Is social media the same as marketing?
I’ve found as a blogger sometimes when I let something swim around in my head for a while, all the pieces I need to make a point or share my thoughts seem to come together like a puzzle. I’ve been pondering this post since early September, but yesterday and today it finally solidified (for me anyway).
I have said more than a few times that I am not a fan of the term “Social Media Marketing.” Maybe it’s just semantics. Maybe I am just being staunch in applying the marketing and communications definitions and principals that I learned long ago and have implemented for ages.
Here’s the reason why the term social media marketing is not working for me: social media is about sharing and discussing information. It’s communications, not marketing. And yes, of course, companies can indirectly market themselves through communications; we’ve been doing it for eons (at least one-way). But a good communicator does not always make a good marketer nor does a good marketer always make a good communicator. They are two different disciplines.
After all these months, what is cementing this notion for me? Well, for one it was the comment that Eric Brown (@eric_urbane) left yesterday. He, and rightly so, is very upset about ‘social media marketers’ not delivering. Eric commented:
“… Social Media 101 tells us, as business owners we need to be transparent, we need to participate in the conversation and allow what we do right and do wrong to hang out there on rating sites, blogs, and forums for the whole world to evaluate, yet very few Social Media consultants or agencies are willing or have done the same, at least I don’t think so. So, after running around in my underwear for the last three years while practicing Social Media for all to see, I would like to see the same from the Social Media firm or consultant I am contemplating to hire.” He goes on to comment “…our small business paid out a lot of money to folks who didn’t know what they were doing, but claimed to. I see this forthcoming as a huge issue in our industry, and think a lot of money will be spent on the carpetbagger side of the fence, giving this Social Media space a black eye.”
The issue at hand, as I see it, is that a lot of people are adding Social Media Marketing as part of their service offerings, but they haven’t spent a day doing the marketing part and because of that they struggle with implementing social media as part of an overall marketing strategy. Maybe it’s just me, but I don’t consider a company being advised to set up a LinkedIn or Facebook group or to have a Twitter account marketing (and in some cases, it’s not social media either). There’s much more to marketing (like product, distribution, pricing).
The second thing was this video from Ogilvy PR Worldwide that I came across today (via Shel Holtz/Social Media Today):
Yes, I know. The video is about PR, not marketing (or is it?). But, last time I checked, PR fell under the ‘P’ in marketing that is ‘Promotion.’ Shel also included a link to John Bell’s (Ogilvy) post on The 13 Skills of the Public Relations Pro of the Future, which includes a link to a post discussing how PR folks need to understand Creating Integrated Marketing and Communications Strategy. (Integrated marketing communications [IMC] was introduced in the late 90s by Don Schultz, Clarke L. Caywood, et al–it’s not a new concept. It may be new to some or it could be, in some cases, that social media is finally forcing the implementation of it).
John writes:
“The walls between marketing and communications are dissolving. A new marcom organizational standard is already appearing where multiple disciplines, most notably public relations and advertising are rolling up to the same leader inside brands.”
Really. Huh. Really? I guess I am fortunate enough to have always had marketing (including product development/management/branding), communications and PR in one department (very small and very large companies). That said, I have heard from marketing friends who work for large companies and agencies that the brand managers don’t always report into marketing and that PR sometimes reports into the CEO, or horror…HR. No doubt these types of reporting structures always present communications challenges.
I am not beating up on Ogilvy or John Bell…not at all. It’s a great series that John has and given my recent rant about the PR industry, I think A LOT of PR folks need to listen to what John has to say. But, what all of this says to me is that this mashup of social media, communications (advertising, PR, WOM) and marketing is going to cause a lot of issues and people like Eric Brown (and his budget) will experience the brunt of it.
Why? Because the mashup will allow for people to offer services like Social Media Marketing or PR Communications or Marketing Relations or… (really, you don’t want me to go on right?) without having a firm grasp on any of the disciplines that they are trying to deliver or implement.
Trust me, I agree with John, the walls need to come down and the need for two-way communications is forcing a sledge hammer through the walls.
But at what cost?
Even More Goodness! Related Posts:
Tags: communications, Marketing, PR, Social Media
86 Responses to “Is social media the same as marketing?”
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Great subject Beth and lots of good posts. What I’m about to say isn’t original. I’m pulling from a variety of classical marketing resources to try and simplify the relationship between marketing and social media.
