet. I am enjoying retweeting the Twitter output we carry out on behalf of our clients and I get a buzz when my retweets are themselves retweeted.
But it is still in the hundreds of followers either way with a handful of retweets, although it is growing. So whist it has been interesting and, actually, fun I won’t be giving up our editorial output, print and online advertising, mailings or anything else just yet.
And nor should you.
– Paul Godwin
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