One-size-fits-all social media? Everyone can agree that's a bad idea. Marketing managers know that different industries have different needs, and customers react differently according to the media - we the consumer expect a different kind of tweet from our banker than from our local skate shop or DJ.
But that doesn't stop marketers from trying to put a round peg in a square hole. It's easy to jump on whatever our competitor of the week is doing, or to postulate the voice of the kids that we imagine are running social media. But both these methods are wrong. A solid marketing plan takes a competitor's efforts into consideration but doesn't try to completely copy it. And anyone who reads Mashable today knows that the average age of Twitter and Facebook users is 35 and 38, respectively.
So what do cupcakes and sprinkles have to do with social media? It's a metaphor I use when I'm crafting an entire social media marketing plan, or just writing up tweets for the day. Social Media is like the sprinkles on a larger cupcake of marketing.
Imagine that your site content is a cupcake and the social media efforts are sprinkles. Your content is the main reason that people enjoy your website or shop at your ecommerce store. The social media marketing is a garnish that makes your content more exciting and enticing. Social media is how you share your content and keep your customers engaged with it.
Different cupcake flavors call for different types of sprinkles, and different industries call for different social media agendas. So marketers should think about their web content before creating a social media plan. Just as you wouldn't put mismatched sprinkles on a cupcake, you wouldn't push social media content that didn't match the content of your website.
And if your customers don't like sprinkles, then you stay focused on your web content. Ultimately, it's the content on your site that will matter more than your social content.
Social content is mostly read at leisure - think of the info-snacking that you might do on your lunchbreak. People skim it and forget it. But the content on your site will need to be more persuasive, as your audience tries to decide whether they want to become consumers of your brand. It's like the cake part of the cupcake - the web content is the content that your consumers are really looking for.