Firstly – the 4 Ps (product, price, promotion, place) are parts of the Marketing Mix identified by EJ McCarthy in/around 1960 with his book “Basic Marketing”.
(P)romotion stands for the various communication techniques such as advertising, personal selling, sales promotion and public relations/product publicity available to marketers that are combined to achieve specific goals (this definition was taken from the American Marketing Association’s Directory)
The definition of Marketing from the AMA is:
Marketing is an organizational function and a set of processes for creating, communicating and delivering value to customers and for managing customer relationships in ways that benefit the organization and its stakeholders.
I know several people have said the 4Ps are no longer relevant or are over-simplified but I disagree. I think the terms and their basic definitions are still very relevant, it’s how we apply them that may be different.
What if we say marketing is marketing and social media is part of our promotional tool kit and should be considered based upon its effectiveness against a specific business goal?
Thanks for giving us all something to really think about Beth!
Laurie Broderick’s last blog post..laurieab: So still trying to determine if the only real value of twitter comes if you have your own blog? Thoughts?
Francois, I think you have stated it perfectly: “Social media marketing is about enabling the social in marketing, not doing marketing or communications using social media tools.” Thanks.
Dave Evans’s last blog post..Tell The World Who You Are
Beth, great post, also love how the comments thus far cover a huge spectrum of solid points. Anyone here remember eMarketing? eBusiness? My bold prognostication is “social media marketing” is heading to the buzzword retirement home. As so many of your readers have pointed out the skills and knowledge many are now associating with a social media practice are simply becoming core to anyone with marketing responsibilities. Think you can be an effective marketer without knowing how to navigate and utilize social media?
Chris’s last blog post..Half-full with a twist please…
Very good post, Beth – thanks for this! I was interested in this topic enough to pen my own thoughts, specifically on the differences between social media PR and social media marketing, given my PR background and the social media practice at my work.
http://itwofs.com/beastoftraal/2009/01/09/social-media-pr-vs-social-media-marketing/
For me it’s quite simple, Social Media Marketing is like saying Television Marketing or Billboard Marketing… Silly really when you think about it unless you market TV or Billboards that is. Social Media is a medium through which one can engage a number of the marketing mix categories like research, sales, branding, advertising, PR, Promotion etc as parts of the whole marketing mix. Social Media Marketing in my mind is the act of using the Social Media environment for want of another word to market and when Social Media Marketing is used together, then in my mind it would suggest the “rules of engagement” in that regard or maybe how-too’s etc. The reality is that Social Media is a massively untapped and highly energised medium and to market through it makes sense and cents IMHO…Obviously there are some thingsorganisations need to consider when engaging this medium to enhance a brand ort a product and Social Media Marketing in my mind is the how too of this environment in terms of marketing therein.
I think this link explains it…
http://from.simontsmall.com/2009/01/09/social-media-specialists-are-public-relations-consultants-20/
And I’m even later than you Amber.
Social media is a series of behaviors that involve two-way communication with a web site (more or less) Which is why it will still be with us even if Facebook and Twitter never develop viable business plans.
That said, it is how most people refer to it, so why fight the crowd? Sort of the same way a video is only “viral” if people make it viral, but everyone seems to call web videos “viral” anyway.
The problem that your friend Eric encountered is not uncommon. There are a lot of people with zero experience in marketing brands calling themselves “Social Media Specialists” or whatnot. The same thing happened during 1.0 – lots of people who had not a clue what they were doing hung out shingles and proclaimed “everything is different on the internet.”
It ain’t.
And as for silos: I’d have been glad to find a client who had just broken up their marketing efforts into PR and All The Rest. Most have separate agencies for Traditional Advertising, Digital Advertising, Website Building, Sales Promotion, Direct Response Advertising, CRM and even Strategy. All of whom constantly fight each other for control of the main message and for a bigger share of the marketing dollars. Clients claim they’re getting “best in breed” in every category.
Only the end result looks an awful lot like a mutt.
Alan Wolk’s last blog post..Social Media In The Real World
If anything, social media proved that the primary principles of Marketing are immutable and vital. They were magnified by social media actually! For example, it’s always been a truism that great brands are close to their customers. In today’s digital world, searching platforms such as technorati, blogsearch and so on, enable us not only to listen to our consumers, but also watch them and get much more qualified insights than ever before. Isn’t it Marketing just like Drucker, Kotler, Levitt and many others have taught us?
Social media Marketing is absolutely fine with me.
