THINKing

Defining Social Media Marketing

Many marketers and PR people still are living in 1960. They remember those halcyon days when you could buy a TV ad on one of three networks and reach virtually all of America with your message. Or, you could place a favorable story with one of the major market newspapers and see the message spread to the local level. They had the illusion that they were controlling their brand image and message. It was not true then, and it is even less true today.

People were talking about you in 1960 - favorably and unfavorably - but it was harder to discern who was saying what. People have more control of the content and the message now. Their reviews are showing up across the internet and it’s easy to find both good and bad reviews about your company, your brand, yourself.

So, for all the wrong reasons, many in our profession are getting into “social media marketing” in hopes of regaining that illusion of control. What is social media marketing? Well, Wikipedia says,

Social Media Marketing (SMM) is a form of internet marketing which seeks to achieve branding and marketing communication goals through the participation in various social media networks such as MySpace, Facebook, Bebo, YouTube, Dailymotion, Hi5, Gather.com, social web applications (webapps) such as reddit, Digg, Stumbleupon, Flickr, iLike, Wikipedia, Squidoo, Last.fm, Twitter, Eventful, ePinions and others as well as within 3D virtual worlds such as Second Life, ActiveWorlds, Moove and There.com. The goals of each SMM program or campaign will differ for every business or organization, however most will involve some form of building an idea or brand awareness, increasing visibility, encouraging brand feedback and dialogue as well as to possibly sell a product or service. SMM may also include online reputation management.

Many marketers feel it is all about driving web traffic - end of story. I’d say that dialogue clearly is at the top of the list, followed by building awareness. You might sell a product or two, but that’s not the goal in my estimation. What do you think?