Social Networking Thinking
The greatest challenge today for those of us in advertising, marketing or public relations is the influx of social media thinking. Not necessarily “social media,” with quotes and all. I mean social media thinking, which has caught on like wildfire.
If social media is the ability for anyone to publish any thought they have instantly, social media thinking is the belief that all messaging should be delivered that way - as word-of-electronic-mouth, from friends or private individuals, but shunning companies that may be more interested in selling to them than giving them useful information. And if a website can’t give them something they want or need, they can use their del.icio.us bookmarks and personalized search settings to remove it from their field of vision completely.
In effect, all of this social media is the ultimate extension of the remote control. Forty years ago, a commercial stood a good chance of being seen by consumers because they didn’t have the technology to quickly switch over to another station for a few minutes to get away from it. Once the remote was widely available, this was no longer the case.
Similarly, social media allows people to escape information they feel is trying to convince them to “buy” something. If you actually are trying to do that, you will be shut down. Quickly.
Rather than try to bludgeon these users with even more messaging in the hopes that they finally knuckle down and buy something from you, you should engage them in conversation. That is the true beauty of social networking: Every user can now be an individual, with the ability to hear directly from you, and to answer back. This very blog was built on the premise that users would read it, agree or disagree, and post their opinions for us - and anyone else - to read.
And we may all need to learn how to negotiate these waters very soon, whether we want to or not. Think about it: What is the future of all of these blogs and Myspace pages and Flickr accounts? One of two outcomes:
1) The whole “Web 2.0″ trend crashes and burns, and only a handful of the heartiest sites survive.
or,
2) This kind of thinking invades every inch of popular culture, and we must all learn to message on a one-to-one level.
Possibility #1 is entirely possible, and will closely resemble the “dot bomb” times of eight years ago. Hundreds of companies founded on pages using that new-fangled internet were wiped away, and only the strongest players (Amazon, Yahoo!, eBay) survivied.
Possibility #2, however, would mean that as advertisers our lives will get increasingly more difficult. As the public becomes more cynical about the purpose of advertising, and their ability to tune it out improves, we will be required to either learn new strategies with connecting with them.
Perhaps that will involve getting to know just the one right person, who has a lot of friends and will do the kind of word of mouth you want done? Or maybe it will involve contests for film school students to produce the best YouTube video promoting your company? How many other ways are there to turn these potential lemons into lemonade?
