Social media is ‘Human to Human’ marketing[/caption]
In March 2013 I visited a digital marketing conference in Dublin’s Aviva Stadium called DMX Dublin. I attended lots of talks that day, but one particular sentence in one of the talks stood out – ‘Think human, not corporate’. What the speaker implied was, rather than thinking B2B (Business to Business) or B2C (Business to Consumer) think H2H – Human to Human social media.
The reason it stuck out is because it is so true. I’ll give you an example…
Every September Dublin’s very own Oktoberfest takes place in the city’s IFSC and lasts 18 nights. In 2012 there was moderate social media activity consisting of a few teaser posts in the run up to the event and a few photo albums over the course of the festival.
In 2013 the page did the same thing. In the run up to the event, the page began sharing images of ice cold beers in the sunshine with messages of how long there was to go before the event got under way again. Each were quite effective and generated a lot of engagement.
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Teaser post in the run-up to Oktobefest Dublin 2013[/caption]
This post in particular generated exactly 300 likes, over 20 comments and 70 shares. As you can see the image looks like a professional image taken by an employed photographer and it is one that showcases everything the festival is famous for – beer.
A few days later, after the tent was erected, the page posted a picture of the tent to let everybody know the show was about to begin. The image was of a white tent with no signage, with the grey buildings of the IFSC in the background and a murky sky looming above. But there was something different about this image – it was ‘real’. See for yourself:
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A grey shot of the Oktoberfest tent…that lots of people could relate to[/caption]
The image generated almost three times as many likes as one of its flash predecessors. Why? Because it was clear that this was a photo taken by a real person in Dublin, on a grey, wet September morning. It was human – not corporate.
The key takeaway here is this – we all want the same things from social media marketing…increased revenue, brand awareness, lots of traffic and more. But what we need to remember is that when trying to meet the objectives set, it needs to be done in a way that people can relate to.]]>