Social media marketing is full of metrics that can impress clients such as follower count, but until they are put in context they mean absolutely nothing. If your Twitter account has 1000 followers that may seem good, but when you some research and find that all of your competitors have at least 3,000 followers, the sheen wears off.

These numbers are used to agencies to show their work as being successful. It’s largely a runoff from the social media industry being co-opted by the PR world, obsessed with hollow figures such as opportunities to see. They see the number of followers a brand has a direct translation to opportunity to see brand messages. They promise that they can get a Facebook fan page X number of followers in X amount of time, and because it’s relatively easy to do so, they can deliver. And so they give the impression they’ve been successful because they’ve delivered what they told you they would. This does not mean that it’s been a successful social media campaign though, far from it.

If they aren’t engaging with users, having conversations, learning what consumers think and want then ultimately it’s a failure. So what if every time you put out a message 1000 people have the opportunity to see it, if no one cares about, understands or wants to see the message, then it’s pointless. Just as pointless (and potentially dangerous) as getting PR coverage about a new burger in a vegetarian magazine would be.

Social media isn’t just about reach, it’s about engagement. Until you start putting follower numbers into context, and showing the value of these followers then they’re just meaningless numbers.

Learn something new about your industry.

By taking the time to sit down regularly and write about a certain aspect of your industry you are bound to begin to learn new things. In taking the time to research you posts you’ll be opened to a whole world of other people’s thoughts.

Learn something new about yourself

I’m a firm believer that by having to actually think through what you think you know, you learn a lot more about what you actually think. By putting words down on a page you are forced to spend time examining what you believe, learning a lot about yourself in the process

Learn from being criticised

If there’s one thing that’s true of the Internet is that if you put somrthing online, someone, somewhere will disagree with it. And this is a good thing. Blogging allows you to share your ideas with the world, but it also allows the world to reply with what it thinks. It may be that your new idea stinks, or that it’s a completely new way of looking at things. But without sharing it with other people it’s difficult to know.

Demonstrate thought leadership – don’t just be a sheep

Everyone has at some point read something or heard someone say something that they disagree with, or seen something that they think they can do better. But very few people actually take the time to put their thoughts down on paper and put it out there for all to see. If you don’t want to be just another sheep it’s time to be bold, and for you speak up with your own thoughts and ideas. And all it takes is a blog.

Be part of the community

Similarly, by sharing your ideas online you become part of the community instead of one of the countless spectators. Blogging gives you a voice online, it allows you to interact with your peers from all over the world and engage with new and interesting people, all the while adding value to your network

Be transparent and authentic

Whilst blogging gives you the opportunity to belong, it can also help you stand out. What better way to demonstrate your transparency and authenticity and differentiate yourself than by sharing your thoughts or position on a certain topic, or by giving readers greater insight into your opinion.

Use your free time constructively.

Sure there are times when you want to watch your favourite TV show, or go out with friends, but there are also those days where you realise you have done nothing at all, and feel like you have wasted your free time. Why not use this time to learn something new and share it with your peers?

Create a movement

Do you have an idea that you think will change things for the better? Do you think that things should be done differently? The Internet has dramatically changed the way we share ideas. Blogging connects us to people who share similar thoughts and beliefs as us from all over the world, a platform that would be almost impossible in the offline world. Blogging is the best solution to find people who are like you and getting your movement off the ground.

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The information allowed companies and brands to build relationships with their customers, no longer just pushing out one message to all with huge mass marketing campaigns, but rather target their core customers with messages directed to their habits, wants and desires. A new field of marketing was born, Customer Relationship Management, or CRM for short.

However, marketing is undergoing another shift and it is again driven by technology. In recent years improvements in availability of broadband communications has allowed Internet access to become ubiquitous and improvements in technology have provided customers with access to more information about companies and brands than ever before. Knowledge of the information being sought by customers can also provide essential data to the companies in terms of honing their messages.

