The Devaluation Of Social Media

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Comment by Renee Cassard on November 9, 2009 at 11:38am

Thanks Jay! And good luck with all the blank stares :) Mary, great points and yes, there is a big difference inbound vs outbound marketing, and couldn't agree with you more that we have barely tapped into the potential of these things! It will be fun to learn how to harness this power and overcome the tendency of agencies to silo these things. Sounds like it would be a more natural fit to start on the client, rather than agency side in many cases. Interesting conversation. Thanks!

Comment by Mary H Ruth on November 6, 2009 at 10:57pm

Truly amazing post and comments.

"The difference is in the quality of thinking." Now, is this not a dangerous statement? Though I agree so much of the web is not that different from most of television: banal, masturbatory, and paranoid.

Yet, what can we confidently say is the difference? Because there certainly is one. There is social media, and then there's social media marketing (although that term has quickly evolved to become 'inbound marketing,' a more apt descriptive, IMO.) And it's about every corner of life, not just marketing/advertising.

Or perhaps more correctly, every corner of life now encompasses marketing/advertising (thereby rendering said department obsolete. Heh heh.)

The internet's potential remains just superficially scratched. And, as Renee Cassard suggests, real life has a way of overriding philosophy. I'm not immune to money's power; can you say you are? But what is the difference between money and value?

Is it possible we're meant to create a heart-centered economy? Is the future the cooperative capitalism I've often wondered about?

Comment by Jay Deragon on November 6, 2009 at 3:55pm

Renee

Just read your post. Very well said. I am going to quote you in a post called "An Agency For Agencies?" and link back to your post. Stay tuned :)

Comment by Jay Deragon on November 6, 2009 at 3:48pm

Renee

Your comments and reflective experience is spot on. I was just on a call with an agency that has been in business 35 years. They commented "the world has changed. Our market is tight with money and yet they want to increase sales but do not want to spend money marketing". What should we do?

My response "show them how to engage their market in a coversations". A blank stare and pause followed :)

Comment by Renee Cassard on November 6, 2009 at 3:43pm

Thanks for the great blog post Jay. As a strategic communications consultant, I work across multiple disciplines, mostly in marketing but also in business. I have to agree that there seems to be a tendency for marketing and advertising functions to want to "own" social media. I recently wrote a blog post comparing the interactions and human connectiveness that has re-emerged using social media to older, more classical ways of doing business. I received many comments from readers wanting to discuss my thoughts about specific aspects of social media (like webinars, or online advertisements) and how to segment them. While these were certainly great examples of specific tactics, the big picture I was trying to convey pertains more to what you are discussing here - using social media to build human interactions and create relationships. Or, as I argue in my blog, allow for the re-emergence of a relationship between the consumer and the companies they do business with. It gets tricky though, especially in times of economic difficulty, to focus on these sometimes less measurable aspects in lieu of more absolute measurements and tools. Funny thing is, we create those too (the measurements), so in the end its all kind of subjective anyway, don't you think? You can read my article at http://reneecassard.blogspot.com/ Thanks again for the thought provoking blog post! Renee

Comment by Robin on November 3, 2009 at 2:17pm

I do have to say your are correct and it is VERY difficult to measure for the reasons you stated above. The customer is in control. When that is the case you cannot really predict their behavior I am assuming. The hard thing is that in social media like Twitter etc. the value you have to focus on is one by one and you hope it is also value to the masses.

Comment by Jay Deragon on November 3, 2009 at 1:29pm

thanks for your kind comments and taking the time to write.

I find it ironic that the market is consumed with ROI from social media because people's actions and thinking create ROI, not social media. Conversations add value in the form of knowledge exchanged. When I get knowledge from someone's post or tweet and use it I create "value" just like your comment. How I turn that into an ROI starts by creating a relationship, which is what you and I are doing. How we use knowledge is to apply it to our business, our products and services and by applying it we create value for an audience. The audience will decide whether our knowledge is worthy of an engagement which creates a transaction economically. The real ROI of social media is what you provide that pulls a market to you then what you do to give that market real value. Measuring it in economic terms is the wrong measure. Similar to waiting for the quarter to end to see if your methods produced the results what you wanted, it is too late. the other analogy is do we measure the ROI from conversations with our spouse? Not likely :)

The problem is that the market is consumed with social media as a silo channel for marketing and advertising. The history of marketing and advertising is a 3% response rate. Why? Because the method and the message is wrong. The method is aimed at "catching people" and tricking them into a transaction. The market has shifted and the consumer is in control of the message and the aim is to build a relationship. How to you measure that? Simply for those that know. Complex for those who don't. The difference is in the quality of thinking.

Comment by Robin on November 3, 2009 at 1:19pm

This is a VERY deep analysis of social media. I never looked at it that way. Another this HOW do you put a price on social media? There are so many tools but how do you really measure your return on your efforts? Then once you can measure one side, how do you measure which effort you should more effort into? LOL. I know it sounds confusing but that is the only way I can explain it.