Hugh MacLeod once cartooned “If you talked to people the way advertising talked to people, they’d punch you in the face.”
Nowhere is this more apparent than in social media, particularly as brands migrate their commercial messages from ads on the side to sponsored posts in the center. I had a chance to go to Facebook’s headquarters recently and was struck by something I heard — when your brand message sits in someone’s news feed between a friend’s birth announcement and another friend’s wedding pictures, your brand message had better be worth it.
Yet not enough brand messaging in social media is really worth it. Their content feels re-purposed from traditional advertising. Too frequently, brands come across as party crashers rather than welcome guests.
I’ve also noticed brands take a one-size-fits-all approach across every social media channel. Marketers don’t give enough thought to the platform their content is posted on. Facebook is different than Instagram is different than Twitter is different than LinkedIn is different than Pinterest. To thrive in distinct channels, marketers have to adapt their story to each one.
I liked this quote from Gary Vaynerchuk’s recent book on this topic:
“Today, getting people to hear your story on social media, and then act on it, requires using a platform’s native language, paying attention to context, understanding the nuances and subtle differences that make each platform unique, and adapting your content to match.”
I’d love to hear your thoughts on how to create brand messaging that’s truly native to distinct social networks.
(Marketoonist Monday: I’m giving away a signed print of this week’s cartoon. Just share an insightful comment to this week’s post by 5:00 PST on Monday. Thanks!)