By the way, Marketing can not be limited to promoting.
Cheers
Gabriel Rossi- Brazil
Gabriel Rossi- Branding’s last blog post..GabrielRossi: @StevenMatsumoto The principles we believed from Drucker have shown to be immutable. They were magnified by social media.
[...] Harte kicks it off by asking “Is social media the same as marketing?” Social media is about sharing and discussing information. It’s communications, not [...]
Great post! From what I have been able to find, too many people and organizations are trying to wrap-up SM into this neat little package. Firms are offering menu-driven SM choices as part of their services. SM is way more complicated than that and yes – SM will get a “black eye” from these practices. What separates SM from any other type of marketing in the past is it is truly multi-directional. The potential for a CEO to be transparent and at the same time, get real-life, real-time feedback from the customer is far greater than any “survey of 597 adults with a margin of error of +/-3%”
The SM phenomena is ever-growing, ever-changing and most of all, should never be put in a box…
Jon McLeod’s last blog post..4 levels of competency
Wow! Thank you so much everyone for having a very lively discussion on this topic. I for one am grateful for your insights and time! I thought I’d either tick people off or people would think I was off my rocker for going against the status quo. Glad to know that I am not the only one questioning this term. What I found really interesting and totally didn’t expect was the conversation around the definition of marketing. There are a lot of marketing definitions being tossed around, so it’s interesting to add in social media (also not completely or clearly defined just yet) to the mix. I also am appreciative that you all felt comfortable enough to keep up the conversation with each other and without me.
@ LucretiaPruitt “Anyone that thinks that knowing the tools is knowing the business use for them doesn’t have a clue about business. That’s like saying that the guys down in IT should be able to take over sales, marketing, customer service, HR and accounting – because after all, those all use computers.”
The perfect analogy! So, for the folks who aren’t utilizing social media tools for business how do you think they’d feel having someone who is coming into their community and being promotional?
@GabrielRossi, thank you, thank you, thank you! You have added so much to this post and I really appreciate it. Thanks for all the great references. And, I especially love that you are also adding an international perspective. And please, don’t become addicted…otherwise you may need to go to rehab and they won’t let you come back!
@WalterPike, I appreciate your persistence with clarifying what marketing is. I agree with what you are saying. And yes, perhaps stating marketing as the 4 Ps is simplifying it, but doing so reminds people that there is more to marketing than just being promotional.
“And when we engage with our customers and develop what they want, hard sell, sales promotion etc are redundant.”
Indeed! The build it and they will come mentality is what, to some extent, keeps the need for promotions and the hard sell alive and well. I really think that social media, when done right, will help those companies not used to having conversations with their customers and reduce the need for the marketing push and hard sell. I have a technology marketing background and talking to customers and implementing what customers want is the norm. Here’s what I commented on @KyleFlaherty’s post on this topic (in relation to us being tech marketers and the reason why conversation is the norm): “How could a company ever create a new product without them? How could alpha/beta testing be done without having a trusting relationship. How could distribution channels be [built] without having a solid reputation? How else could a company know if a customer would speak positively/honestly to the media?”
@ShaunDakin, thank you for sharing your experience with us. I used to think that because sales was “on the frontline” (and part of marketing) I could trust what they said about customer needs/wants until it dawned on me that everything sales does is directly related to their comp plan and has nothing to do with the customer. Do I blame sales people, no of course not, I blame management. I think you are right…in the end SM will just be a normal function and there won’t be so many experts. Thanks for the “Marketing Myopia” link, I will check it out.
@AndreNatta, Conversationalist is a good place to start. But would you say “conversational marketing?” Okay, okay…I’ll stop.
@Susan, good question. I have wondered that myself from time-to-time. But given that a lot of companies aren’t moving full steam ahead, I wonder if it’s happening or working…
@GeoffLivingston, some Motrin perhaps?
@DaveEvans, I am so glad that you came by to comment! I appreciate your insights on social media marketing, after all you wrote the book on it.
The Home Depot example is a very pertinent one because it proves that social media will force more internal communication strategies, walls to come down and the need for every employee to be focused on the customer.
@JaculynnPeterson, I am not understanding why PR and marketing need to be separate. PR falls under marketing (in the 4 Ps sense) even though some PR folks never seem themselves as part of marketing. As well, it’s about the “publics” and I think social media provides the tools for PR folks to move into a role that allows them to engage way beyond the media. I will need to check out your blog post for clarification.
