Surefire Recipe for social Marketing Failure…

Wal-Mart, tried to apply conventional marketing and promotional tactics to its social marketing foray — “The Hub.” The result… “The Hub” got the snub!

Here’s why. According to MediaPost’s Shankar Gupta, visitors could tell that the site was all about promotion and less about community. It wasn’t a genuine community of the people, for the people and by the people.

So what did Wal-Mart do about it? They abandoned the hub and put up a MySpace page, which the article says has been more successful. Read the full article here.

And what’s the lesson here for B2B social marketers?
Don’t be selfish… social marketing isn’t about you, it’s about your audience. What do they want, how do they want it and what can you do to facilitate the process? Here’s a hint: sometimes the content comes from sites other than your own.

Now integrate this into your promotional campaigns and you’ve got the recipe for a successful program.

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