photo via twitter.com/jessebearden
I ended my first post with a request for you, the reader, to engage with this blog by leaving feedback, thoughts, and questions in the comments. To me, this kind of conversation is vital. As I said in that post, remember, social media is just media without the social part.
If you’re okay with a one-way conversation, well, I guess you can just go back to yelling at your TV. (Note: I am not above yelling at my TV, particularly when the Patriots are on). For those of us looking for more, though, social media channels like Twitter, Facebook, and blogs are great outlets. And for many of us, online is only where the conversation starts. Yes, I may be talking crazy, but social media can also ignite social interaction…offline. You know, in real life. *
*Fun fact: The kids these days have a special Internet acronym for “in real life,” IRL. I’d link you to the Urban Dictionary definition, but it’s just a wee bit NSFW. Google at your own risk.
Individual social media consumers get this. We see it all the time. Your friends use Facebook to promote and talk about upcoming events. (And no, I’m not talking about webinars. I mean honest-to-goodness, legitimate events. IRL!) You might also know some people that utilize Foursquare to alert friends to their whereabouts. Twitter seems to be the most popular social media channel for spurring in-person interaction, at least in my network. Tweets like this pop up in my stream all the time:
In fact, it was this exact use case that really made Twitter what it is today. Twitter co-founder, Biz Stone, was recently on NPR’s Fresh Air speaking to Terry Gross about how the company came to be and Twitter’s role in the Egyptian revolution. That role, in and of itself, is a great example of Twitter as an organizing tool, but it was one quote towards the end of the interview that stood out to me. Stone, discussing when Twitter really started picking up traction, had this story to tell:
“In March of 2007 we went to a festival called South by Southwest, which is widely known for its music and film aspects. But just before those begin, there’s an interactive portion and that’s where a lot of Bay Area geeks go and they show up and they network. And at that time we had about maybe 50, 100 thousand people sort of system testing it out. And this was the first time and the first – and the right crowd that we were able to see Twitter as sort of in the wild, so to speak. And what we saw was really amazing…
…That night there was a party, because this event is also about the parties at night, and there was a guy at a bar who really wanted to be able to talk more with his friends and it was too loud. So he sent out a tweet that said this place is too loud, I’m going to this other place, and he named the other place. And in the eight minutes it took him to walk to this other bar, it had completely filled to capacity and there was a line out the door. So his plan backfired, but what had happened was his one tweet had then been received by his hundred or so followers. They sent the same tweet out saying, hey, this is what we’re doing, and within eight minutes 800 people descended upon this bar.
And what was really amazing about that was that this was just a party situation. But what if it had been something more serious? And the thing that came to mind for me, and the thing that really got me fired up, was this idea, if you think about it, of a flock of birds moving around an object in flight. This is something that looks incredibly choreographed. It looks beautiful. They just all move as one around a telephone pole, for example. And it’s not choreographed. It’s very simply rudimentary communication among individuals in real time that allows the many to behave as one. And this is something we were seeing happening with people. And this is the first time to my knowledge that people were able to coordinate and move in real time like this. And for us this was just sort of, you know, spine-tingling.
We went back to San Francisco I think two days later and that’s when we founded Twitter Incorporated, and that was the beginning of a series of eye-opening events which would reinforce the fact that we were working on something important.”
As I mentioned before, individuals have been using social media for this kind of scenario since the beginning. A lot of celebrities get it too. Shaquille O’Neal (Twitter: @the_real_shaq) often tweets in an effort to meet fans in person. Country music band, Sugarland, supported their tour last summer by hiding tickets that they would then tweet clues about for their fans to find the reward. These examples show how celebrities are leveraging social media to create new means of engagement with their fans. They are giving their fans real reasons to follow them on Twitter and motivation to actually read their tweets.
So, where are the big brands in all of this? In my opinion, they seem to be missing out on a great opportunity to create more meaningful relationships with their consumers. Sure, some brands are using Foursquare and other location-based services to push coupons that their customers can use in the real world, and others might put out the occasional tweet that says something to the effect of, “Hey, we’re at xyz trade show…drop by the booth and say hi.” I am yet to see, however, brands that are using social media to spur genuine (i.e., not just a sales pitch) engagement between them and their consumers.
This is not to say, though, that there aren’t brands out there doing this…and doing it well. This is just what I am seeing. In fact, since posting a tweet about this blog post a few days ago, I’ve already heard from Adam Moffat of Molson-Coors Canada, who is prioritizing this kind of offline engagement in their social media efforts. I’ll have a post featuring them soon.
In the meantime, let me know if there are any other brands out there that I should be looking at. Leave your suggestions in the comments. If you’re a brand representative, and want to share some of your strategies, shoot me an email!
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