We've entered the era where the term "social media marketing" is no longer new. When I meet with clients and potential clients, they have some idea about what it means when I say "social media", "online communities" and one-to-one marketing ...
Why? Because everyone is doing it. But mostly, everyone is doing it wrong.
I used to think it was really tough, explaining everything, convincing companies of the value, assuaging their fears, and holding their hands as they step out of their crumbling castles. But I was wrong, too. This is the hard part -- when everyone has the wrong idea about social media. They want me to pitch a new contest, "tell me you're going to have users create a new jingle for our brand!" -- once and for all, that's not a conversation, that's a promotion. Maybe it has its place, but it's not how you bring your customers closer and learn from each other in the process. It's how you get hits on your site, it's not how you get people to come back after the promotion is over.
Grant put it best, "It's distressingly like that old joke: "Well, enough about me. What about you? What do you think about me?" We have been concentrating on making marketing about the consumer for roughly a hundred years, and what do we do with the new media marketing? We make it about the corporation again."
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