Twitter, Video and the Difference between Marketers and Public Affairs Practitioners
Cross posted to Navigator Comments
Last night, my colleague Lanny Cardow and I were invited by our friends at BizMedia to hear Scott Stratten, a self-professed Twitaholic speak about (you guessed it!) Twitter and social media. Scott is kind of a big deal in social media circles – he has over 55,000 followers, 51,000 tweets (and that’s in a short 18 months), and a book out in the fall.
Scott believes that it’s time for companies to stop marketing, and start engaging – but only if they want to use social media. If they don’t get it, if they question it, they shouldn’t bother making an appearance. And he’s right. Twitter should not be used as a glorified RSS feed; it shouldn’t be used to force feed your organization’s latest press release.
On the whole, I agreed with much of what Scott said, but I was struck by how marketers and public affairs practitioners often operate in different worlds, even in social media. In order to create a compelling video, you need to tap into people’s emotions, he says. Agreed. But he adds that we shouldn’t expect high conversation rates on those videos. Citing Judson Laipply’s YouTube hit, Evolution of Dance as an example, Scott pointed out that despite receiving over 140 million views, Judson received only 20,000 clicks to his website. Ouch. That’s a depressing ratio. But that’s also the difference between producing a video for sheer entertainment value, and one that seeks to activate people.
In activation campaigns, we still using emotion to rouse people into action. The difference is that there’s typically something at stake for the viewer – higher taxes, health care reform, coups, to name a few topical examples. Upon watching the video, they feel compelled to do their part to change the course of action, and that’s why these types of campaigns experience higher CTRs.
Scott also talked about Twitter following/follower ratios, encouraging us to be “Twivas” – only follow the people you want to follow – not everyone who follows you. That’s fine and dandy for a personal account, but if you’re a public figure like a politician, you must follow people back; failing to do so simply makes you look out of touch. The same is true if you’re organization is running an activation campaign – if you’re building a movement, why wouldn’t you follow everyone back? The challenge is in personalizing the account. Although most Canadian politicians are absolutely boring on Twitter, there are some fine examples. Tony Clement’s twitter feed is an absolute riot on most days; he constantly engages people, even taking on challengers. Minister Clement is so authentic on Twitter, some of us were convinced it was a fake account when he first joined. Scott would agree, what separates politicians like Tony Clement from the rest, is his focus on engaging the community. And that’s definitely where marketing and public affairs converge.
Photo credit: Flickr user Thomas Hawk