Kansas City Freelance Writer Liz Craig

There’s no one answer to that question. Depends who you are.

To a Twitter user, it’s a place to post brief comments and see what other people are talking about.

To a Facebook user, it’s where you share what you’re up to, post photos, and keep in touch with family and friends.

To a LinkedIn user, it’s the place to show their professional qualifications to potential employers and find people they want to link with to find a job or a helpful connection.

To a blogger, it’s a way to establish expertise in a particular field and get to the top of search engine pages.

To a marketer, the whole idea of social media may be confusing: “I know everybody’s talking about social media marketing,” but I don’t really know how to use it to sell my products and services.”

Well, you can’t exactly sell stuff via social media. Social media is social, obviously. And your experience at a social event could be ruined by people who come to the party just to sell you something. You back away when you feel “sold to.”

Social media is not a sales floor. It’s a backyard barbecue.

Social media is about engaging you in a relationship of mutual trust and sharing with a brand. A company offers you useful information, coupons, tips, a chance to participate in fun events online or otherwise. In exchange, you offer them your positive tweets, links on Facebook, and perhaps, because you like the brand, a purchase.

It’s like this: you don’t go to a cocktail party or barbecue, press your business card into a stranger’s hand, and start reciting selling points.

R.I.P. Billy Mays

On the other hand, if you meet someone at a party, and you find they share your interests or is interested in your product or service, you have the green light to get better acquainted. Depending on the price of your product, you’ll have to invest more or less time establishing enough trust to do business with your new friend. TRUST is vital. And sincerity.

Compared to advertising, social media is almost Buddhist in its focus on being in the moment and not being attached to results. Try Zen sitting meditation sometime, and you’ll know what I mean. (Actually, don’t try it unless you enjoy mental and physical torture.)

Sure, you can give a stranger your “elevator speech” at a business networking event, aka “card exchange.” But whoever you meet will remember and like you better if you express an interest in their interests and see if there’s some way you can help them — maybe not even in a way that’s related to your business. Find someone a good dog groomer or personal trainer, or a great caterer for their daughter’s wedding, and they’ll remember you fondly. If you do enough good for enough people, “What goes around comes around,” right?

Now, what are your thoughts? How have you used social media effectively — or otherwise? What social media campaigns do you admire? The Burger King Facebook De-Friend for a Whopper thing? How do you judge if social media has been effective?

Sock monkey and his friends take a fun-filled road trip from Las Vegas to NYC in a new Kia Sorento. Love the sock monkey riding a mechanical bull and getting a tatto sewn on. Music is by The Heavy, “How You LIke Me Now.” The spot’s humor drives home the selling message: Hey, you can cut loose and have a ball when you have a 2011 Kia Sorento! Imagine it targets older teens or early 20s, though almost anyone this side of 70 would enjoy the fun these toys are having.

Another 2011 Sorento ad features a family traveling through a forest mysteriously furnished with framed family photographs, furniture and fixtures. Tag line: “Feel at home wherever you go.” It’s okay but much more laid-back than the monkeyshines spot. Aimed at families with kids, apparently.

What about the sock monkey spot? How you like it now?

Ted Turner:
“Early to bed and early to rise, work like hell and advertise.”

Apple’s Steve Jobs:
“The only thing that works is management by values. Find people who are competent and really bright, but more importantly, people who care exactly about the same things you care about.”

Jimi Hendrix:
“Knowledge speaks, but wisdom listens.”

Advertising a laundry list of product features doesn’t tell the prospective customer how the product or service being advertised can fix a problem he or she is having. So smart advertisers always ask, “Where’s the pain?”

Are you underwater on your mortgage? Do you have migraine headaches? Is your dog getting fleas all over your house? These are pains a product or service might solve.

It doesn’t always have to be a major pain. One of the smartest new products I’ve seen is the taco shell with a flat bottom. It lets you stand the taco up on the plate while you add the fillings. And if you put it down to take a drink of water, it won’t fall over and spill meat and lettuce all over the table, chairs and floor.

Where’s the pain? For the mom, it’s having to clean up after her kids on taco night. The flat-bottomed shells eliminate most of the mess. A time-saver, a tension-tamer, a neater way to eat tacos, wow! Why did no one think of this before? Maybe because nobody bothered to ask, “Where’s the pain?” for the consumer (the mom, who usually does the grocery shopping).

Pain relief in taco shell form. Brilliant! So it’s not just advertising that makes the sale; it’s also a smart new product idea. But the bottom line, for manufacturers and creators of advertising, is the same: Where’s the pain? and how can we make it go away? If you can answer those two questions and follow up to create a product or message customers see as some kind of salvation, you’re in business. Otherwise, you’re just a me-too. And nobody wants to be that.

So it’s up to you to create compelling advertising for a product. All the information you have to go on is a list of product features in a brochure. It does this, it looks like this, it costs this much. Really basic stuff. But you want to get prospective customers excited enough about your product to buy it. Just describing its features the way Mr. Spock would — from intellectual observation — won’t do the trick. You have to find a benefit in the product that will show prospects they need, want or desire it.

So how do you turn features into benefits? By following the WIIFM method. “What’s in it for me?” is the first question the prospect will ask. And it’s the crucial question you must answer. A fact sheet for a banana might list features like “attractive yellow hue,” “soft texture,” “delicious flavor,” etc. But does that make you want to buy a banana? If you’ve never heard of it before? No. Only if it has a benefit for you. In selling, WIIFM (What’s In It For Me) applies to bananas and every other thing under the sun.

“What do I need a banana for?” your prospect asks.

You reply, “Well, bananas are delicious and handy to take on a trip, ’cause they have their own wrapper. They’re great for snacks or sliced on cereal. Each banana has only 100 calories and no fat. They provide the potassium you need every day to stay healthy. And they’re natural and unprocessed, with no food additives. Oh, and by the way, kids love ‘em.”

“Okay, sounds pretty good, but I’m looking for new menu ideas. Got any?”

“You can make fantastic banana nut bread with it, or ring a fruit salad with alternating slices of banana and kiwi, or — well, here — here’s our new banana cookery booklet, ‘Go Bananas With Bananas!’ There are literally hundreds of ways you can use bananas in salads and desserts!”

“All right — I’m sold!”

What’s the difference between a feature and a benefit? A feature is a “so what?”, while a benefit is the “what’s in it for me?”, the sizzle of the steak, the one thing that makes prospective customers sit up and take notice.

The old AIDA formula still holds:

• Attention

You must get the prospect’s attention so they’ll listen to your message. A great visual, a compelling headline, or on TV or radio, a curious sound (or silence)…

• Interest

You must tell him or her something that interests him or her in your product. Some way to use it to solve a problem, some way the product enhances their life, makes them look more attractive, saves them money…

• Desire

What would make your targeted prospect desire the product? (Better health, wealth, quality of life, convenience, deliciousness, fun?)

• Action

You’ve hit the prospect with the benefits that should appeal to them. If they have a need that your product can fill, then they may go out and buy it.

Sounds simple, doesn’t it? It is, but often, advertisers present a list of features, thinking surely the prospect can figure out how the features are beneficial to them. It’s best not to count on their taking the time to connect the dots.

So as an advertiser creating a campaign, always ask, “What does my prospective customer need this (product or service) for?” If you can’t think of an answer, well… think harder.