Use social media as a listening wall, not a wrecking ball

I appreciate that you took the time to write all this, and that it won an award, but sadly it’s almost unreadable.

I think you make some very important points, but it feels like it needs pictures. Which can be verbal, they don’t need to be actual images.

Most likely I am not the target audience, but still. All this brand-and-marketing speak is the reason that companies are failing to communicate with consumers properly. It permeates thought and expression beyond the b2b arena, and becomes a barrier.

This overwritten rubbish won a prize? Puhleese!
I’d give it a C at best.

Yawn.And ‘its’ doesn’t require an apostrophe of possession. How can you win a writing prize without knowing the most basic rules of grammar. It may seem petty but the writing was hardly engaging so the least he could do was get it technically right.

I got bored half way through this, but I counted the word ‘sales’ once! I’d be mighty worried if I was a client of this agency. And something tells me McCain are still moving frozen peas this week & mum buying them thinks social media is something that her daughter is doing instead of her homework.

I think some of the commentary above by the Anonymous C…nice people, must be because they were losers in the competition 😉
My personal reaction – as a consumer – is that there is something fundamental in this article which I disagree with. I just haven’t figured it out yet.
Perhaps it is the assumption that brands can’t be created without Social Media, perhaps it is the whole insistence that ‘brands’ rather than ‘damn fine products’ are the important thing.

one of the best summaries of social media I have seen. congrats nic. don’t believe social media is essential to make consumers seek out all brands, but sure adds impetus to most.

@franksting “My personal reaction – as a consumer – is that there is something fundamental in this article which I disagree with. I just haven’t figured it out yet.
Perhaps it is the assumption that brands can’t be created without Social Media, perhaps it is the whole insistence that ‘brands’ rather than ‘damn fine products’ are the important thing.”

I agree. I partly wondered if it was the intense anthropomorphism of the brand. A brand isn’t actually a “living thing”. It might change and evolve, but it isn’t alive. It has aspects but it does not have personality. People may attribute personality to individual inanimate objects that they own – “my laptop is so temperamental” – but to brands? I don’t think so. They may be reliable or luxury or exciting or mundane but they are things and concepts, not people.

Much of the language in this sought to personify a brand as a kind of infant: “nurture” is used TWENTY-ONE times. Consumers don’t see brands that way and nor should marketers.

All in all re-reading it for the third time, it isn’t really a very good piece of writing. But then it is written by a “digital director” not a writer or journalist, so perhaps we should extend some tolerance. I do have to wonder what the calibre (or number) of the other entrants was like, if this won.

It’s a lot of words to say ‘word of mouth’

This part:

Social media, as a blanket term for any communication generated outside the walls of the marketing department, has come to be one of the most misunderstood, misused, and overhyped words in the marketers lexicon. At its most basic, it is media created by social interactions. And in this sense, social media has always existed, whether it’s conversations over the back fence, gossip at the monthly book club, or tall tales down at the pub.

The social media that has taken the front seat in the past decade however, is happening online. The reason it has taken this prized position is that suddenly these social conversations are available for all the world to see. And they’re searchable, sortable, filterable, geographical, and contextual.

Is really insightful and interesting.
The rest is sadly, as has been said already, overwritten, unreadable, missing the point (ROI), and thematically contradictory to these two paragraphs.

C+

“And something tells me McCain are still moving frozen peas this week & mum buying them thinks social media is something that her daughter is doing instead of her homework.”

Very naive. Mum is on Facebook. Catch up.

I agree with most that has already been said – there is something off in this piece that is hard to nail down. I think the issue is that all this bamboozling language can only have limited applications – to take up the example in the comments above, mum might be on facebook too, but is she really spending her time there telling her friends how great her frozen peas are? (i hope not!) there are definitely well studied links between products becoming part of an extended self etc etc in consumer research, but surely we don’t ‘love’ every brand we consume?

Great article if a tad wordy. Then again it is written to a target audience (marketing academics perhaps??) so perhaps this is understandable.

Half way through reading this I found myself thinking “how great would this article have been if it had used tjhe very mediums it talks about – mashups, information graphics etc to explain the message?

For example using something like this – http://j.mp/7aHke7

That’s my two cents but otherwise great article.

Ann

Certain brands have been operating outside of marketing boardrooms and creating a social buzz for a very long time.

The thing is, people don’t always want to have a conversation with a brand, they don’t want some nosey bloody product manager asking them questions or eve’s dropping in on there conversations.

The technology is there, let’s use it wisely and not worship it to death.

Also, a brand can live outside of SM, if its good enough. It will get talked about, people will take pictures, wear t-shirts, it will become a parody somewhere. Possibly on YouTube or on a TV show heaven forbid!