I am forever trying to get my head around this social media thing. Some days I think I understand it and then other days I am dumbfounded by what I see. Just yesterday I was in a discussion with a friend if social media was marketing or PR. Coming from the world of PR I instantly said PR, my friend, coming from marketing said it was a marketing tool.
Being rational adults sitting over a nice dinner of burgers and beer we decided to give each other one chance to convince the other of our argument and a rebuttal statement could be made by each. I looked my opponent square in the eye and knew I was about to have to make one concise and convincing argument.
I began as such: Social media is PR at its purest form. Social media allows poeple and buisness to build third party credible at a direct target level. The targets then become either evangelist or nay sayers of a company, product, or service. All credibility and comments are earned through creating relationships with targets.
I was proud of myself, I had summed up my argument in one concise paragraph that made sense to me and to my opponent. My advisory took a bite of his burger, took a sip of his beer and smiled. I was frightened by this look because I knew I would soon be bested.
He began as such: PR is based on targeting experts in a field, typically journalist and editors, with a secondary focus on targeting the general public. I will give you that most bloggers are experts. Marketing positions itself by creating exposure through placements and creating a need out of a want. I show people that since their friends have something, they not only want it but need it to be on the same level as their friends.
I started to think about what my friend had said and how it pertained to social media. A good deal of connections and networks were based on the ‘keeping up with the Joneses’ model of friends. Could I have been wrong this whole time about the focus of social media? Could it all be based on making people feel like outcast for not participating.
The argument continued for several courses of dinner and round or two more of ale. While we couldn’t come to agreement we both saw the merit in the others argument. It left me with an unsettling feeling about what social media really was. I was convinced I was confused on social media again.
I was wondering what all of you out there thought about social media as a tool. Is targeting social media the next step in PR or just a faster route for marketers to hit their targets? I know the answer isn’t simple but I would love to hear all your thoughts on this topic.
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Facebook is trying to generate more income by courting sponsers and advertisers. Those third party applications do have ads and yes, they do irritate me.
I am sure that there is a backend income model to facebook that we might not know about - so I doubt that their hands are clean. Much the way that Craigslist charges for certain kinds of posts (jobs and realestate in certain markets). Some people have to pay so that others may enjoy.
As for the whole social media/marketing tool debate.
Marketers will use any popular emerging trend as a way to promote their clients. It was marketers who created the X-Games because so many people were participating in skating and motorcross etc. Wherever people congregate, marketers will follow with pen and pad in hand.
For the same reason men go to bars on "Ladies Noght". They are just going where they have the best odds of "Getting Lucky".
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Marketing and PR cover reasonably similar strategic ground, have some similar tactical tools and some dissimilar ones.
I'd rather talk about communication as the overal description and then talk about named tactics: direct mail to a specific target group, banner campaigns, blogger outreach, media campaign, advert, flyers, canvassing (of consumers or journalists.
I still call myself a PR consultant, but that may be force of habit.
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PR is often calculated, formal, boring and not authentic, and it pushes the message. Blogs and social media should be the opposite and while someone might start the dialogue, it is open for discussion and can take many different turns based on who is participating.
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I agree that much of the intention of social media channels are for user-to-user communications. The majority of people in any social media channel probably aren't using it to connect with companies.
Where I disagree is that marketing has no value in social media. To Chris' point about advertising and spam on social networks, that is indicative of marketers still trying to use interruption marketing in a space that doesn't need it. Interruption marketing online is about CPMs. Getting the most people to move their eyeballs over your message.
I listened to a relevant podcast this morning, Jaffe Juice (1/30/08 episode), that highlighted a this dichotomy. A room of marketers was asked if they would rather have 5 million impressions or 10 solid relationships. Only 1 person stood up for the relationships. (He admits the numbers may need tweaking.)
The point he went on to make, is that those 10 relationships, through social media working as intended user-to-user, could end up generating just as many 'impressions' as the message spreads. But most marketers don't see it from that angle.
