(More & More) Social Media Snake Oil
You know a concept or idea has gone mainstream when the snake oilers start coming out of the woodwork.
I recently reviewed a video purporting to tell me HOW TO MAKE MILLIONS! with - TA-DA! - SOCIAL MEDIA! Yes, NOW YOU CAN KNOW the SECRET OF… and so and so forth. Of course, the video is from a company selling - surprise, surprise - social media “tools” including access to THOUSANDS of social media sites and ways to increase traffic to your site (Okay, they’ve arrived at your site, now what?)
The video was talking about that grand new exciting thing called “Web 2.0″ - which is very old news to most real web marketers. (I do agree with them, however, that many traditional marketers don’t have a clue what they’re doing on the Web.)
Now, I’m a huge fan of social media. Thanks to plain ol’ blogging, I’ve built relationships that enable me to do things like pay cash for a two-week vacation in Europe last year; I’m co-authoring a book with a fellow blogger I’ve never met in person; I can email wise people for advice on a wide range of topics; my personal and business network is steadily growing throughout the world…but, here’s the key - I’m building relationships, not trying to make a quick buck selling pre-canned dumbed-down consultant speak to “MILLIONS!”
So, “social media” or “social marketing”can be a great way to market - but it’s like any other (successful) marketing strategy:
1. You need to know your target customers.
2. You need to think of them as people.
3. You need to evaluate things like YouTube, MySpace, and Digg (three things recommended in the video) for applicability and effectiveness, based on your business goals, type of product, and how and where your customers will look for you (and will pay attention). Example: I’m on Facebook; but I’m not interested in anybody trying to sell me something there and I ignore the ads and widgets. And, call me old-fashioned, but I don’t think my relationship status and dating preferences have any place in business marketing.
P.S. It takes some time.
Related Posts:
Putting The “Social” In “Social Media”
My Favorite Marketing Snake Oil Pitches
Marketing is Broken and I’m Thrilled!
Why Are You (And I) In Business?
Read More:
Patricia Handschiegel: The Fatal Flaw Of Internet Business: Traffic — Why We Need to Adjust What Constitutes Size And Value On The Web
BL Ochman, Social Media Marketing, Who’s Full of Hot Air?
(An oldie - by web standards, published 12/07 - but still a goodie.)
Tags: marketing, marketing troubleshooting, communications, social media, social marketing
View the Blog Roll
August 7th, 2008 at 11:45 am
The culture of instant gratification builds snake oil salesmen and saleswomen and we’re awash in that culture today. There’s a peculiar ring to statements that sound too good to be true but a person operating in instant gratification mode doesn’t hear the imperfection. You’d notice: “I’m in it for the money. Give me yours, please.” Unfortunately, almost every other statement gets lost in the clutter.
August 7th, 2008 at 1:16 pm
And have you noticed the faster they talk the less they actually say? They start with “I’m NOW going to tell you three things you can do IMMEDIATELY to make money” and then they swerve back off on a sales pitch tangent.
Also, as my hero Craig Ferguson once noted about a so-called news channel, shouting doesn’t make it true.
August 8th, 2008 at 12:51 pm
Love it! So true. The worst part is that for those of us that are indeed “old timers” like myself (been doing interactive for over 15 years - employee 22 of AOL,) sometimes are overlooked by potential clients because they say that they, or their marketing director, or really the cleaning service personnel can “learn it on their own for only $19.95″ and such. Hillarious, really.
Amanda Vega
http://www.amandavega.com
August 8th, 2008 at 2:14 pm
Yes, indeedy. And they can learn how to do marketing by reading a book. Which works about as well as me learning how to ski from reading a book.
August 16th, 2008 at 5:18 am
Thank you for this post. Whenever I see a long centered webpage with numerous bulleted lists and titles outlined in red I already feel like I’ve been taken - and I haven’t even bought anything yet. And unfortunately almost anyone who has something to sell seems to be using these now.
August 20th, 2008 at 8:02 am
[…] Related Post: (More and More) Social Media Snake Oil […]