[MUSIC] How does an individual or organization deal with all of the quickly changing social sites used today? Changes are constant in a world of social. As consumers, we are always looking for social sites which better fit our need for information and privacy. For example, younger audiences first flock to social networking sites to engage with their friends, however, they migrated to more private sites to avoid their parents oversight. Regardless of our age. We will move from one social site to another as our network moves. Or if the site changes our relationship towards us. Like offering advertising for the first time. Regardless of why we move, change is constant. So we need a plan for change in our social marketing strategies. Like a surfer, we need to ride the change wave to succeed in this new digital marketplace. The question is, how? To succeed in using social, there are three principles you need to develop to manage change. The first principle is to classify sites by their function. Later in this video, we will discuss the social pyramid. It is designed to classify all social sites into one of six categories based on the role they play in the world of social. Rather than reacting to the change, you can classify a new site and quickly determine if you need to alter your social strategies. If the site is in a category not used by your high value markets take no action. If it is, you need to determine if your high value markets are moving to it, it makes change more manageable. The second principle is to add new sites, only when they are popular to your target audience. Many sites fail, so don't react to them too soon. Often, we've seen fast moving social sites quickly lose their luster if they don't treat their members well. Remember, you don't have to be the first mover to a new technology. Wait until you know it is successful, and you know your high value audiences are using it. The third and most important principle is only focus on sites containing your high value markets. I was recently at an IBM e-commerce summit. The day before the summit I went to the hotel lounge to watch a baseball game. As I was watching the game, two individuals, fellow social marketers, sat down near me. I need a WeChat strategy, one said to the other. I can't find anyone who has a successful WeChat strategy, but I know we need to be on WeChat. As they talked, one of them turned to me and asked me if I was attending the summit. When I told them I was speaking on social marketing strategies, they asked me what they should do with WeChat. My answer, do you have a high value market using WeChat now? They answered, no. My response was, then you don't need a WeChat strategy. Principle three is don't focus on social media, focus on your audience and where they are at in the social pyramid. Like direct marketing in the nineties, don't form social silos with separate strategies for each social site. Think markets first. For most organizations, remember your people and dollar resources are a precious commodity. Don't burn them developing social sites you don't need. Now, let's look at the structure we will use to holistically develop your social strategies, the social pyramid. When I first started examining social marketing closely, I had the good fortune of contacting board reader. Facebook was just starting its meteoric rise. In these early conversations, I ask Steve Dodd, a guest who will be in our second MOOC, if they were, were working hard now that Facebook was growing. His response? We don't concern ourselves with social networking sites like Facebook. We focus on the deeper, longer-term conversations occurring in social. If you think about it, it makes sense. While social networking sites have members discussing many subjects, those conversations are very short and transient. We move from one topic to another. While bored reader now collects Facebook conversations. What it highlighted to me was that there were deeper conversations you need to understand. That started the development of the social pyramid. The social pyramid consists of six classification level. The key is the pyramid is not structured by site size. After all, Facebook is huge, but it's structured by the depth and types of conversations happening at that level, for example, think of social conversations about cancer. In social networks, the conversation is likely to be about someone who just learned they have cancer or are fighting it. Their friends and families will discuss it. However, these conversations are likely to be more about who has cancer rather than deep discussion on treatments and solution. Lower down in the pyramid, the discussions will become much deeper and more focused on cancer itself. The key is that the lower you go into the social pyramid, the deeper and more focused the discussion of any topic will become. [MUSIC]