It used to be that information flowed one way, from the company to the consumer. Companies were very careful about the message they sent out, they spent huge amounts of money on slogans, jingles and advertising campaigns, all to provide the company mantra to the consumer. The conversation with the consumer was one way.

Professor Urban of MIT’s School of Management argues that “marketing is changing from the push strategies so well suited to the last 50 years of mass media to trust based strategies that are essential in a time of information empowerment.” (Urban 2004)

The Internet has allowed people to share their experiences and opinions of brands online. The role of consumers online has definitely changed. The Internet is not just a tool for finding information; it is also a tool for communication.

Jake Hird, (2009) referencing a recent study by Netpop Research argues that that with the increase in popularity of sites such as Digg, Twitter and Facebook, users are discussing their brand experiences online with their friends and other contacts. This kind of communication obviously happened offline before the Internet, but talking about a brand with 2 or 3 people around the water cooler or with the family over dinner is a vastly different scale to posting a message that is then available to several hundred contacts.

The power of the individual has never been greater, with almost immediate access to their entire network “consumers can openly challenge brands in an environment where there is scope to make a massive amount of noise.” Hird (2009) argues that brands cannot simply ignore these users, nor can they gag them. The users have taken a large chunk of power, and they aren’t likely to want to give it up any time soon.

It is this shift in power that is driving the revolution in branding and marketing. Companies are no longer able to control fully the message of their brands; the breakdown of the traditional broadcast paradigm (Moore 2005) is forcing companies to change tactics.

We see brands doing this with varying degrees of success, with Dell famously responding to a slew of customer complaints, most notably blogger Jeff Jarvis, by creating a dedicated a dedicated corporate blogger to engage directly with customers. They were pioneering engagement in a new era of socially networked communications. And they learnt a lot in the process, speaking at a Lionel Menchaca described how the game has changed:

• Customers are in control. Work with them and learn from them.
• Real conversations are two-way.
• Think before you talk—but always be yourself.
• Address any form of dissatisfaction head on.
• Be aware that any conversation can become global at any time.
• Size doesn’t matter—relevance does. Just as one journalist can trigger a newscycle, one blogger can do the same.
• Don’t be afraid to apologize.
• Develop direct links to customer community (IdeaStorm for Dell), listen for how we can improve.
• One customer is part of many communities.
• Teamwork, transparency and frequent consistent communication are key in this new world.
• No shortcuts are possible. Implementing business change requires much effort across departments.

David Armano describes the process of moving towards a Social Business Strategy as “the intentional creation of dynamic and socially calibrated systems, process, and culture.” In other words, companies now must learn to engage with their customers and enter into the conversations they are having. By doing this, they eliminate the middleman of advertising and can enhance their business by actually listening to, and engaging with their customers’ conversations in the social sphere.

Social media more than just levels the playing field; it puts the ball right in the consumers’ hands. The social web has allowed people to share their experiences and opinions of brands online. This kind of communication obviously happened offline before the Internet, but talking about a brand with 2 or 3 people around the water cooler or with the family over dinner is a vastly different scale to posting a message that is then available to several hundred contacts.

The power of the individual has never been greater: as Hird argues, with almost immediate access to their entire network “consumers can openly challenge brands in an environment where there is scope to make a massive amount of noise.”

It is this shift in power that is driving the revolution in branding and marketing. Companies can no long hide behind the branded message they broadcast, they have to have open and truthful conversations, they can no longer simply broadcast their message; they have to engage with consumers in an open dialogue.

The core facet of social media is to share information through social interaction using web technologies. And as such the same rules that apply to social interactions in the offline world, apply online. In order for two people to maintain a healthy relationship both parties must be clear about their intentions and remain honest to each other.

Companies and their employees must be completely open and have full disclosure with their audience. An attempt to pretend to be someone else or to hide behind false intentions will invariably be discovered and will result in serious damages to a brand’s reputation.

So why is it that employees are still trying to pull the wool over consumers’ eyes?

Without openness in your conversations there can’t be trust, and without trust there can’t be a relationship. And without a relationship, you’re screwed. This is a lesson that can’t be learned fast enough.