Social Media Works Precicely Because Consumers Think it Doesn't

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A few days ago, my husband looked up at me from over his laptop and said "Yahoo has a poll asking people if social media influences their buying decisions." After I smiled and chuckled a bit, I asked him what the poll "concluded."



"It doesn't."

And then we both smiled.

Why would two people who run a social media marketing and analtyics form smile at that conclusion? Well...because we know better.

You see, it wasn't all so long ago that I remember a large consumer poll being released that declared consumers didn't use blogs. We could all close up shop and go home, no one reads blogs, no one is swayed by blogs and no one even really cares about blogs. Some within the marketing world went nuts, gloating over the results and claiming they'd been skeptical about blogs from the get go.

Then another company popped up with a counter study that showed the flaw in the original poll's design. People often don't tell us the truth in these scenarios. Sometimes it's because they don't know any better, sometimes it's because they don't want to believe the truth. In the case of the blog study, it turned out that people not only used blogs, they used them all the time. They simply had no idea they were using blogs.

How, you might ask, does someone NOT know they are using blogs? Simple...they go to the search engines, type in a query, click on a search result and then read the page. They didn't "use" a blog, they found a "page" in a search result. The counter study worked because it didn't ask people what they used, it actually tracked their Internet usage and then manually categorized the types of sites they were using.

As it turned out, more than three quarters of people used blogs on an almost weekly basis.

So excuse me if I don't pack up shop and head off to join the corporate world just yet.

Here's why.

The poll on the Yahoo site was brought about by some comments made earlier this week by Eric Schmidt, Coca-Cola's senior manager of marketing strategy and insights. Schmidt shared some internal data in an article at AdAge claiming Coke saw no sales benefit from their social media activities.

"We didn't see any statistically significant relationship between our buzz and our short-term sales."

Ok...I'll be honest and say I read that line and thought "duh."

Especially considering Schmidt goes on to clarify the broader scheme of things:

"Is that the end of the story?" Mr. Schmidt asked. "I would say no. This is one study on a set of brands in a particular company within a certain segment of the consumer-packaged-goods industry. It is by no means a generalized result that applies to all industries. "

He goes on to explain that on many fronts, they believe they need to refine the way they track and measure their social media activity, including sharing the concern that manual reviews of sentiment do not even begin to match up to automated measurement of sentiment.

I'd go on to offer a few other thoughts to the mix.

You are Coca-Cola...one of (if not THE) most ubiquitous brands on the face of the planet. You have reached a point where you MUST partake in all available forms of marketing and brand building simply to maintain your position as the reigning champion. You cannot expect to see an overall sales uptick simply because you start engaging with fans on Facebook.

I mean seriously?

What you CAN do however is leverage that uber-popularity into a communications channel that allows you to introduce new products and track the impact social media marketing has on THOSE products.  Drilling down into the Coca-Cola family and identifying the engagement and sales impact of those brands is going to be a far better judge of social media's impact on the brand.

Coca-Cola owns Odwalla. It owns Vitamin Water, it owns Fuze tea. If Coca-cola isn't able to drill down to see how social media has impacted the launch and sales of new flavors for these brands then either their social media marketing team or their analytics team needs to be let go and replaced.

Of course all of this simply goes to say that we're now seeing all sorts of "I told you so" posts showing up around the web.

E-consultancy seems to think the game is over for social media.

the question for other businesses, particularly those with marketing budgets far smaller than Coca-Cola's, is just how prominent a role social should play in the marketing mix going forward if it turns out social generally doesn't drive sales within a relatively short period of time. After all, many businesses simply can't afford to trade $0 in sales today for the hope that a popular Facebook Page or Twitter account will eventually pay dividends.

At the end of the day, Coca-Cola's research should at the very least serve as a wake-up call for businesses that have been investing heavily in social campaigns and staffing, particularly those that have been investing largely on blind faith that there's something here.

I'll be honest and say I completely fail to see how Coca-Cola's research should serve as a wake-up call to businesses that have been investing heavily in social campaigns. (Though I will admit it should be a wake-up call to those who are investing on blind faith...but I'd say that about ANYTHING they were investing in blindly.)

See, Coca-Cola's issue isn't that social media doesn't work. It's that it's not measurable on the precise scale they wanted it to be measurable on. With a bit of thought and application, it would, however, be measurable on many other fronts. All of which could serve to justify (or bring an end to) those investments.

As for Yahoo's amusing poll...well, study after study after study shows us that people are directly (and highly) influenced by their friends and family. In fact, Neilsen released numbers last year that showed 92% of people trust recommendations from friends and family above ALL ELSE when making purchase decisions.

Anyone want to wager a guess on where most people are doing that interacting and getting those recommendations?

Ever heard of a little site called Facebook? Ever had a friend tell you she found a recipe on Pinterest? Ever discovered a new band because a friend of yours was listening to it on Spotify? Do you have any idea how many people check reviews on Yelp or Trip Advisor before making weekend plans? Or look through the reviews on Amazon before buying a new camera?

Consumers want to believe they are above the influence of social media, that they make their own decisions. The truth is, social media has become so ingrained into their every day lives and the way they research ideas and products that they don't even realize the influence is taking place.

And that, my friends, is exactly why social media works and works so well...because it has become so ingrained into the way we connect with people and information. It has become part of the conversational landscape. It has become our opportunity to gently massage our brands, our messages and our offerings into the every day conversations of our customers.

Then again, if you are my competitor, feel free to throw in the towel and cease all social media activities. I promise I won't mind.

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