Groundswell Doesn't Come from the Ground

After reading the first half of Groundswell by Charlene Li and Josh Bernoff, I have not been able to get the social media movement - or the "groundswell" - out of my mind. While I have been aware of social media since I first made a MySpace in 2003, I am now more attuned to its powerful influence on society and marketing strategy.

Before reading Groundswell and taking the time to really contemplate social media marketing, when I thought "social media marketing," I thought, "That's right, old people, you'd better make a Facebook and Twitter in order to catch up with what us young'uns are up to." I would explain to my dad how to "friend" someone on Facebook or post on a "wall," and I would feel like an expert. Well, ladies and gentlemen, in case you were wondering,  I was not an expert.

Now I realize that, unfortunately for us young'uns, social media marketing is much more strategic than just knowing how to use basic functions on Facebook and Twitter. It is complex, risky, technical, largely unpredictable, and requires an innovative mind. At least it's not boring.

Some of the main concepts reiterated in the first six chapters of Groundswell were that social media is interconnected, that the content and brands projected into social media technologies belong to the network users and not their creators, and that there is no single social media networking strategy that works for every situation.

Take, for example, the infographic I found on Digital Buzz Blog. A user creates content and, if it's good enough, it tailspins into a maze of non-linear social media connections until, maybe, it develops enough buzz to appear on a reputable news site.



Whether or not content follows a trajectory similar to that shown in the above graphic depends on the creator - the marketer.


Groundswell has taught me thus far that success in social media marketing is about positioning. Marketers need to understand what social media technologies (if any) their target market uses and in what ways. They have to listen to the areas of the groundswell they hope to influence, and eventually, they have to strategically engage with them. The form of engagement marketers should choose is relative to their target market, the technology, and the marketer's creative ability. Knowing the important elements of a marketing strategy - the who, what, where, when, and why - then allows marketers to innovate. If they're lucky, they'll create an entirely new way of engaging with the groundswell.

In an industry that changes constantly and rapidly, "new" is a necessity.