Mark Bullock, co-founder of Videosocials.net and phoneBlogger.net, explains what selfish marketing is and why it should be avoided on social media platforms.
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Transcript:
If you’re creating content for marketing on social media, a question you might ask yourself is, ‘are you social marketing or are you selfish marketing?’
Hi, I’m Mark Bullock. I’m the co-founder of Videosocials.net and phoneBlogger.net . And what’s the difference and why does it matter?
Well, in the traditional sense of advertising, let’s say it’s all pretty much selfish marketing. In other words, we’re putting out a transactional piece, we’re saying features and benefits, and this is how we can help you and reach out to us — one way, shape, form, or another. In other words, you’re putting out a piece of content that is about you. It’s about your company, your offering, your services, etc..
Social media… the key there is the word social. It’s a different environment. It’s an environment where you’re engaging other people. So the holy grail of a piece of content on social media is for somebody to share it with somebody else that could use that piece of content.
So if you create an ad — you create a selfish piece of content. In other words, it’s directed at you rather than being specifically valuable for a particular audience or segment of an audience. Is that piece of content, that ad copy, as it were, going to get shared? Well, why would they, right? Who wants to watch, read, listen to an ad? You know, showing of hands? Yeah, I’ll wait.
So it really comes back to, are you creating something that’s of value for somebody else? Are you training them? Are you explaining something to them. Are you giving them something that they can pass along to somebody else? Even if it’s not necessarily for them, but maybe they’re part of your audience ; maybe they’re part of your support team ; maybe they’re a referral partner ; maybe there’s somebody that you’ve done business with in the past that would be happy to help promote you, but they’re not going to pass on an ad.
They’re not going to pass on a piece of selfish content. They’re going to pass on a piece of content that they see is a value to whoever they’re passing it on to. It’s just a mindset that I ask you to consider, because if you create something that’s of value for others, it’s far more likely to be shared, liked, commented on, etc., which is the purpose of social marketing or social media, as it were.
It’s a conversation. It’s people working together, helping each other, not broadcasting a message that’s all about you.
If you found that valuable, there’s lots more tips at Videosocials.net/Academy and I’m Mark Bullock. I’m the co-founder of Videosocials. Have a great day.