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The Delicate Balance of the Social Media Ecosystem

Here’s an interesting exercise. Take a look at your product. Now take a look at your audience. Throw in your stakeholders. Are they synching together to form the optimal social media strategy? Perhaps not. According to Ravit Lichtenberg of UStrategy, LLC, everyone in this so-called “ecosystem” cares about different things. But how is it an ecosystem? First of all, what is an ecosystem? Well according to Wikipedia:

An ecosystem is a natural unit consisting of all plants, animals and micro-organisms (biotic factors) in an area functioning together with all of the physical (abiotic) factors of the environment.

Okay, we’re not plants or micro-organisms. Actually as a business analogy it doesn’t sound that appealing or interesting. So let me phrase it differently. Whether we’re stakeholders, customers, the marketing communications team or whoever, we’re all working together in balance to help form this ecosystem. Again, what is an ecosystem? It’s the relationship all of us have in society to try and solve a common problem.

An interesting twist is how other people see this ecosystem. Everyone, and I mean everyone, has their own idea of what they want to help solve the problem. In the above Venn diagram, you can see how each piece of the puzzle is pulling in different directions and has their own needs to accomplish. The key here is to become as centric-focused as possible. That’s where all parties will achieve zen-like peace and have the perfect strategy and product. But let’s look at some of the concerns everyone has:

Startup/Partners/Stakeholders:

- Will we beat our competition?
- Are we creating a need that needs to be filled?

Corporation:

- How do you measure the Return on Investment (ROI)?
- What tools are best?
- How to get IT’s buy-in?
- Are the old ways best?

Customers:

- What do I get?
- Why should I spend my time here?
- Will I have control over privacy?

These are just some of the concerns that should be addressed by any company planning to engage in a social media strategy. Lichtenberg is quick to point out that there are more brands joining in on social media eager to get your attention as their customer, but it should be noted that there is already plenty of noise online. People are getting tired of getting shouted at and with this crowded ecosystem, the one way to stand out is through addressing the concerns stated above and meeting everyone in the proverbial middle of the Venn diagram. So what are some steps to get there?

Lichtenberg suggests that instead of selling you need to be more focused on building and nurturing relationships. A wise suggestion since if you just sell, sell, sell to your customers, you’re not building any rapport and it’s a emotionless transaction. Rather, by building a rapport and nurturing your relationships, you’re building trust and that will help in the long-term to have faithful customers who will return for more of the same (maybe not always, but a majority of the time).

Have you noticed that customers aren’t necessarily going to the same physical store anymore? They’re often at the Best Buy down the street one day before going to Costco to look at the same product the next and then maybe even Target or Wal-Mart the day after that. The same holds true for social media. Lichtenberg believes that you should go after your customers where they are. Don’t force them to come to you. That’s a big turn-off. Show them appreciation and that you know their habits and behaviors. It’s like being a virtual concierge, right?

Rewarding those that are passionate and enthusiastic about your product is an obvious step you should take. If people are voluntarily promoting your product, that’s free advertising and the marketing dollars can be spent elsewhere. But don’t think that they’ll do it forever. No, a majority of the time these enthusiasts aren’t after money but they do want some gratitude. Take care of those who are your biggest fans and they’ll continue to do so for a long time.

Okay, so we’ve tackled ways to move the customers in our direction. We, as marketers & communications professionals are willing to move closer to the center as well – we’re team players after all, right? So how do we get the stakeholders and corporation folks to budge as well?

Lichtenberg suggests several steps. One of which is to find a common business objective. Your company might have a different objective than what the customer’s objective is so you’ll need to determine whether it’s one and the same.  Make sure that you also agree on the channels to target and reach out to. How is this done? Figure out what the objective is and does going after folks on a Ning social network make sense versus Twitter? What’s the target demographic and where are most people going? If you’re in the health industry, it might make sense to find where the people using sites like WebMD are going online. Not all social networks are created equally – makes it rather redundant if it were. Find the right people on board…eliminate the bureaucracy and find the people who are also enthusiastic about the program. Make sure that you also prioritize what’s important and how it will meet the stated objectives and deliver positive ROI. Lastly, once you develop a plan, you better implement it or you’re going to have a failure on your hands.

There’s a lot of noise taking place online. Brand after brand after brand is screaming at the top of their lungs trying to get anyone to listen. But there is hope. Reach for the perfect storm and you’ll succeed. A great ecosystem requires all parties to work in harmony with one another. You’re not in this alone so don’t create something in a vaccuum and assume everyone will buy in and think it’s the greatest thing since sliced bread – because chances are it might not be. Bring it all together and everyone will think you have the best product online…until someone else achieves the same nirvana.

Image credit: Ravit Lichtenberg, UStrategy, LLC.

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