Social Media Marketing Isn’t A Science, Is It?
Sorry, I don’t have an answer. But if I have to choose someone’s opinion on the matter, I’ll trust a top physicist, one who “know[s] what it means to know something”:
It’s very easy to convince people that the work you do is backed by science. We hear those claims from advertisers, infomercials, activists, social media consultants and politicians. Sometimes there are grains of truth in the claims, maybe even entire clumps. You can scare people too, in the hopes that they’ll buy your product or service or political agenda. Many patients undergo unnecessary diagnostic tests because doctors are afraid of lawyers. After all those tests are scientific machines and (smart) lawyers use the scientific method. But who foots the bill?
If you think but don’t know that you have science on your side, you’re probably fooling yourself and your audience. It’s OK to have hunches, visions, experience and feelings. If you feel passionate about your visionary hunches and have the experience to lead the way, just say so and use the market as your profitable laboratory.
But don’t say that your belief system is a science just because science works and people trust science. You’ll set yourself up for distrust, disappointment and anger. And then people won’t trust science. In fact, they will hate it. That’s when superstitious fanatics takeover the boardroom at night, nationalize your business and convert your betrayed customers into interrogators.
Fear breeds itself like a virus, one tiny cell after another. What’s viral isn’t always in your interest or mine. And some viruses even the best scientists can’t contain.
You can laugh off what I’m claiming. After all, it’s just hypothetical.
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Groundswelling Corporate America
After listening to the webinar presented by authors Chjarlene Li and Josh Bernoff of groundswell: winning in a world transformed by social technologies, I have more faith that more of Corporate America will embrace the promises of the new marketing approaches possible with Web 2.0. Groundswell offers a good segue into social marketing for businesses that have yet to catch up.
I listed some of the key points the presenters made over at ReadWriteWeb. Essentially, they advocate an approach to marketing that emphasizes people first followed by clear objectives with an intelligent strategy using appropriate technology. Their acronym for this approach is POST. (I guess when you blog, your POSTs should keep these steps in mind–not a bad meme for blogging general by the way.)
They also discussed the analogues of the roles of traditional marketing with the objectives of groundswell:
- Research by listening to your customers on your blogs, forums, groups, etc.
- Market by talking with your customers on your chosen web platforms
- Sell your products or services by energizing your customers
- Support your efforts and customers with the right kinds of supporting technlogies
- Develop your business needs by embracing your customers through the new platforms
All of this is common sense really. But Forrester Research, the firm that Charlene and Josh’s represent, provides a remarkable service to business executives who need to get up to speed with the merciless curve of change coming down on all enterprises.
I’d love to see more of the kinds of services emerge because those businesses which “get the web” (e.g. those who “get” Seth Godin’s attitude on marketing) will thrive. Heck, I’d love to get into this business myself because I really want to see the fundamental projects of capitalism and democracy succeed.
An acquaintance of mine recently attended a presentation by the Charlene and Josh and came away very impressed with their personable, approachable style and felt that her company could greatly benefit from what they have to say. Ultimately, successful adopters will realize the enormous potential offered by the socialization of billions of people and the dangers of misplaced attempts.
Groundswell is an excellent start for newbies and pros. I plan to offer a succinct review of their book in a future post. In the meantime please visit their sleek blog and start your groundswelling campaign the right way.
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Clockwork Orange Marketing
One of my purposes in blogging is to evangelize our need to promote remarkable capitalism in a time of unremarkable consumerism. As a registered nurse and a former accountant, I think I have a unique perspective on just how vital ethical customer service is to the well-being of us all. And it’s my belief that marketing is everything. To that end, I’d like to talk about something we are all (sadly) familiar with: terrible customer service. It’s a critical topic because it infiltrates everything we interact with: businesses, careers, healthcare, government, religion, even dating.
While posting a comment on James Lowery’s Performancing on how some blogs are now tyring to force readers to view advertising or pay a subscription for the privaledge of ad-free reading, a metaphor for 20th century marketing inspired by Stanley Kurbrick’s 60’s classic hit me.
I call it Clockwork Orange Marketing. It’s really interruption marketing but with a little more force added to it. You know what Clockwork Orange Marketing is. It’s when businesses decide that the only way to generate cash is to force customers to watch a video, join a mailing list, tolerate telemarketing calls at dinner, deny website/blog visitors entry if they use AdBlock Plus, or a mind-numbing array of suicidal marketing weapons businesses feel obligated to point at every prospect.
Businesses, I suppose, generally have a right to commit these blunders. But nobody climbs Mount Remarkable just by stepping over their own rights. No, the way to the top is difficult and the only way there is through doing the hard work of pacing the whole way up. It requires vision, discipline, creativity, pliant focus, awareness and gratitude to teachers and other climbers along the way. Clockwork Orange Marketing requires none of these virtues. Why do the remarkable when you can strap on black boots and kick your customers into submission? It worked for 20th Century Fascists…until American air power leveled them all. So much for force as a long-term strategy for running a state.
The whole point of business, its fundamental going concern, is all about one word: awareness. That’s what marketing is about. That’s what hard work is about. That’s what customer service is about. If you’re not aware, then what are you? Isn’t the whole business of life all about awareness? How can any of us have fun just by being replaceable cogs in mindless contraptions? How much better would business be, would our economy be, our educational system be, our religious institutions be, our lives be, if we ditched the fear-driven paradigms that run most of what we do?
Fear is not a strategy. It’s a fallacy. And yet most businesses run on fear: fear of losing customers if they don’t forcefully funnel them into their offerings; fear of taking risks on better ways of doing things; fear of losing a few points in the stock market at the expense of long-term wealth. Risk is for grownups. Safety is for kids.
And so what is a common response in businesses to this sense of fear: Clockwork Orange Marketing.
But the problem is this. In this century, when customers can find your competitors online, through social networking, through blogging, and down along the Long Tail, forcing your customers to do things without even establishing their trust in you kills all of your chances at outsourcing your marketing department to your customers. Isn’t that the kind of outsourcing every business leader should have as a primary goal? Just how much of our business leadership has deep-seated effects rooted in child-abuse? (You’d be surprised.)
If you’re reading this post, would you do our world a favor? Would you please blog about Clockwork Orange Marketing? Could we spread this meme around the web? I want this world to be more remarkable than it is so that my toddler will be able to bring forth remarkable things into this world instead of having to fight his way out of a Stanley Kubrick nightmare.
Please tell the world about the war we need to fight against Clockwork Orange Marketing. We and our youth deserve much better.
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