I recently attended a local, day long social media marketing conference. Unsurprisingly I left feeling a bit disheartened. Most of what I saw and heard was nothing more than doing the traditional marketing with new tools; same thoughts on strategy for getting clicks, people as targets, and conducting multi-channel campaigns. There was nothing about conversation and there was an odd lack of empathy. There was also no sense of the irony in that everyone there was a “target” by another marketer, maybe even the one they sat next to.
The view of the consumer at this event was less an equal or a partner and more something to feed, one that is not astute in social or savvy in the mediums. What these marketing folks didn’t appear to consider is these consumers, their customers, are continually seeking ways to cut to the chase and slice through the nonsense, they we want to trust, they we want relationships. They We are doing it openly in the same tools the marketers are pumping out content in.. For many, it’s still the “I know-you don’t know-I have the upper hand approach”
The world has changed and if social technology does one thing really well, it casts a light on everything it touches. So if you’re promoting a product you don’t understand or believe in, or you approach customers as targets for conversion rather than opportunities for conversation then your practice will eventually be exposed as a fraud.
Social tools really provide the best opportunity to transform the marketplace because at their core, social technology can expand and extend our humanbeingness. The trust, relationships, and transparency they can perpetuate are quite simple, yet simplicity isn’t easy – especially if you’re buried under the burden of chasing the newest technology and following last century approaches.
