(^53) ■
Defining Your Social Media “Product”
other people who have similar interests and provides threadless with a vehicle where
they can directly market to a captive audience.
Facebook allows most applications to run as tabs on the top of the fan pages.
threadless takes advantage of this feature by providing a rich user experience and
extra value for users through event postings and discussion boards. on the events tab,
users find postings of events that are of interest to consumers of threadless t-shirts. In
the discussion board area, people discuss issues that they have with customer service,
pop culture, getting designs featured, and a myriad of other topics that may or may
not directly involve the threadless brand directly. as it turns out, the majority of dis-
cussion threads do have some relationship to threadless and its products. the benefit
for the brand? threadless is nurturing its own audience within the virtual walls of its
Facebook fan page. It has created a destination point that allows people to come in,
feel comfortable, and socialize. all the while, more than 100,000 Facebook users are
being exposed to the threadless brand, which keeps it “top of mind” in the consumer’s
psyche.
Defining Your Social Media “Product”
one thing that is common across different social media campaigns is the fact that
each has a fairly well-defined set of rules by which they operate. the social media pres-
ence is, in effect, an interactive online “product.” the medium is a combination of
Facebook, twitter, other social media destinations, and the Web. all of it is consumed
by a computer or cellular device. customers, fans, and followers are found for the
“product” through a variety of means, such as viral marketing, Internet marketing,
email marketing, social network marketing, and word-of-mouth marketing. there is an
implicit contract between the company and the customer that the “product” will per-
form as expected and that the company won’t violate the terms under which the cus-
tomer was first attracted to the product. your thinking should assume that your social
media presence is a product of its own that needs care, maintenance, and performance
metrics that will help guide decision making. this social media “product” enhances a
consumer’s experience with the product or service you are trying to sell or the brand
you are trying to manage.
Different situations in business require different tactics. Some tactics are off-lim-
its to you as a marketer of a certain kind of product, while others are fair game. you
shouldn’t get too critical of yourself or of your company, nor should you significantly
change what your product, service, or brand represents to the marketplace. translate
what you do to the social media context and experiment on the edges. the “Quick-
Start guide for Social Media” sidebar should kick start your creativity and guide your
thinking as you brainstorm project ideas.