DISQUS

I never hear anyone say that once size fits all. Most would say that there needs to be many sizes or fits. But then they'd go right ahead and do the formulaic stuff you're talking about. So they would treat each situation s if its the same.

As usual, a very good post.

It seems to me the desire to pigeonhole social media and where is should reside and what who should lead it ends up creating yet another silo. At least a silo in the mindset.

This and Jason's posts have inspired me to write two posts of my own.

http://marketingconversation.com/2008/07/30/soc...

http://marketingconversation.com/2008/07/30/so-...

To paraphrase social media types, I'd say that if one first "listens" to the "community" of social media types to see what they're saying, and then "engages" them in "conversation", and does it with "authenticity", they would probably be "genuinely" equipped to embark on social media. To me, that's "transparent".

Loic

I pretty much disagree with what you say here because I disagree with the context. And you didn't seem to respond to those who challenged your thinking.

I could ask several questions, but I'll ask one...

Re participation is NOT marketing, you seem to hint that marketing is "artificial". That mentality seems to be evident in many of your points. Marketing, PR, etc. HAS to be contrived. Why is that?

Sonia

What is a "talk-to-people" profession? And are you talking about all large organizations?

Chris

You're 100% right. My concern is that there are many marketers who don't see how what many of us are saying applies to them. Some may be correct their assertion. Others may be not so much misunderstanding - they may understand and agree with it fully. But they may mistakenly not understand how it nevertheless applies to them.

So, it leaves me to wonder something. One is how do we convince the appropriate parties who could benefit by using social media but may not realize it or believe it? I often hear very general statements (and I'm not saying from you) like "engage or die" that could easily turn off seasoned marketing vets who have heard plenty of "...or die" comments before. The challenge is to be able to speak in their language - something you often amazingly do.

I'm not looking for a specific answer from you, it's just a thought I'm putting out there.

I don't know if I agree with this. It's not that I directly disagree with what you're writing, but it seems limited in its scope or application.

I'll start with three premises.

1) The majority of brands out there may not be suitable for being heavily marketed on or engaged to online communities. People want to engage with other people, not brands. Sure, it makes sense for marketers to understand potential customers better. And there are several aspects of social media that makes that easier. But that doesn't directly mean that social media engagement is appropriate for a certain product.

2) The pressure on marketers to produce - with CMOs having an average life span of 19 months - can be horrific. Social media marketing can be painfully slow. You mention "getting to know people". Yes, they should. But establishing networks of friends on Twitter, on Facebook, etc. would work only if the type of brand in question is something that people would feel it is appropriate to be eventually marketed to.

3) People also want may end up getting leery of befriending someone who's main purpose down the road is to sell them something.

Now, I'm not accusing you of faulty reasoning at all...I'm thinking that many marketers may rightly see that their brand would not benefit from social media. Or they've got deadlines and time constraints and revenue goals and executive pressure for results NOW. Or they don't have the personnel - trained personnel - to go out there and engage others online to the extent that the program itself will see tangible results.

So in the end, the marketer decides that your ideas here don't apply to them. They may agree with you for brands that social media engagement make sense, but not theirs.

I'm concerned about what I see, not just what the future will hold.

Just as I've seen PR firms create lists of reporters and then try pitching as many as possible, I'm seeing the same with bloggers. The problem now is two fold. I think a lot of reporters are used to that...its part of the job. But bloggers are likely to have less patience with this. And that will extend to PR people in general.

It's not just that PR people "don't get" bloggers. It's that they don't even try to understand them.

Part of the problem is that with tens of millions of new users of social media coming on board each and every year - or is that hundreds - we don't really know how to "engage" them effectively. Not many deep methodologies have been created yet. A lot of it can be forced.

Yet a second challenge is that in order to get to know an individual better to better engage with them, we end up violating their privacy.

We'd better make those lobbies very comfortable and then treat our customers with respect.

The success of many creative content can be attributed to luck...whether it's an excellent video on YouTube, or a great guitarist in a bar band, or a great but unknown writer with a unpublished manuscript.

They do seem like sleazy tactics at times. And upon reading the article, I came to think that the strategies he mentioned were more to generate views as opposed ot making people pass it around.

I won't directly defend his tactics but I'll say this. he's right in that it has gotten almost impossible to get a tremendous amount of page views for the vast majority of videos. So certain clients will pay big bucks to 'make sure it happens'.

Nick

Beacon will not die. It will serve at the core business of Facebook's business model for years to come.

I'd go beyond what Bob just wrote in that what blew people away was their user experience. Most people understand that much of what they do online - what sites they visit and what they buy - are being monitored in some way for later marketing purposes. But what people were taken aback and then livid about was that Facebook was now part of customer-retailer relationship without their approval, that their private purchases were then being made public, and that the burden was on them to stop all of this on a case-by-case basis.

If Facebook had meant Beacon to be an experiment, it would have used carefully coordinated focus groups. They decided to go full force on it anyway. That's because they see it as their future. And they got too cocky.

Ironically, they should have used focus groups anyway. A controlled setting in which they can observe user interaction. Perhaps out of arrogance and believing in their own hype, they forged ahead anyway, offending their users and irritating their partners.

From now on, advocacy groups and business partners will play a greater role in Facebook's future decision making process. It didn't have to that way.

Oops. In that first line I should have written "it may NOT become a disaster..."

No, Matthew this will not blow over. It may become a disaster, but the earlier news feed controversy happened entirely withing Facebook. People have come to accept that what they do within the confines of Facebook will often be shared with all.

Since this is a matter of individuals user experience making personal choices OUTSIDE of Facebook, it's a whole different ballgame. We may give up some privacy for enhanced user experiences - targeted ads for example. But how do we benefit if all our friends now we just bought a particular product. How does a women benefit if now all of her friends and colleagues on Facebook now know that she just bought three books on coping with sexually transmitted diseases via Amazon? Or a closeted gay man who buys books on homosexuality. How does a guy who just ordered an engagement ring for his girlfriend from another partner site.

I say that we're looking at major potential violations of privacy.

And then there's that other point I touched on. Who benefits? The online store does. Facebook does. Do the purchaser? How? Do his or her friends? How?
So we have to give up our privacy and not benefit. Doesn't make sense.

It's funny that this has turned to reputation management. The firm I'm with, Abraham Harrison, does a lot of online repurtaion rehabilitation stuff and we're starting to see an upswing in interest in those services. I've recently been blogging about this myself, at out blog, Marketing Conversation (http://marketingconversation.com/2007/10/04/rep...)

Companies need to learn that reputation management goes far beyond the traditional stuff. Negative comments can last a long, long time.

Hi Douglas

I can't say that I disagree with you, especially given your example, but I'm skeptical (not of your argument) of companies of that seemingly seem overjoyed to place people in some sort of advisory capacity as a means to shoo them away. I've been involved in politics and I see many overcontrol-the-message mentality to the point that it's disappointing.

That being said, disparaging comments should come with some sort of explanation. "Your product sucks" doesn't work.

Doug

I'm not sure blocking out the#2 type, the critical comment is a good idea. Especially by saying that you don't want to "share it out to the site - I hope you understand."

Frankly, no I don't understand.

And the invitation of join a Customer Advisory Board -- what is that? A makeshift term that means nothing? What could be at most a monthly email asking one question? Or is it an actual Board that someone qualifies being on as a result of one negative comment? I would suspect that many would end up believing that such a 'selection' is just a way to delete a comment and be done with it.

If an organization is going to delete an honest, well-written critical comment that is not "mean", they should let that comment stand. Otherwise it is defacto censorship in this era of transparency.