By Robert Caruso
There are a few highly important things that separate big brand social media marketing from everyone else, and that is the human component. Big brands are able to focus their social media marketing on their brand, branding and advertising components that are centered around the company’s image and other major media advertising components. There is little human connection, conversation or relationship building coming out of the larger brands. The majority provide little to none selfless value and it is all about the creative and messaging, which by the way we enjoy seeing some of it.
The Big Brand Approach
As an example of how many larger brands approach social media marketing, I will share an example. I will not name the large beverage company, but I will say that I am a fan of their product and buy it regularly.
The story:
About two years ago, being a loyal consumer of a specific beverage, I decided to show my loyalty to them in social media. I mentioned them several times a week, shared pics of their packaging as I used it, etc. On a rare occasion I would receive a response or a thank you and I was good with that, but that soon completely ceased. In replace of the rare response, they began to engage ME on a weekly basis. Sounds good right? Not so fast…
The engagement I received from them, every single week hence forth was simply them tagging me about their latest news, product launch or promotion. You see, they realized I had influence within social media and decided to use me to further promote their brand. No relationship investment was every made on their part, no human connection or interest shown in me as a person or my company. Simply bold and direct promotional (spam).
They may get away with this with others, but not with me. I have completely disengaged with said brand on social and you know what? They never engaged with me again after I stopped mentioning or promoting their content. There is a difference between social media relationships and direct marketing. Most large brands do not care to understand this fact.
The Relationship Reality
At the end of the day, all non Fortune 5000 brands that are lacking the huge resources and established customer base, really need to look at and approach social media marketing very differently. Long term focus, care and gratitude with authenticity, combined with human connection is what gets results.
The 9 characteristics of Human marketing:
Here are just nine ways you can improve your human relationship perception in social media as well as identify other brands and connections that get it too.
1) Profile picture – The account photo is of the real person behind the social account. This is mostly 
common for Twitter, Linkedin and Facebook personal accounts. However, as a brand matures on Twitter, building the brand beyond the main contacts personal image is important. Remaining human after that transition will determine how effective you are from there.
2) Profile Bio – Does their social media bio contain things about them as a person, not just a pitch for what they do? Relationships require personal connections, not just business needs. Today, business IS personal. Humanize your brand.
3) Responsive – When you mention or engage with them, do they actually respond? Do they respond in a timely manner, when you are still logged in?
4) Grateful – After sharing their content, is it met with gratitude in the form of a like, comment or reciprocation? This is something only humans do.
5) Interest – Humans show interest in others, not just themselves. Do they show interest in you and/or what you do?
6) Selfless Value – Their timeline is not just posts about them or what they do.
7) Conversations – Their timeline contains conversations with others.
8) Relevance – Their timeline contains relevant content you’re interested in, not solely their industry related things.
9) Real – A real person/personality is detectable behind the profile when you interact with them
The Perils Of Auto-pilot
The other opposite end of the spectrum from Big Brands are the newbie automation users. Those that send automated or manual sales messages as private messages on Twitter on LinkedIn, immediately or soon after connecting with them and without any relationship effort made on their part, they move right to pitching their wares. Another newbie auto-pilot tactic is using tools that tag others about your sales pitch in-stream based on something they posted previously, or any other contrived method. I could go on, but you get the idea.
The only place that in-feed or private message automation sees results is from newbies using it with/toward other newbies that do not yet know better. The brands and marketers that are using automation don’t understand social media and how relationships with long-term focus connect. Making matters worse is that new social network users who respond to these non-human automated tactics don’t either. The clicks garnered by the automation folks are short-lived and requires a constant stream of newbies in order to get traffic, clicks or results long-term.
This short sighted tactic ultimately gets reported so much by more experienced users, and the reputation of automation marketers becomes clear to future new connections, so that it eventually slows and ceases to obtain even the smallest results.
Wrapping It Up
Spam is spam, whether it is done via email or within social media marketing. Failure to understand the personal, human level connection elements within this marketing medium means a lot of frustration, lack of real results and wasted time. If you are going to invest the time doing social media marketing, invest it in providing value, being human and present, while getting into conversations that build real relationships.
Robert Caruso in his own words: I am a Dad, Geek, Tech and Social Media addict. BundlePost.com Founder/CEO. I write about social media, content marketing and strategy, as well as teach and consult on social media at fondalo.com. My mission is to help every marketer, social media agency and brand to be more effective, efficient and profitable with their social media marketing.
Originally titled “9 Characteristics Of Human, NOT Automated Social Media Marketing” and published on Bundelpost. Republished here with permission.
Image attribution: https://communikaysa.files.wordpress.com/2014/12/people.jpg
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Robert Caruso in his own words: I am a Dad, Geek, Tech and Social Media addict. BundlePost.com Founder/CEO. I write about social media, content marketing and strategy, as well as teach and consult on social media at fondalo.com. My mission is to help every marketer, social media agency and brand to be more effective, efficient and profitable with their social media marketing.
