Social media may not work to sell very well? What short memories everybody has!

It all seems to promising to market on the internet.  

In today's Wall Street Journal, Sara Needleman raises question of the real commercial value of social media in terms of it being a useful marketing/selling tool still.  What surprises me a little is the disappointment of the impact of social marketing has been so long coming!  The big buzz in business has--for years--been that  the social media is the next answer to the marketing dilemma of how to reach new, prospective customers.  What I am shocked at is how short our memories are, if not as pros in the ways of commerce, then as consumers in the ways of sellers.  Let me explain...

The excitement of enterprise is divorced from the realities of how people want it to be.

Let's face it, the attraction of on-line media is the prospect of access that's open to all and, comparatively speaking, low-cost in the ways of advertising.  Owners of small firms, especially, are enamored with this new media--and social media in particular--for here the possibility exists that their offering's face to the world can be, potentially, the same as all other--potentially larger--firms.  

That consumers can be reached directly--without middlemen as we have traditionally called them--is also an appealing idea to producers, but also minimizes the role that intermediaries have played.  For a lot of products, the consumer wants to see, feel, touch, taste, and try-on the product, not mindlessly click a mouse.  And, thus, the way many enterprising business people approach the on-line world really really amounts to wishful thinking.   

New marketing approaches lead to old, tired--and annoying ones!

This kind of thinking eventually led to a business-person's dream:  the ability via social networks to find the identities and key social elements of individuals...all for the purpose of marketing and selling to.  On top of this, the opportunity in a social network is to reach people when they are convivial, relaxed, and their undivided attention is directed to a screen that carries important messages about your product, brand, offering!  

Well, that's the strategy, the theory.  It seems that the reality is rapidly becoming something very different.  Most of us don't like to be hustled, sold to, advertised at.  When there's only a low level of marketing activity we're as a people pretty tolerant, but as the level of hype increases, we start to pull back, ignore, avoid, and in the end get very disenchanted.  

I like to visit the mall, not live there! 

Because we live in a consumer-based society, because we've been raised on a large number of commercial messages almost everywhere around us, the early forays of marketing in a social network setting was--by comparison to what we're used to in with other media--quite mild and very acceptable.  But with commercial success, limited advertising and marketing grows very rapidly to fill up what seems like a promising venue for more commercial messages--and that's when we start to draw the line and the effectiveness of those kind of commercial efforts start to diminish.

Then there's the purest forms of social network marketing, which calls for even greater levels of time and attention--all directed to finding and interacting with prospects based on hints of interest in this product category or that.  With eMessages, offers of on-line chats, tweets.  What's next?  Some small and large firms engage in this most intimate form of social networking directly, some hire other firms to fill the role of appearing to be interested in the prospect!  

This is when consumers start of put up their lines of defense:  We employ Tivo to help us view television more sanely, we get devices that help us screen our phone calls; most people literally throw away or shred most of their mail--unopened--before they deal with what's left; we enact laws to limit outdoor advertising; we prefer to listen to our personal playlists or subscribe to extraterrestrial radio rather than old-fashion AM or FM.  We have our ways of settling the promotional score--and the time is rapidly coming for social network marketing to start clogging up and consumers running from it all.  

It's a matter of time before new media becomes old and used up.

In the early days of eMail it used to be cool the get eMessages, just plain and simple--even when on occasion the messages were commercial--but now we call it spam and have automatic junk mail folders that's all swept into; the once-gee-whiz world of pop-up advertising has led to pop-up blockers.  

It's really a just a matter of time before the wide-open opportunities to find customers via social network marketing start seizing up, when what was once a beautiful marketing thing joins the clutter of the unanswered ringing telephone, the un-Tivo-ed TV, the full mailbox, and commercial laden commercial radio.

I don't find Ms. Needleman's article surprising at all.  Indeed, I think there's more news like this to follow. 
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Comments

[Francis]

The biggest issue alot of people misunderstand about twitter or facebook or any of these types of ventures is that for now they are a layover before whatever is next. This misunderstanding leads to in many companies, ventures or people spending too much effort for not enough gain. Ten years ago the Ipod, Tivo, Smartphones all were in their infancy, cell phones and computers at home were not ubiquitous, people still watched a lot of Network television and listened to radio stations through an antenna in their car. In 2000 you called someone at home and left a voicemail, because you assumed if you emailed them there could be a delay in when they get the message. Now you text someone because you assume it will be instantaneous. Facebook and Twitter are a medium that will over time change and morph into something new. Using them for marketing purposes therefore I would venture would require a few things.

1. You need to really know your audience/target market (Twittering to fans of American Idol is a lot different than twittering to people that like to go Duck Hunting in Mississippi)
2. You need to be clear and consistent, but not obnoxious (I think any regular twitter user has had to at some point unfollow someone because they post way way too much, of their information is useless)
3. You need to know the latest trends in terms of your medium usage (If there is some new bell or whistle that people are using and you are not you are out of the loop)
4. You need to be an early adopter of the next big thing (Nobody uses Myspace, Friendster anymore)
5. You need to measure effectiveness (The company that has four people spend 90 minutes a day on social networking, is that really cost efficient? 6 man-hours a day is almost a full time job. If you had those people work on something else and paid an advertising agency the equivalent of that salary to target market you would you have better results)

I think part of the hope of social networking is like Gladwell talks about in the beginning of the Tipping point. The right connector will read your tweet or wall and you will be the owner of Hush Puppies in 1995. The overlooked part is that Hush Puppies had something the connectors felt was worth connecting, and many of these companies are often throwing out their message before they have their content.