Idea Management

I’ve said it in the past that all companies should strive to participate in interactive and social media. But that doesn’t mean that all companies are ready for it. First, they need to take an introspective look at themselves. Because if you want to market in social media, you have to be transparent. (See my previous post on this topic.)

Today Facebook, the undisputed leader in social networks affirms this notion with their post Governing the Facebook Service in an Open and Transparent Way. In it, Mark starts by eloquently saying:

“Our main goal at Facebook is to help make the world more open and transparent. We believe that if we want to lead the world in this direction, then we must set an example by running our service in this way.

We sat down to work on documents that could be the foundation of this and we came to an interesting realization—that the conventional business practices around a Terms of Use document are just too restrictive to achieve these goals. We decided we needed to do things differently and so we’re going to develop new policies that will govern our system from the ground up in an open and transparent way.”

This is the language and the model that is brining the web to new levels and higher standards. The old way of looking at advertising still has it’s purpose. But if you want to be successful in marketing on this medium, you have to understand the basic rules.

I believe that there are two things that all interactive marketing should strive for. I don’t believe this audience is adverse to advertising. I think they accept it and enjoy it when it’s done right. And I think these foundational things can help ensure they are done right:

1. Trasparency - the marketing needs to be genuine, authentic, open, honest, real and relevant. It needs to be approached with high standards for your advertising and your brand. It can’t live on it’s own in a vacuum. Users are too savvy to know when you’re trying to sell them and not prvide them any real value - which is my second criteria:
2. Value - I’ve applied this quality to successful viral marketing in the past. If you really want people to share your marketing, you can’t simply add a “Send-to-a-Friend” to your email and expect it to work effectively. All social media is (in a sense) viral marketing - so I think these points still hold true here. So, value needs to be considered and applied from four perspectives:
   • Value to the recipient - short, entertaining, challenging or inspiring
   • Value to the sender - ego (I found this and you need to check it out)
   • Value to the client - credibility, clout, traffic, buzz
   • Value to the web - this is the X-factor. It needs to provide something original and add value that other marketers haven’t already done (and that difference can be subtle).

There is, of course, a lot more to the picture. There is still copy that needs to be written, design that needs to be created, and code that needs to be programmed. There are a slew of nuances and detail. But before time is wasted on that, there needs to be a ‘come to Jesus’ moment and commitment to this medium. If you want to market successfully in this medium in the long run, you need to ask yourself what it means for you to be transparent.