@JasonFalls, rant away! I ranted a bit with the Ogilvy video… (not sure people caught on to that though.)
@Brand4Profit, so I am not sure how what you described is social media or social media marketing…people have been doing that for years (making recommendations and following like lemmings) without interaction from companies…right? You only need to look at The Purse Forum to see that. There are over 150K people talking about luxury brands, with no interaction from the brands. And yet those brands have evangelists who spend money on their products and their evangelism gets others to do the same (She has a Gucci, I need a Gucci…).
@EricBrown, thanks for letting me use your example…hope you didn’t mind.
@AmberNaslund, you are totally right (as per usual) and @DaveEvans’ Home Depot example is an eye-opener on how social media will force companies to change, but I am a marketer and look at all things through that lens (for better or worse). As for implementing social media as a business discipline across the board, sure I could make best practices recommendations…but as it affects each department, I wouldn’t feel comfortable. I wish I knew more about customer service or operations or engineering or HR, but I haven’t worked in those departments and I don’t think it’s appropriate for me to address social media and how it relates/affects those areas of a business.
@GilesCrouch, yep, IMC is about to get a face lift and I am wondering what Mr. Schultz thinks of it all…
@FrancoisGossieaux, for years I have thought customer service should fall under marketing (and not in a marketing needs to take over the world sense), but it often falls under operations or sales. I think customer service should fall under marketing because I think a lot of marketers/communicators/PR folks could learn a thing or two from customer service folks. ‘The social in marketing’…I like that.
@LaurieBroderick, people have been changing the 4 Ps for years…I think it’s up to 7 now, plus 4 Ps for just Web 2.0! I wonder who is working on all these Ps?! Thanks for bringing up the AMA’s definition, I know some people use that definition alone, but as you can see from the conversation here, there are others too. I think this is a great time to be in marketing, because 10 years from now we’ll all be saying “remember when…”
@AlanWolk, I am sure I am the voice of the minority. And not trying to fight the crowd, heck @DaveEvans and @PaulGillan have books out about SMM, it’s just my nature to ask questions. You are the only one who picked up on the crux of my post. It wasn’t about social media vs. marketing…it was about all marketers/communicators/PR folks trying to be all things to all clients/customers and not having the experience/expertise to do any of it (under the guise of social media marketing). It amazes me that companies spend all those dollars looking for the ‘best-in-breed’ solution to their problems. But, I would ask…isn’t it the marketing department’s responsibility to make sure that all those agencies follow brand guidelines or standards to make sure they don’t look like a mutt?! Who’s running the show at a company like that?
Beth-
Thanks for the post. Kyle Lacy and I were having a similar discussion a few weeks ago. http://kylelacy.com/social-media-marketing-and-the-advancement-of-word-of-mouth/
It may be that putting “marketing” at the end of social media is just not appropriate, but from my perspective it may just be that social media is just the evolution or a new term for word-of-mouth.
Whether it’s called SM or WOM, putting “marketing” at the end is just a way of saying that as a company you are making an effort to create or participate in conversation that helps to market your business.
In small businesses (like Eric and I market for) it can be easy for all PR, marketing, WOM, etc. to be controlled in one place. Are large companies feeling the need to focus more resources on WOM or non-interruption marketing? If this is the case, I have to agree with you that the walls do need to come down as WOM crosses many boundaries.
Mark Juleen’s last blog post..I No Longer Give a #&%! About Your Closing Ratio
@Beth: People say I’m clever like that
As for who is running the show, the short answer is no one. Marketing is regarded as a necessary evil and everything is silo’d. Consistency is seen as less important than making everyone (internally) feel heard.
Alan Wolk’s last blog post..More Outside Reading
Great conversation, all. I like Erik’s point about how he bought into the whole transparency thing, but that so-called SM experts he dealt with, hadn’t. Guess that should have been a tip-off.
Anyone else notice that the Heinz guy was so obviously reading his lines? On “fostering real dialogue,” in “personal relations?” Oh, the irony.
And I don’t know about anyone else, but can we lose this “cool chick” image of the PR Pro of the Future with the cape and the garters? What, no corset? Seriously, this is just part of Erik’s larger point about some companies promoting image over substance.
sawinkler’s last blog post..I am the Mob
To Walter Pike,
Let me clarify my original post.
By “Social media is just another communication tool”, I was not referring to it just being another marketing channel, or that it does not have a huge impact in marketing and business communication.
