Marketers are struggling to foster deep social media connections with consumers. Perhaps it’s time for a little strategic planning. Here’s the deal-

1) Behavior is based on motivation.

2) Despite the proliferation of social media options, social behavior has not changed. I speak to folks a lot about this. IMO, social media behavior reflects actual social behavior tendencies. The person that is inappropriate on social media is inappropriate in other social settings (ever ‘Linked’ with a biz associate on LinkedIn only to learn they talk about their wife or relationships or bodily funtions… given a little ‘time in’ with this person, you’ll see this is how they are in other biz based social situations).

3) We’re not reinventing the wheel in understanding social behavior because of social media. At the present time social media ADDS to existing social tact by enabling communication to be faster, easier, in real-time, and with more reach. In the future, social media will likely be much ‘deeper’ as these attributes get richer/obtain more ‘depth’. No use looking at the future though if we can do better at understanding where we are today…

4) Maslow’s Hierarchy provides a good base (below). Add this to an insight based construct and we’re getting closer to understanding social behavior and motivations in today’s social media world:

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5) Taken one more layer in we can use the AlixCompany ‘Me’, ‘My’, ‘Why’ construct to formulate a plan for deeper consumer connectivity:

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6) Reach –> Engage –> Convert