Social Media Third Heaven

Marketers are rushing to ramp up their social media marketing efforts. Despite the excitement, the bottom-line results from social media marketing are elusive. A recent SIIA study looked at marketers of software, a group on the leading edge of tech and social media adoption. Sixty percent of these very advanced marketers reported that less than 5 percent of their deals originated from social media marketing.

So how can the excitement and potential around social media marketing transfer into real business results for marketers? We must remember that social media marketing is new and still evolving. Marketers are charging into this brave new world, learning and iterating the model. Three stages of social media marketing have emerged: amateur, messenger, and publisher. It is only as marketers evolve to this third and most advanced stage, publisher, that the potential of social is realized and enormous bottom-line benefits are generated.

Amateur Stage

In this stage it is chaotic. Social is the directive, but nobody knows the plan or the specific objectives. There is poor coordination: often different departments and groups are all tweeting independently without the benefits of focus and scale. Little is accomplished, but it is a first and necessary stage for an organization to get exposed to the world of social media. 

Messenger Stage

The messenger stage focuses on the revolutionary ability that the Internet and social media have given to marketers: to communicate directly with prospects and develop relationships with them. Thus the objective at the messenger stage has become to establish these relationships.

Publisher Stage

These "publisher stage" marketers still use social networks. But the networks serve as a way to distribute links to their content, which is centered on their own website. As prospects navigate to the marketer's site and consume the content addressing their interests and concerns, they build trust in the brand and an appreciation for the brand's understanding of their own interests.   

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   We all want to grow as social media marketers and growth is always a process. What stage are we in our social media marketing process? If we are developing relationships we are in the messenger stage. If we are providing the content needed and desired by our followers and fans then we are in the publisher stage. Publishing is the "Third Heaven" of social media marketing. Get there!