I was referring to Social Media being NOT new for USERS. As in, Facebook, Twitter, etc. are new ways – enabled by tech – for people to connect. For sure it has changed the landscape of how businesses approach and understand their customers.
Evelyn So’s last blog post..3 Things That Drive Adoption of Innovations
I think Mark Juleen nailed it. Social Media is a form of word of mouth. It can be used to encourage, or discourage, the trial or use of products and services. Remember how MySpace started? It was a way for new artists to get themselves and their music known. Also think adding the word marketing to social media is redundant. Social Media should be considered part of the marketing mix. Thanks Mark!
My pleasure Beth! Thank you and everybody for the opportunity to express my ideas and beliefs.
Gabriel
Gabriel Rossi- Branding’s last blog post..GabrielRossi: @brandingexpert tell me about it Rob! Cheers mate
Thanks for the post. I agree with many of your statements. Social media (marketing) is a convoluted term to be sure. From my perspective, the best social media experts will encourage their clients and/or CEOs to involve themselves in the discussion and perhaps narrow down the blogs/forums that are applicable. If someone is merely creating fake ‘personas’ on Facebook and making one-off generic comments here and there, the brand will most likely suffer vs. flourish. I think this becomes even more difficult in the B2B space.
Maria Colacurcio’s last blog post..Social Media Targeting Experiment
Alan,
I actually tend not to aggree with your point in great extent.
Good Marketing makes sure every signal sent is consistent. Without paranoid consistency, positioning never connects with customers and all other stakeholders. In fact, the brand or company end up busted in front of the world (thanx to social media) and looking like an schizophrenic body. Marketing job is to avoid it.
In addition, in a time of continuous change, winning companies will be those that can keep up with the speed of the market. We can only make sure this will happen if we apply the seminal concept of ‘windows instead of mirrors’. In other words, Missions, Visions or whatever, gotta be based on consumer’s insights. (This is Marketing philosophy in its true essence).
How could any effort to fulfill genuine wants and needs of our customers be an evil? Maybe, some “promotional efforts” or other applications can be related to it, but it’s perhaps too narrow to simplify the meaning of a whole discipline.
Marketing today (as always) has proved to be all about breaking illusions of separation between companies/brands and their consumers/all other stakeholders. Wouldn’t that be directly related to allying internal efforts as well as creating meaningful relationships across social media channels?
To finish with, perhaps not everyone who is “running the show” may agree with “no one”. In order to add value to our outstanding conversation , i’d like to give some examples:
Allen Adamson (Brand Digital author)
Gary Grates (Edelman Employee Change CEO )
Francisco Madia (Brazilian most recognized Marketing authority and professor). My long time tutor
I could name many. The world is wide
Thank you.
Gabriel Rossi- Brazil
Gabriel Rossi- Branding’s last blog post..GabrielRossi: @brandingexpert tell me about it Rob! Cheers mate
@MarkJuleen, @LaurieBroderick, I don’t consider SM to be the same as WOM. Why? Because you need to do (A) to get to (B). Meaning to get people to be your evangelists and to evangelize your company (B) to their community, they need interaction from the company (A). And that interaction could be a great buying experience, great customer support, a good experience with the product, etc. Social media can help enhance those initial interactions as well as the interactions after a customer decides to share with others via WOM.
@GabrielRossi, I think you misunderstood Alan’s point and example. Having experienced first-hand what Alan is describing he is correct. In some very large companies (think Fortune 500), marketing is very silo’d (meaning PR, marcom, digital marketing, product marketing, etc. might have their own teams, budgets, and management) and politics and making people feel heard VERY often outweighs doing great and consistent marketing (and branding).
Does that mean it’s right? No, of course not…but it does exist in a lot of companies.
I get you Beth, but still, what i’m grappling with mostly is exactly the fact we maybe should consider what the discipline really is rather than what companies and some professionals want it to be . It maybe would change the whole direction of our conversation since the beggining…
I’d like to invite everybody to call me when in Brazil, so we can have some beers together and have great fun in São Paulo
Cheers
Gabriel
Gabriel Rossi- Branding’s last blog post..GabrielRossi: Guys, i’ve been invited to take a session on corporate reputation with professor Paul Argenti. Some info about his style and program?
@GabrielRossi, my friend…unfortunately, you are going to be grappling for a long time to come.
