5 E-Marketing Lessons from Social Media News Links

"The stories and issues that gain traction in social media differ substantially from those that lead in the mainstream press," says the Pew Research Center's Project for Excellence in Journalism in a recent study, expanded here on Journalism.org. "But they also differ greatly from each other." These differences highlight traits in these mediums that e-marketers must understand to effectively market through social media channels. 1. "Bloggers gravitated toward stories that elicited emotion, concerned individual or group rights, or triggered ideological passion," according to Pew's report on the study. Obviously this highlights the partisan boil of recent U.S. politics, but it also exhibits what bloggers want: something to talk about. To have a marketing or PR campaign picked up in the same way, it has to be a conversation starter, something that inspires bloggers and their readers to comment. If you're going to feed bloggers, make sure there's meat on the bones. 2. Bloggers gravitate toward newsy items more than opinions. According to Jounalism.org's expanded report, 83 percent of the news items bloggers link to are news reports, and only 13 percent are opinion pieces. This makes sense when you consider that bloggers want to voice their own opinions on subjects, and are therefore more likely to pick up stories that report — or publicize — core facts about which they can pontificate. Your own opinionated items tend to speak for themselves, and could get picked up by bloggers more to argue against than discuss. 3. For Twitter users, "the mission is primarily about passing along important — often breaking — information in a way that unifies or assumes shared values within the Twitter community." Twitter is known for its discussions, but it's not a great discussion space. Updates are fast, widespread, easy to ignore and perfect for passing on actionable information: "Company X is giving away free thingamajigs! LINK. #YourCompany." 4. YouTube's "most watched videos have a strong sense of serendipity. They pique interest and curiosity with a strong visual appeal. The 'Hey, you've got to see this,' mentality rings strong." However, videos don't have to be funny or outrageous. Outrageousness can seem like the only videos that go viral because that's what shows on the web and TV ("Web Soup," "Tosh.0") make famous. But any video that's really interesting can go viral and drive sales. Companies like Dynomighty Design have had success driving whole product campaigns with simple videos showing how cool their products are, such as this video for the company's magnetic jewelry. 5. "Across all three social platforms ... attention spans are brief." This goes both for the length of the message and the length of time it'll remain relevant. The majority of top stories remained top stories for no more than three days, especially on Twitter. The study also found that social media picked stories up much more quickly than traditional media. Combined, these traits mean lift can be short from any one message. A marketing or PR message delivered on Sunday and picked up by Tuesday will likely lose its buzz before the weekend.

Social Commerce

5 E-Marketing Lessons from Social Media News Links

Thorin McGee

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Thorin McGee