Debbie Mayo-Smith: Social media - giving back what email has lost

The experts have got it wrong, or maybe they're not experienced enough to understand the real value of social media to business today.

So I'm going to give you the Debbie Mayo-Smith view of social media. Let me take you back to early 2001. It was early in my speaking career and I was dubbed the "email guru". I was one of the first in New Zealand pushing email as a fabulous marketing tool. For a year it was though I was hitting my head against a brick wall. Finally, so much noise was coming from around the world that New Zealand businesses at last took notice. Back then, my conversations and presentations centred on email: how to use it in marketing; the benefits and cost advantage.

September 20, 2002. Queenstown. B&D Garador annual conference. My presentation on email marketing to the lovely contractors and business owners who worked with the company had just finished. One man came up to me and said: "Debbie, I love your ideas. I can see how they would work well. But my problem is, I don't have a database so I can't do what you're talking about."

That simple comment was like a thunderbolt. It was both a slap and an epiphany. At that moment, I realised two things. First, it never occurred to me that business owners would NOT keep a database of their clients and prospects. Second, I had the message all wrong. I had the wrong emphasis.

The song I should have been singing was the benefit to business of having a database and using it. Email was, and is, simply the vehicle that carries the communication. Nothing more.

Fast-forward to 2010 and everything we're hearing about social media is the same old, old, old message. It's primarily the same thing that was said about how to use email:

* You should figure out a communication strategy.

* You should have business goals in mind.

* You have to add value.

* You have to target.

* You want to get it viral.

* You have to make it interesting. Blah, blah, blah.

You had to do this with email marketing. You have to do it with print communications. You have to do this with social media, too. But because it's interactive, you have to be prepared for written backlash.

The real point everyone is missing is this: you should view social media as your business' (online) database.

As you know, back in the early 2000s email for marketing was king. Everyone freely gave their email address. It was sinfully easy to be new and innovative. As that gentleman reminded me in Queenstown, you needed a database to do it.

Here we are in 2010. What is the view on email? Everyone is hassled and overloaded. Too much email. Spam filters chew up most marketing emails. Many people use their smartphones to read email. It's very difficult to naturally grow email lists.

If a database is your answer to communicating with and earning more from your past, present and future customers, yet email is losing effectiveness, then what is an additional or alternative vehicle?

Yup. The likes of Facebook, Linkedin, YouTube and Twitter. By using these platforms well, you develop long online lists of fans, friends, connections and followers. They give you the viral ability email lost 10 years ago.

But it doesn't stop there. Another phenomenally important aspect of social media is almost universally ignored.

That is the ability for businesses, small and large, to cleverly use the free and easy (freasy) technology.

What do I mean? Here are two quick examples:

* YouTube. We know the public use of YouTube, but how many are using it for hosting private internal training videos, for example?

* Facebook. Facebook has business fan pages and group pages. Where else can legions of small businesses that have ignored creating websites do so for free? Use it as a starting point website and a place to host pictures of products. Groups can be open or private. Who has thought of using the private group as an internal intranet, or forum for an association, franchise, or company?

The value of social media is twofold. First as the new freasy communication channel to strike up and maintain relationships with clients. Second, as technology to use cleverly to save your business costs while improving internal and external communications.

Debbie Mayo-Smith is a bestselling author and international speaker. Twitter mseffective

www.debbiespeaks.co.nz