There seems to be an expectation that the social influencers and networks will accelerate awareness, engagement, adoption and conversion. While this may be true once the brand is 'ready for prime time,' the social media channels do not replace the painstaking work required to allow a single person's vision to seamlessly become part of other people's lives.
Whether you are with a venture-backed startup or part of a company bringing a product to market, launching a new idea is a bit more difficult than it used to be. Balancing an entrepreneur's vision with the reality of how 'ready' the new product is for market is never easy - but it is possible. Finding the perfect user who will fall in love with your product right out of the gate? Well, that is almost impossible.
Launching an idea involves an intricately woven group of people who test one another's assumptions, beliefs and knowledge. Getting from initial launch to market leadership position is a matter of managing interpretation within overlapping circles of influence:
- Entrepreneur interprets Value of Product/Service
- Investor interprets Potential Market Size
- Analyst interprets Market Position
- Developer interprets User Experience
- Agency interprets Brand
- Customer interprets Message
- Marketer interprets Conversation / Action
Of all the roles marketers hold, the most powerful is that of mediator. Like Hermes, the mythological Greek deity who was the messenger of the Gods, marketers must mediate between the entrepreneur and the public, the company and agencies, analysts and engineering, customer and sales, community and influencers.
Social media can be a powerful instrument in the start up environment if used to help align the conflicting viewpoints and opinions of entrepreneurs, investors and early adopters. The beauty of social media is that is offers marketers the opportunity to search for the threads of truth. In the past, go-to-market strategies were based on assumptions that were tested and retested over time.
Now, social access can provide immediately insight and dispel the more dangerous assumptions that could lead to failure. This unprecedented access allows marketers to mediate with influencers, communities and experts to prove the truth that is the brand.
Social networks do not have all the answers but they do force us to ask the right questions. Launching a product or service is an extremely iterative process by which we, as wise marketers, must be prudent in our interpretations of what the entrepreneur, agencies, analysts and social networks are telling us. It is our responsibility to tease out the golden threads of truth and braid them to form a strong bond. Social media can be used to do this - especially during the infancy and early stages.
The Discovery Phase Never Ends. Ever. Social media channels have fundamentally changed the discovery phase from a perfunctory introductory step to one that never stops. Nor should it. This is an exceptional and powerful concept. Social networks provide a continuous feedback loop that allows marketers to test, adjust, change, and re-launch the brand story repeatedly until it is resonating with those who just love it. This is invaluable in the launch phase and should be approached from a strategic viewpoint.
To keep from embracing a reactionary social strategy, a start-up social approach should be firmly anchored on the long-term vision. The expectation should not be to quickly own the conversation. It is better to embrace the idea of being a listening station within an iterative process. The social media conversations during the early stage are an opportunity to be imperfect - and to use what is discovered to push back, shift and change the opinions of the entrepreneur, investor, analyst and, just maybe, the marketer themselves.
If marketers don't mediate well, it can mean embracing Hermes other job, leading souls into the underworld upon death - and, sometime, the soul could turn out to be their own.