In the end, I have to vote that social media is neither a marketing nor a PR tool. We are inviting customers to come talk to us, or we are requesting their permission to join their conversations. If you try to interrupt what they are doing, it won't generate the relationships you ultimately need to be successful.
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It's just about communicating, those that do it with respect, sincerity, and the ability to contribute and learn will get value from it. Those that try to just take, or who come to just sell will skim low hanging fruit and be dismissed by others.
I caution those that think social media is something to calculate in their sales pipeline or media blitz, it's not. It's about relationships and the misperception is that I can jump into social media and friend 1000 people. I then can call those people leads. Agh! that is light years away from reality.
I believe social media is an aid to relationship building, but that still takes time. Anthony, if you want to really have a few more beers try this one on for size, social media is also a relationship with truth. Over time if you participate enough you build a wealth of ideas, positions, and statements on issues. It is a chronology of you to the world and this, over time is a captured legacy.
Barkeep, one more for me and my friend.
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Case closed. :-)
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Facebook is cash-positive and has been pretty much from the beginning, and doesn't annoy the user with ads (the annoying ads on facebook have come from third parties). That shows that you don't need to be loud and annoying to run a site profitably.
They succeeded because they started with a distinctly non-commercial, helpful, fun, and community-oriented feel. Same with Google, craigslist, and some of the other really successful internet sites.
There is no reason people seeking to add value to a social network by writing new applications for it can't do the same.
I'm not saying marketing is bad, but some of these marketing people just don't seem to get it. I like the kind of marketing that is strongly influenced by engineers, because engineers seem to have better than average BS detectors, and they like to stay away from being too blaringly self-promotional.
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That's not PR. That's media relations, one area within the broader discipline of public relations. This stuff we call social media might fit best under a description of an "online form of community relations." Of course, community relations is another area within PR.
Of course, there's this point: What does it matter?
Seriously. Does the distinction matter? If you find people who "know this stuff" and are successful at accomplishing what you want to accomplish with it, isn't that the important part?
I don't intend to be condescending; lord knows I've been roped into discussions like this (example: see first half of my comment :). But really, does it matter if we consider this work marketing or PR? My (agency) boss doesn't care - he just wants to make clients happy. My clients don't care - they just want results.
And I'm sure we all know classifying or labeling the work certainly doesn't constitute "results."
Keep up the good work on the blog. I enjoy it. --Mike
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You are right, social media is a communication medium. But so is marketing. In that way they are related.
I run several blogs (technically considered social media). I also run several businesses. I rarely promote the businesses on the blogs. When I do it, it is usually because it is relevent to the discussion. I do it to illustrate the origin of a point of view or something like that.
I think you are a bit hard on facebook and myspace. They provide a service that is free for the users. Someone has to pay for the bandwidth, upgrades, innovation and maintenance - big, evil, invasive advertisers do this. You could always write myspace a check every month. I am sure that they would be happy to charge everyone for the service and remove the ads from your page.
If you dont want to write them a check, then deal with the ads. You may hate the parasites but they also create jobs and help to facilitate the creation of the sites you like to visit. You can consider them a necessary evil or a tolerable pest.
As for me... I hate bees but I love honey. I guess I can put up with the stings to get the good stuff.
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Marketing and PR types, being the vultures and parasites that they are, and sensed new opportunities on these sites and rushed in to try and make a quick buck. This has gummed up the works, hurt the signal/noise ratio and annoyed everyone else. You can see it in the comment spam that pervades myspace and the application spam that pervades facebook.
I'll concede that the social networks themselves have been complicit. You can see that in the loud, annoying ads on every page myspace serves up and in beacon, facebook's foray into "social advertising".
The rest of us would prefer applications that are useful and interesting first, and ad delivery vehicles only to the extent that the ads are tastefully presented and relevant to the user.
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Chris Tackett
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Andrew Wright (
http://andrewwright.wordpress.com/2008/01/11/co...) and Connie Bensen (http://conniebensen.com/blog/2008/01/12/public-...) wrote posts on this that support my view point I think.
Shashi
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