What Integrated Marketing and Social Media Have in Common
We keep hearing from various self-appointed social media gurus that integrated marketing is dead—a sentiment I strongly disagree with. Not only is integrated marketing still very much alive, but you can make the case that far from being the polar opposites said gurus want us to think they are, social media and integrated marketing have a lot in common and can in fact help each other out.
Integrated marketing starts with finding the core idea, word, or concept that your institution can own in the marketplace. Typically, this is expressed through a brand promise and attributes that provide foundational language for messaging and creative expression. The most important criterion for the promise is believability—is this something you can genuinely own? Another word for believability could be “authenticity,” a primary (though often unwritten) principle of social media communication. On social media platforms, authenticity is highly favored and sought after and in many ways means the same thing—is what you’re saying about your institution on your Facebook page believable? Exaggerated, unverifiable claims and slick marketing language is met with silence on social platforms—the same kind of silence these approaches encounter out in the physical world of billboards, banners, and ads (substitute “silence” for “no-response”). It’s not true that marketing language and imagery are verboten on social platforms—seen the famous Stanford Facebook page lately? Some institutions are experimenting with theme-based social platforms announced through taglines and seeing success—check out the Uncommon Thinkers Facebook page for the Chapman Graduate School of Business.
Once you find the promise, integrated marketing means communicating it in a programmatic and coordinated way across numerous channels. Social media is about sharing content on many platforms that could also be considered channels (it offers unlimited distribution and tremendous efficiency). Successful integrated marketing campaigns speak with a unified voice—Shiv Singh, VP and social media lead with Razorfish, one of the world’s leading digital agencies, believes that developing an appropriate social media voice carries equal importance.
Finally, integrated marketing has increasingly become about conveying an experience that is consistent with the brand—if you tell students you care about them, everyone on campus better demonstrate that care on campus visits. To do this requires internal buy in and participation or getting your community actively engaged. Buy-in requires relationship building and nurturing. Social media is about participation and building engaged communities and could in fact, help you earn that buy-in through an internal social network focused on just such a goal. And what better place to demonstrate how much you care about students than by simply answering their questions posted on your institutional Facebook page?
Is integrated marketing really the one-way conversation social media gurus claim it is? The fact is that integrated marketing has become a more complex form of communication over the last twenty years, especially in light of its embrace of direct marketing tactics which call for response. The social media world is also about action and response. Integrated, multi-channel marketing campaigns offer several kinds of conversations, from the one-way monologues of print ads to dialogues happening in your call centers—thanks to that push from your billboards or brochures.
The truth is we need both approaches, especially in an increasingly fragmented and increasingly faster marketplace. Brad Ward and I had this conversation at last year’s NACAC—if one of the leading lights of social media in higher education believes this is true, I have to agree with him.
Photo by therichbrooks’
