Social media is a movement, not a market
This is a follow-up to a conversation I had with Valeria Maltoni and the excerpt that Tom Kephart posted at New Tech Heroes about my “social media is a movement” theme.
I read that transcript of my comments and thought, “What the heck? Is this guy naïve or what?!” The whole human spirit thing can get a bit much, especially if I’m a marketer in a job that, on average, lasts 18-24 months, I don’t have time for this touchy-feely stuff! Relationships? What are those? I don’t want relationships; I want revenues.
This is the pain and agony of have two personalities, which is also the dilemma for marketing professionals right now. There is a confluence of the following:
-technology
-social cynicism
-economic anxiety
-changing business models
Marketers and sales people must feel like they are getting whiplash. In the past 15 years, they have been sold and finally bought into CRM. That means they are ingrained with the idea that everything can be measured, everything must have a return on investment (ROI), every action has an intended outcome that is tied to a specific — albeit estimated — revenue, and brand means everything.
Enter social media, with the following maxims:
-You don’t control your brand
-Give away ideas and trust you’ll get something back
-Build relationships with communities; don’t sell them
You can appreciate the skepticism on the part of businesses and those responsible for target numbers.
We agree that relationships, community, sharing, learning and giving are part of social media. Most of the current corporate culture puts marginal and varying degrees of value on these qualities. They certainly don’t have the same level of importance as, say, pipeline forecast, brand equity and profit per customer, etc.
The major unifying bond for social media is shared learning. At times that shared learning in among passionate, like-minded people building around a cause, be it political (candidate), social (SXSW) or humanitarian (frozen peas). Other times it is about learning — examples such as the social media news release or the iPhone SDK announcement come to mind.
Lastly, I believe social media is more a movement than a market because this exchange of ideas, information and the relationships it creates, regardless of how superficial, is emotionally and intellectually rewarding. It is both instantly gratifying and has potential for long-term benefits.
The movement is about pursuit of information to find either the truth or to validate your own beliefs. The movement is about the desire to connect for support or recognition of one’s self. Those elements are part of the human condition, not necessarily a critical component of commerce. Because of this, I believe social media will thrive and become routine. I also believe it may change the way business operates, but only if other aspects of the current corporate culture change to accommodate the movement characteristics of social media.
Tags: movement
This entry was posted on Friday, March 14th, 2008 at 11:43 am and is filed under marketing, social media.You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.
RSS feed
Subscribe via e-mail
March 14th, 2008 at 3:01 pm
I appreciate the linkback to my comments about your interview with Valeria, Albert. I agree that proponents of social media in marketing do face the wrath of those who are looking for immediate, measurable results; revenues, not relationships, as you say.
Social media isn’t as strange when we compare it to the types of effective “offline” relationship-building we already do, and which many marketers are comfortable with. We get involved with our local chambers of commerce, we join local or regional organizations that are involved in our community. We do these things both because we believe in the premise behind them - we do want our communities to prosper - but also to reach out to prospective clients and customers and to establish a positive presence in our community that, hopefully, turns into revenue in the long run.
The new social media opportunities are similar, but on a worldwide scale. In the few months I’ve been writing New Tech Heroes, I’ve already made over a dozen solid contacts, several of which are interested in having me do some work for them, and not one would have been possible without putting myself out there with tools like my blog, Facebook, and Twitter. So there are revenue benefits as well.
We have to overcome the tendency of corporate culture to be secretive. Those prospective clients are expecting to find us online, and if they don’t, they’ll move on to the competitor that is. It’s a long-term process, with no “get rich quick” method other than persistence. But that isn’t really that much different than the way marketers have always found lasting success.
Good work, keep the thoughts coming!
March 15th, 2008 at 10:30 am
Albert, that was an interview filled with nuggets of wisdom. As Tom points out, there are careers at stake here. Those folks who are used to controlling the flow of information and being the gatekeepers for messaging are extremely uncomfortable with the principles and concepts of social media. Think about it. What is their role?
The other conversation that happens right now is how can we push our messages out through these new media. It’s an education process : )