Show 100 people an ad and 14 will believe it.
Show 100 people a comment on Facebook and
78 will believe it.

Now do you think it might be worth developing a social media strategy?

If you can’t get your head around the commercial usefulness of social media, think about it this way:

Word of mouth is the best advertising. Social media is simply word of mouth advertising to millions every second.

Potentially. Of course, no one really tells all their friends what great sticking plasters or tomato purée they’re using at the moment. And even if they did, such crassness would probably be counted in the 22% of Facebook stuff that people don’t believe.

No. What people talk about are the things that break through – that are relevantly, outstandingly, amazingly good (or bad) enough to be worthy of comment.

There’s a word for that – remarkable. Worthy of remark. So notable that the user/consumer/customer is moved to say something about it.

So here’s The Foundry’s Social Media Rule No.1. If you’re not remarkable enough to get talked about, you won’t get talked about. Trouble is, of course, when you look at Twitter, Facebook and the rest, you find that, commercially speaking, fashion, music, football, personal electronics, TV and movies are the things that prompt conversation. Not ointments, garages, vegetables, tyres, real ale or washing up liquid – the stuff that most of us sell most of the time.

Not to worry though, FSMR No.2 is coming to your rescue: If you steal ideas from football/fashion/movies et al, connecting with or looking/behaving like them, you’re more likely to get social media users talking.

(We did it for Kumho Tyres when we exploited their Manchester United connection and created a road safety and bike training campaign for kids. Man U stars attended the launch and it definitely got talked about.)

FSMR No.3? Listen before you open your mouth. Just as discussion groups with customers lead to unexpected insights in the real world, a few weeks of organised eaves- dropping online will also open your eyes and your mind to what people are saying out there. There’s rather more to planning a Social Media strategy than this, of course – we haven’t mentioned the other six Foundry Social Media Rules for one thing.

But if we’ve whetted your appetite for the greatest communication revolution since the telephone, get in touch with Ian McKay on 0161 926 8444 or ian.mckay@foundrycomms.co.uk