Social media awareness

A classic marketing framework for describing consumer behavior is awareness,  interest, desire, and action (AIDA). Tim Ash does a good job of relating the AIDA model to eCommerce and Internet Marketing. Over the past several months, I’ve been trying to promote the ‘A’ for awareness with social media with my organization, friends, and family. It’s been a surprisingly difficult task.

At work, I routinely collect and share social media examples with peers and managers. Now, I don’t consider this a spamming effort. I try to make the content of each message relevant. It might be about relationship building or how businesses are using social media to reach customers. My Starbucks idea is a great example of this.

Here are some typical responses from work:

• Something like “that’s nice, come back to me when you can prove it will make a million dollars in 90 days”
• “That would never work here”
• An acknowledgment that it sounds really cool.
• No response, no acknowledgment. I translate this to mean, they are too busy to read the message, they don’t understand the message, or they think social media is a home based fad with no business relevance.

I see this as a battle between classic push marketing (paid print ads, internet banners, etc.) and value based marketing (content based where customers elect to see your content). Before I can get people to be ‘interested’ (AIDA) they need to be aware of just what social media is.  The ideas of building relationships, offering helpful services, and being authentic are not new. What is new, is that you would do these activities without charging the customer for each interaction.  Awareness.

At home, or with friends, I often hear comments like:

• Why would I put my personal life online? – Pick and choose what you share. But its a good way to build relationships, because people will post what’s important to them or what they are passionate about. It definitely gets you past the shallow conversations about the weather!
• “Who has time for that?”  – I guess you have less time if you just turn on the TV and plop on the couch. Everyone has the same amount of time in the day. Make your choices about what you’ll do with it.
• “I’ve never heard of that or wouldn’t know what to do” – People are creatures of habit. Have you seen the fastest growing segment on Facebook?

How do you promote awareness of social media in your organization, family, or circle of friends? Write me, I’d like to get some insight into what has worked for you and what has not.

Photo Credit: Relationship-Economy