Recently, SAS had the pleasure of hosting Katie Paine, social media maven,  expert on media measurement, and author of Measure What Matters, at the SAS Government Leadership Summit in Washington D.C. The session was jam-packed with the usual drool-worthy stats and figures covering the current status of the social media landscape (something I’ve come to trust Ms. Paine to provide) but, ultimately, it was the myths that are so often attribute to social media that left the biggest impact.

Let me explain…as a social media practitioner, I often run across misconceptions about social media that lead people to believe that it is a magic bullet. Simply establishing a Twitter account will motivate millions from around the world to engage and ultimately financially support your business and everything will be unicorns and rainbows.  #FAIL.  Paine is not unfamiliar with this concept either and quickly set out to squash some of these myths:

1. There’s something “new” about New Media.  Nope…social media is only “new” if you never previously cared about relationships, showing interest, conversations, stories, or your reputation.  Social media simply amplifies your ability to communicate with and reach your audience. And it gives your audience the ability to praise you or pan you in a very public way. That doesn’t mean this new kind of reach doesn’t hold its own power, though.
2. Someone needs to own social media.  Can you own the wind? Ok, that was a bad example.  The point is that social media cannot be the responsibility of one party in your business.  Fully integrating it into your organizational DNA should be your focus.
3. Followers = Influence. Too often, organizations rely on false indicators, like number of followers, to set them at ease about their influence on their intended audience.  Influence, like time and space, is relative. Influence is measured in context to your audience’s expertise. Influence = relevancy + resonance.
4. Likes = Engagement.  Just because Lady Gaga has 39 million fans, doesn’t mean they are engaging.  In fact, only about 1,231 of her fans (0.003%) actually engage.  They especially aren’t going to care about the new social media whitepaper I’m promoting.  The point is that influence is relative to the market that you are in and your efforts should focus on actively engaging with people who are talking about your marketplace and the arena you are in.
5. Engagement = Success.  Simply because you’ve taken your audience on a first date, doesn’t mean you are getting married.  Cultivating the relationship is key. Engagement is on a continuum, where you should ultimately be shooting for advocacy: Impressions → Likes → Followers  → Trial/Consideration → Action → Advocacy
6. Sentiment is what’s really important.  80% of the conversations out in the social space are neutral and observation based, with no real sentiment involved.  Measuring actual sentiment also takes a large amount of data that first must be cleaned of all spam, invalid mentions, and content farms.  You will need to rely on analytics to prove that sentiment is actually driving action in your marketplace.

So now that we’ve gone over all the fluff that doesn’t matter, what’s left that actually does have an impact on your social media strategy?  Check back tomorrow for the answer.