Go back to roots, be human.
I got up this book from Kinokuniya, KLCC. While I must say I was intrigued by the title, it wasn't what I expect.
All good books about marketing were already written.
This book was written to inspire people to take on Marketing. In fact, everyone can learn marketing by learning to be human.
Marketing as we know is Interrupt Marketing (as Seth Godin puts it). Carlos wanted to share ways that you can humanize your brand so you can connect to people, not customers.
Here’s the Key Takeaway.
The biggest sin in social media marketing is focusing too much on selling, promotion and getting the news about the company upfront. It’s impersonal.
Social media as we know it should be about being social. Engaged and interact instead of one-way street conversation.
As humans, we’d like to put a face to when we’re having conversations. Because we only see logos, it’s difficult to connect directly and be intimate with the brand.
Carlos suggests we stop doing roundups, posting the latest news, instead of throw out content that can get people to engage. Ask for opinions, run polls, and interact with people. Stop being selfish, instead start to connect (probably the hardest thing to do now, is connected with a total stranger).
The key to social media is being social.
The only way to beat the algorithm is to understand what it does and how it does it. The goal of every Social Media Platform is to get people to stay on it and monetize through ads.
That’s why when you post a link outside of the platform it will likely be hidden. They don't want you to take other users out of their platform. Instead, engage and include links in the comments section to ‘hack’ the algorithm. Less Promotion, More Interaction.
Brand Account Reach is 0.1% for any organic post. Which makes it difficult and pointless to grow the account. Because nobody will ever get to read it.
3 mil followers = 3,000 sees the post.
Though having a large follower may look like a winning strategy, it’s only a vanity metric. There is no point in growing followers if you can’t engage them.
My biggest takeaway from the book is, you’ve got to be human. Understand what people want and how to build emotional triggers.
Carlos also mentioned that “Being human is our last line of defence”. I have to disagree. The first line and only line of attack should be being human first. Our last line of defence is to engage in a price war.
The book was straightforward, light, how-to ish and social media hacks. Perfect for Content Marketers, Social Media Managers, Corporate Comms team.
Carlos was trying to be a contrarian with the title “The End of Marketing”. The title should be, “The End of Selfish Marketing”, but then again, that wouldn’t sell.
