I would observe that companies and causes have always relied heavily on customer interaction and feedback, often doing so in background by soliciting comments from its customers and using them to refine their product or publicizing favorable ones. I agree with Linda’s observations about personal relationships with a company/cause and with your conclusions about how to sell “social media” involvement to them. People like to hear from other regular people who have had to make choices similar to theirs and value their recommendations, whether they are made in person, on the Web, or letters to the editor. It just makes sense that they do. It should be an easy sell if it weren’t for the ambiguous term: social media.

Thought provoking article, Brad, as usual.

1. I want to have a good relationship with the manager of my local Wells Fargo branch. HE has a relationship with Wells Fargo, the institution. I don’t want to have to contact Wells Fargo, the institution, at all. That’s what the bank manager (or his underlings) are for.

2. If I WERE “in a relationship” with my medical insurance company, I would sell all its old baseball cards and put sugar in its gas tank. This is not the sort of outcome my medical insurance company forsaw when its “social media guru” told it that “having a relationship” with clients was a good idea.

I am only partially convinced, however. I believe:

1) Consumers are better off if they have a relationship with the brands they use (if only to complain to @JetBlue)

2) I am better-disposed toward the brands I feel I have a relationship with (I like buying from CDBaby, or did until they got swallowed by DiscMakers)

BUT, I am not convinced that those two things add up to me wanting to pursue a relationship with a brand. In other words, I am not convinced that telling me (as an ordinary consumer) that I can have a relationship with a brand will make me better disposed towards it.

YOU know I will like the brand better if I have a relationship, but /I/ don’t know it yet. (Again, I am being an ordinary consumer here.)

The reason this matters is that it then doesn’t make sense to pitch social media as a relationship builder if the targets don’t yet know they want relationships.

It is probably a semantic distinction but I suspect it may matter.

Hope that makes it more clear. Perhaps it has only succeeded in doing the opposite.

And what I find great about this is that companies don’t often get a chance to brand themselves through their employees. Brand perception is generally formed through our experiences with the product or service, its packaging, its emotional appeal, its advertising and marketing, and whatever we know or see about its C level staff – and these days, C level staff aren’t the best brand builders. So there is rarely a “human” face for a brand. But I think companies like JetBlue and Comcast and Ford have gotten it very right by not going into social media as a logo, but having real people represent them. People who will answer questions, escalate complaints, and, yes, form relationships.

Well, I’m glad you pointed that out, because now I’ve read Fou’s original article.

“Media” is really just another word for “way,” as in “the way things get conveyed.” Its distinguishing feature isn’t that it’s paid for, or available for purchase — just ask a political campaign whether they would rather have paid media (ads) or free media (press coverage). No, “media” is the word we use to mean the “channel” information gets conveyed.

You could argue that some media can be bought, and other media can’t be bought. Social media can’t (easily) be bought. Similarly, journalistic media can’t (easily) be bought.

I am totally with you on the ill-advisement of paying for social media mentions. :-)

B

People’s conversations are not media; they can’t be purchased as such by advertisers. In other words, people don’t talk whenever advertisers want them to and they won’t say whatever advertisers tell them to — so it isn’t “media” like TV, print, and radio.

There are some prominent social media “experts”, like Chris Brogan, who support the commodification of social media via things like pay-per-post, but I vehemently disagree with that approach: http://loudpoet.com/2009/04/22/bursting-the-social-media-bubble/

Thanks!

I do have one quibble, or really a question. What’s wrong with the term “social media?” (Aside from over- and incorrect use, I mean?)

There’s “print” media, whose chief characteristic is that it’s printed.

There’s “broadcast” media, whose chief characteristic is that is is broadcast.

Why not “social” media, whose chief characteristic is that it depends on user-generated content as an integral part of its reason for being? (That is, not everything that just happens to be online is social media, just a subset.)

Seems to me that in a marketing mix, you would want to be able to track your performance in the “social” media space as well as in the other media spaces.

Please know that, like you, I am totally irked by the over-buzz and hype, and sloppy use of the term. But it /does/ seem to have a place.

Brad

Brad: Great post! It’s nice to see a rational discussion of social media that separates the hype from the reality.

* Social media: There’s no such thing.

* Social networks: The places where people go to socialize with friends.

* Social actions: The things people do on social networks and elsewhere like talk, share, comment, review, recommend, rate, etc.

* Social intensity: The rate and quantity of social actions. (See, “Social Intensity: A New Measure for Campaign Success?”)

* Social marketing: What advertisers can do to stimulate more social actions in support of advertising and marketing efforts.

He adds: The metrics of social actions can’t be compared to old media metrics; it is not social media.