Social Media Is NOT the Conversation

Social media is the modern version of the telephone.

What social media does is simply allow you to do one thing: communicate. That's it. Social media is not the conversation. It's the room in which you hold the conversation. It still comes down to saying, doing, or producing something valuable for your customer. Companies which forget this will simply throw money down the social media hole. Companies that get it will find social media a valuable tool – if they are prepared to stick it out and learn how it works.

In her recent blog, Valeria Maltoni made this very important distinction. I would like to take this a step further.

As Valerie says, companies must deliver something of value to customers. Most companies act as it the value lies in the product they sell. Unfortunately for them most products today have lots of competition and come off as undifferentiated commodities. One form of value to customers is gaining the insight or know-how to extract greater experiential value from products. Companies that can help them do so gain an important form of differentiation. The social media conversation can play an important role in making this happen.

On the other hand, many new products are seen as complex and confusing to customers. Customers who would like to gain from the innovation but at the same time are already overloaded with too many things they don't understand. Often this leads to customer avoidance or stress. Helping customers understand how they can achieve something meaningful to themselves is the antidote. The social media conversation can help reduce the uncertainly or confusion and unleash the value.

One final point. This new online communication vehicle fun to play with for awhile, but if it doesn't contribute to offline benefits to both customers and companies, it will lose its allure.