From what we read on various blogs and in well-heeled marketing publications, social media marketing (SMM) is all about networks and using them to influence. 

It’s so ‘now’ that business has taken to the phenomenon with gusto as its latest marketing tool. We’ve even overheard some business types admit they don’t know what it is, but they know they need to have it!

But as far as we can see, everything old is new again. So after much digging through our old text books, soul searching and a few glasses of single malt scotch whiskey, we think we’ve finally understood what this whole SMM thing is all about. It’s a PR strategy!

Now before SMM aficionados take umbrage at this statement, please let us explain.

Firstly lets take a look at the grand daddy of public relations, Eddie Bernays. Now Eddie (apart from having the thumping dinner party conversation starter that he was the nephew of Sigmund Freud) was a pioneer in the area of influence way back in the 1920’s. He said if you can influence the leaders, either with or without their conscious cooperation, you automatically influence the group which they sway. Sound familiar?

Eddie pioneered the use of crowd psychology and the psychoanalytical ideas of Uncle Sigmund to manipulate public opinion using the subconscious, and went on to convince the public it was OK for women to smoke, that bacon and eggs was the true all-American breakfast, and to even facilitate the overthrow of the democratically elected president of Guatemala on behalf of the multinational United Fruit Company. Nice work Eddie.

So using the power of peers or groups to influence purchasing or decision making is nothing new. Its just been turbo charged.

Secondly an integral part of SMM for the business world is the ability to have a conversation with their customers.

Again, nothing new. As an example a client of ours has built his very successful business on word of mouth. Only problem is its taken a long time (15 years to be exact), but his customer retention rate is around 98 percent because he has a great product and he’s taken the time to build relationships with his customers by speaking with them one-by-one. He’s soon to embark on a SMM campaign.

PR academics will also fall over their tweed jackets to tell you all about Grunig and Hunt’s four models of PR, one of the most common theories in the field: press agentry, public information, two-way asymmetric and two-way symmetric. Its the two-way symmetric, or engaging in a dialogue with a view to changing practices, that most of our learned friend hold high as the perfect PR model.

Trouble is, that until now, the ability for businesses to actively and cost-effectively engage with their customers in such a manner has been out of their reach. Enter SMM.

So again, the idea’s been around in PR circles for a while, its just the technology that’s finally caught up.

And a last word on the subject (because we can), SMM is not free as many think it is. Just as it takes time and resources for you to canvas new clients, engage with them, and maintain relationships, it takes the same when engaging in a SMM campaign. Its just a whole lot quicker and bigger.

Now where’s that little black address book of ours?