Unlocking the elusive potential of social networks

Another good article sent to me by my boss this week – unlocking the elusive potential of social networks

https://www.mckinseyquarterly.com/Marketing/Digital_Marketing/Unlocking_the_elusive_potential_of_social_networks_2623?gp=1

One of the most useful sentences in this article is: “A commitment to being useful in social-media activities means a commitment to creating only high-quality interactions.”  A lot of people go into social networking with the wrong approach (indeed they miss the ‘interactions’ part altogether).  Those that totally misunderstand it, go in posting advertisements to their company.  Some post useful content that their company is giving away for free.  And then, some create the gimmicks, confusing social networking with viral marketing. True, a viral campaign can bring you thousands of links and attention, and one of the ways to get your viral content spread around is through social networks, but this isn’t what social networks are about. Whilst every solution is going to be individual to the company considering using social networks, what rings true is summarised by the tag line of this article: “To realize the marketing potential of virtual activities, you have to make them truly useful for consumers”.