Social Media: Not the final frontier.
Our continuing mission: to engage strange new platforms, to seek out new people and new experiences, to boldly go where we have not gone before.
Do you truly seek engagement?
Do you engage with intent, or just hope?
Google Plus, Twitter, Facebook, Pinterest, LinkedIn. At times, these are all new frontiers, that we will explore. (Resources at the end)
In this brief article, we will boldly go where many men (and women) have gone before.
When I was growing up. I loved Star Trek. I learned new things, I was entertained, and I saw a moral story play out in front of me.
When we work in marketing. We are always exploring new frontiers. Sometimes we are a red shirt, sometimes we are the main character. We fail, we succeed, we learn.
How would the characters from Star Trek behave if they were social media marketers?
Chekov uses stochastic calculus (The Russian one, a legacy of Kolmogorov and Borovkov) to implement a trajectory-controlled engagement. He re-balances it continuously, thus ask frequently asks Spock about engagement and sales impact. He is data driven.
Does he miss out on the human connection?
Kirk just engages when he wants to or as the situation presents itself. Albeit successful, there really is no plan. Do you engage without thinking about the direction or outcome?
What is your strategy, or are you reacting?
McCoy is a not a long-term engager, more a mid or short term engagement. His technique is highly correlated to the beginning sales cycle and has a low priority: he believes in one or two main engagements and executes on them.
Could he be missing out on the relationship sale?
Scotty builds his engagement using a mix of approaches. A holistic marketer He uses quadratic optimization to obtain a well balanced balance between sales trends and leverages his experience.
The analysis of results/efforts drives his success?
Spock replicates sophisticated techniques, he plays at order greater than 1, no alpha, beta or theta engagement for Spock, gamma is his starting point. He takes time to think about the impact that his engagement will have on his whole business and the business of whom he engages with.
But over-thinking it may be his weakness?
Uhura uses social listening, she is constantly in touch with sales and monitoring conversations and maintains a fundamental, open line of communication, rarely concerned with analysis of the outcome.
Is she spending her time wisely?
To sum it up;
Scotty believes in truly efficient holistic marketing.
Kirk does not care, and rushes headlong without a real plan (although he is confident and successful)
Spock thinks that people are not logical enough to obtain efficient sale ROI,
McCoy does not understand what it means, so he leaves it be – it either will workout or will not.
Chekov does not see why it is relevant as far as computations are correct, and
Uhura sees engagement as a “social herd”: no rationality but necessary interactions between species.
So therefore, think about what kind of marketer you are from Star Treks cast of characters?
PS. Coming soon, how to close the deal after you engage..keep an eye on this post for an update.
Resources for further learning:
Google+ (curated by Denis Labelle)
Our G+ page managers guide and tips series.
LinkedIn Profile Optimization from Mike Allton And his Twitter guide.
Pinterest for Beginners from Rebekah Radice
