Un-Marketing
Brian Solis wrote a great post today that every marketer should read. He articulates a very important change that is taking place, “Now, we’re entering an entirely new paradigm for cultivating relationships with customers as well as the people who may one day become customers.” I completely agree.
Please check out the full article, “Will The Real Social Media Expert Please Stand Up?”
In it, Brian describes a change that is taking place from traditional marketing where we speak through relatively impersonal top down messages to one where we have real conversations with people.
He says:
“We’re starting to figure out that we need to humanize our story. We’re realizing that we would never speak to our friends and family through messages, so why should we speak “at” the very people we want to reach and befriend. We’re opening our ears and our minds to acknowledge that we can no longer push our thoughts at people in order to earn resonance; we have to listen, talk, listen, assess, and contribute value.”
And,
“Instead of top down communications and focusing on the influence and control of messages and perception, we’re learning that those influential groups of people are now our peers and therefore require respect, honesty, and support in order for us to earn their trust – and hopefully their business and enthusiasm along the way.”
So how does a marketer go about this? Brian also provides very practical advice including:
“Observe the online communities where your company and brands (or those of your competitors) are actively discussed and figure out how to participate in those conversations as if you were approaching someone in real life whom you greatly respect. Perhaps the most valuable piece of advice I can share is to pay attention to the culture of each community and how people communicate and interact with each other. This will reveal how best to embrace the opportunity and reach out to people though a through a new form of “un” marketing.
And,
“- Start by participating as a person, not as a marketer.
- Talk like a person, not as a sales person or message factory.
- Be helpful and bring value to the conversation.
During this entire process, you’re contributing to the personality and the perception of the brand you represent.”
This advice is right on the bull’s-eye and exactly the type of marketing that I believe in. At what point did we forget that it has always been about people and relationships, about adding value? I’m glad this movement is under way.
April 9th, 2008 - Posted in Online Listening, Influence, Conversation, Social Media | | 1 Comments
The Social Medium is the Message
Marshall McLuhan was a true media philosopher. Born in 1911 in Edmonton, Alberta (Canada), he became a highly regarded communications theorist, scholar/educator and philosopher. The concept of persuasion and influence was of great interest to McLuhan. His most famous publication, Understanding Media: The Extensions of Man was written in 1964. From this research and analysis he coined the now famous saying, “the medium is the message”. What did he mean by this?
The slogan summarizes his theory about the influence of communications media on society. His thesis was that a communications medium influences society by the inherent characteristics of the medium rather than the contents of its message. Hence, the medium itself is the message; the medium itself is the greater influencer of society - more than the messages it is carrying.
Now, honestly, when I first decoded his famous slogan, I thought, “that can’t be right”. Surely it is the ideas themselves that change society and not the communications pipe through which they are sent? I mean, did McLuhan really believe that the impact of television on society would have been the same regardless of the type of programming? Yes, he apparently did.
At first, this seems counter-intuitive, but let’s consider an example: e-mail. Did the introduction of e-mail as a communication medium, by its own characteristics, change society (ex: how we work) or was it the specific messages we received? When you really think about it, this particular medium has completely transformed how we work. Try working without a computer (or any email device) for a day and you will be reminded just how much the medium itself has impacted society.
In his Prologue to The Gutenberg Galaxy – McLuhan stated that media are “extensions” of our human senses, bodies and minds. And he believed that each medium produced a different effect on how we view the world.
For instance, he argued that “the technique of suspended judgment” (or suspended disbelief) was brought on by the story telling characteristics of radio, movies and television and that this was a key point of change in the 20th century in terms of how we now look at the world.
Whether you agree with his theories or not, it is certainly interesting to think about the impact of social media, or rather the Social Medium, and all of its new characteristics. In particular, I wonder how the unique conversational characteristics of the Social Medium might be changing our values or views. In what ways do you think the current adoption of the Social Medium is changing our perceptions of the world?
The social medium is the message.
February 27th, 2008 - Posted in Influence, Conversation, Social Media | | 4 Comments
Social Media Hummingbirds and Online Conversations
Everyone likes to see hummingbirds. They immediately capture our attention but they only stay for mere seconds. By the time someone says, “Look! A hummingbird”, it is gone.
Did you know that hummingbirds will typically consume more than their own weight in food daily? In order to pull this off they have to visit hundreds of flowers each day. They are at a constant risk of starving. No wonder they don’t stop.
Earlier today, Brian Solis wrote about “The Online Value of Conversations” where he notes an increase in the volume and frequency of new content being generated often at the expense of the high value conversation surrounding a topic which he calls, “the most enlightening part of any topic” where you find, “brilliance, perspective, and new opinions that allow a topic to genuinely flourish”. He makes a lot of sense. Like a hummingbird, we take a quick bite (a media snack) and then move on to the next topic rather than engage. Is it a volume problem or perhaps, as Steve Rubel points out, the Lazysphere has produced an increase in regurgitated content not worth stopping for?
The part of Brian’s post that brought the Hummingbird image to mind is:
“Again, content is increasing in production to the point where it’s almost impossible to navigate through the static. Instead of honing on and strengthening relevant signals, we jump from place to place and from conversation to conversation, contributing most of our time to sharing less important content than the very ideas that can help empower the value of each online community where we engage.
We move too quickly.”
In thinking about this trend, I wondered if it might be contributing to new habits that will overflow to all of our conversations & relationships (offline and online)? In other words, could our media snacking habit be shifting our relationships and conversations to increasingly becoming wider, but more superficial instead of focused and deep? Or do you find rather that it opens doors to great relationships?
Personally I think it is all quite manageable as long as you keep a proper balance, as my “social media addict” colleague & friend has recently written about. However, I am inspired by Brian’s post to try to stop and engage a little more often. Are you a social media hummingbird?
January 17th, 2008 - Posted in Conversation, Social Media | | 4 Comments
