Not Everyone Believes in Social Media
ByFor a different view of social media as a business tool you need to read Alan Weiss’ blog post Blogs, Facebook, Twitter, and Chance.
Weiss writes:
Now, I know, that there are “experts” all over the place claiming that social networking is going to replace traditional marketing, and customers talking to customers will determine the fates of businesses. Forgive me, but I also remember the “paperless office,” “checkless society,” and “The Friendly Skies” (yeah, right).
Clearly, Weiss is in the anti-social media camp. He does have some interesting points to make. Even more interesting is the heated debate in the comments to this post. If you have some time, it’s worthy following the conversation. It will give you some insight into the social media phenomenon, particularly if you are still waiting to test the waters.
Andrea J. Stenberg
I had some comments in that flow of conversation (and downright disputes) on that blog or commentary by Alan Weiss. It’s interesting to see this POV because I see it in the most conservative and cautious business people who don’t get that there can be a lot of momentum generated about a product, topic, or company. Some want to justify the results with a what’s the real bottom line $$ at the bank going to be? If that’s the real question, then it’s about paying less for advertising (note I didn’t say give it up), and focus on the web as a WOM and getting the visibility quickly!
Stevie,
I was quite a dispute. I think the reason why some more cautious types don’t get it when it comes to social media is it really involves a paradigm shift. You can’t look at and evaluate social media the same way you do other types of marketing and promotion.
You also can’t predict what will go viral – although I don’t think you can do that with traditional marketing either, even if ad agencies may try to tell you differently.
But people who ignore this phenomenon completely are missing out.
Thanks for visiting.
Andrea
Hey Andrea
I completely agree with you. It is a major shift in how one views reaching out to consumers or a target audience. Social media is truly evaluated differently and the results can be disappointing or absolutely phenomenal– (like the Brickfish campaign I was involved in with a projection of 100K engagements/actions/participations.. and with a bit of social media outreach on my part it went supernova to over 1 million)
The point is to use it as a part of — not the entire — marketing strategy for a business, product or brand. There is a point where getting people to talk about a product on their own will generate enough self sustaining buzz that you can back off the active social media and work on other parts to take over.
Stevie