Brad Ruggles hadan awesome picture on his blog today:
How true. How freaking true! I wrote a post last year about the concept of advertising professionals being completely out of tune to the general public.
I saw this picture on Brad’s blog and it all came completely clear to me. This may not be a huge realization for most but it hit pretty hard for me.
What is the reason we love social media so much?
Is it the information sharing? The community development? Meeting people all over the world while learning as much as possible in one sitting? In my opinion it is all of the above. We use social media because we aren’t bombarded with advertisements every ten seconds (at least in some communities). The question is then… as advertisers… how do we CHANGE the thought in the picture? How do we speak to the general public?
The answer is social media or social media marketing. There is no place in the entire world that has such a concentrated group of individuals that care about each other and care about information. You want a way to talk to people? Join their network. BE A PERSON!
We are all people. We are all striving for one thing or the other. The rat race isn’t really a rat race at all… it is more LIFE. Quit trying to hard sell
become a HUMAN.
become an INDIVIDUAL.
become a member and join one THE largest community in the world (counting at 250 million)… the Internet.
So.. I was punched in the face a second time by the thought of joining a community instead of speaking to the community…
I am going to go fix my bloody nose and hop on Twitter.
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You are not talking about advertising, you are talking about a very specific (but very large) subset of advertising called mass media. If the nature of a medium is that broadcasts the same message to many people at once, than that message must necesarily be general (so it speaks to everyone) and direct (so it reaches people who are not paying attention.)
If we talked to people the way mass media advertising talks to people, we would be yelling vague yet emphatic requests in crowded places. Most people would ignore us, which is exactly was is happening to traditional mass media advertising.
Social media marketing still requires the creation of messages designed to inspire action. The difference is that these are messages are not broad but specific, not volleyed at the masses or a blanket demographic but tuned for a small, well-defined community, and therefore they are harder to ignore.
Bloody noses do happen, but usually because people cross generalized messages imploring some course of action with individual interaction. This is why it’s so painful to go to a network marketing event where someone is shilling whatever overpriced, ineffective crap their upstream provider has sold to them. It’s also why people don’t like door-knocking proselytizers. If you are trying to be my friend and sell me something which you think everyone should buy, I will want to punch you in the face.
But you Kyle, I like. Your nose is safe around me.
great blog, you are on a roll Kyle. The title made me have to read it.
Marketing has gone from a one night stand (bloody nose) to a relationship (social media) and that’s a hard adjustment.
The audience is mixed as well in terms of a digital divide. You need one marketing campaign for those offline and another for those online.
They are having different kinds of conversations.
Old Media is still pushing the one night stand (give me your money for stuff) and New Media is insisting on a relationship (let’s talk and get to know each other, maybe we have shared goals).
Very good blog Kyle. The old fashioned game of pushing a message to the masses to influence their thinking and actions is dying. Brands are wasting billions of dollars on this. A much more effective model is connecting, listening, engaging and serving the needs of consumers through relationships that can be created between brand/person on the Internet. Social media now enables this. Massive shifts take time to happen. The momentum is building though with broadband/wireless platform enabling millions on the Internet, social media platforms connecting and enabling conversation and now the opportunity for the brands to participate. Applying yesterdays ad solutions to todays opportunities wont work though. This is going to take smart agencies and committed brands to make it work. If they dont get smart they will be toast. Fun time to be part of social media. Rock on!
Thanks for sharing Kyle,
I think it’s obvious to see where your opinion lies on the personal vs. corporate participation re: social media.
I have trouble trying to explain to some people that people want to interact with other people, not with a corporate, “on message” broadcasting system.
Cartoon from Hugh @ http://www.gapingvoid.com
My philosophy is simple: “Solve. Don’t Sell. And be Personable.”
Agree!
Being human kinda puts the social in “social media”.
Reciprocity is great as long as it does not mean that we’re all just padding each other on the back.