In the past, I've found the "Dating" metaphor useful for describing social media marketing. Today, I want to extend the metaphor to a new technique. I call it the "Disinterested Party". Here's what it is and why it works:

Imagine meeting somebody that you really would like to take on a date (now if you're married or in a relationship - don't worry this is just an exercise - so allow yourself to go back in time). When you get your chance to make your case as to why going on a date with you would be a good idea for that person, you will be viewed as an interested party! Now, imagine that you have a mutual friend. Somebody that you could ask to put in a good word for you. Do you think that would increase your chances of getting the date? Absolutely!!! The power of the disinterested party is definitely there. Why do marketers love testimonials? It's because it is always better to have someone else say nice things about you. It makes it more believable. It more trusted.

So what's different about this approach and existing social media marketing techniques? Well, today what we see are companies creating pages on Facebook or accounts on social media like Twitter, Plurk, Identi.ca, etc. And, this is good - they need to have a place to be a brand and to handle questions directed specifically at their brand. For example, if someone wants to know something about their product/service, or if they've got a complaint... they almost expect the brand to respond quickly to them on Twitter. What people struggle with is overt marketing by brands through these same social media. It's not that they wouldn't accept it - it's that brands either ramp the frequency of their marketing messages to an uncomfortable level or they're boneheaded about their approach (tons of examples - I'll save for another post). What the "Disinterested Party" approach does differently is allow someone other than your company to recommend a helpful website to people who could use your product or service. An unrelated, third party will typically have an unbiased appearance and recommendations will therefore be given more weight. Here's how we do it (obviously I've plugged in Aidan Taylor as we'd love to assist):



The key is to create a valid, authentic third party website, one where your company can be the most prominant subject. The site can take many forms: review, forum, directory, etc. Now, here's the tricky part, to be authentic and legitimate, the site must be useful! A review site that only reviews your company - won't be helpful and it isn't going to have an unbiased appearance. Neither will a directory with only a single listing or a forum that only discusses things from the perspective of your company or a site that only has advertising from one company. This is a leap of faith - you are going to drive traffic to a website, other than your own. Not only that, you are going to expose prospects to your competitors. To many of you, this may be a level of vulnerability that you can't stomach! If, however, you can get over it - great rewards await you! To help you overcome this feeling - I'll direct you to activity on search engines. When people search one of your keywords, they are often confronted with a list of your competitiors. Your goal is to rank near the top. Why? Because, the company at the top gets the lion's share of the traffic. With the disinterested party approach, the same dynamic is at play. Because you or your agency owns the third party website, you will always have a high ranking position.

What we've learned, is that initially, it's much more effective to drive traffic to a third party disinterested website, than to our client's website. While they may not get all of the traffic from that effort, they will get a significant portion. And, that portion typically outweighs what they would recieve via a direct reference to their website. Good Luck!