There are lots of great marketers who totally understand your point…and they usually move on from companies that don’t harness the power of, shall I say, proper marketing until they find one that “gets it.”
And yes, next time I am in Brazil (hopefully someday!!), I will join you for some beers!
Beth,
I feel like David against Goliath lol
Join me for some beers or even if you ‘re interested in giving seminars/workshops here. Count on me.
Cheers
Gabriel Rossi- Branding’s last blog post..GabrielRossi: Guys, i’ve been invited to take a session on corporate reputation with professor Paul Argenti. Some info about his style and program?
I don’t know how I missed this post, Beth, but you’ve sparked an interesting discussion, and one that I find myself pondering often.
Like Lucretia (@geekmommy), I also become unpopular when I continue to remind people that social media is just one set of tools in a fully integrated marketing mix. It is not the only tool for reaching — and engaging — customers, nor is it necessarily the best tool for all verticals, products and services. Like any tactic, it should be utilized when appropriate in support of an overarching strategy.
I also have trouble with social media as a lone discipline for the same reason I have issues with the silo-ed approach of Corporate America that Alan (@awolk) pointed out. All of those functions are core components of Marketing and breaking them out only serves to isolate the brand instead of integrate it.
So, I differ slightly from Amber (@ambercadabra) re:
“Social media doesn’t just need to fit into marketing or public relations or other disciplines that are used to communicate. It’s also about customer service, technology and user experience, client relationship management, product and service innovation.”
in that I believe all of those things do — and should — fall under the rubric of Marketing, not Social Media. Marketing has always been about reaching, connecting, evoking and building relationships with customers. And if customer service isn’t part of your brand strategy, you’ve already missed the mark and a social media outreach won’t save you.
Your brand strategy, customer service strategy, communications strategy, CRM, product experience, pricing, etc. all fall under Marketing. Or more aptly, effective marketing.
Marketing may be a dirty word, and people may not like to admit that that’s at the heart of what we’re doing, but social media channels are just another [albeit more meaningful] vehicle through which to do so.
I consulted for, what was at that time, the newly formed eMarketing groups of several Fortune 500 companies back in 2000, where our programs were developed in a vacuum, completely disconnected from traditonal marketing activities and brand position. By 2002, most (but not all) of those companies had decided to fold e-related activities back into the product management teams, recognizing that it was merely another tactic that should be consistent and synergistic across all marketing efforts.
My hope would be that the same would happen with social media as more come to realize that these powerful tools work best in concert with other tactics in support of a finely tuned strategy that takes all aspects of the customer engagement into consideration, and turn their focus toward how to extend these tools to maximize the lifetime value of the relationships they spark.
@GenneferSnowfield, as a marketer I am with you in most regards (as in DO NOT create the social media or SMM department).
And yes, social media is about tools used for sharing and discussion. And it’s that discussion that gives social media a new conversational dimension that most marketing tools do not. So from that regard, I don’t think of SM as only tools. I think of it as tools that lead to conversations that indirectly lead to business (or, potentially, not given how the tools are used and if the conversations are working for the community members…As we know, some people are just bad at communicating.).
The problem is, or what I am seeing, is that marketers aren’t accustom to having conversations with customers/prospects/partners. The only industry where this seems to be the norm is tech (if anyone can give me other examples, I’d appreciate it). So when it comes to social media they create things like “social media marketing” so that they can continue having one-way conversations using social media tools. In that regard, sometimes I think people that work in customer service, sales and business development might be more successful at using social media tools because they already know how to carry on a dialogue. To Amber’s point, I think from an internal-to-external perspective, social media can be used by other departments such as HR. So in that regard, it’s not marketing at all.
Overall, if it needs to be placed somewhere, I think social media naturally fits into marketing communications. But then again, I am a marcom person and have (luckily) never experienced the great divides that Alan speaks of.
Nice one Beth. I agree, but I’m torn. I think the problem may be more with the term ‘media’… in that all this new-fangled stuff isn’t *really* media at all. It’s just a bunch of tools that let us communicate in new ways…. we can all generate content (UGC is a good term) but does that make it ‘media’ in the Madison Ave sense of the word….? That’s the misleading bit.
Meantime, I’m happy for clients to get excited about marketing on these platforms… they should be thinking in these terms. The problems start when that go al ‘media-ry’ and start getting into broadcast mode. That stuff doesn’t work on Twitter, etc….
Roger, Founder, Online PR Agency, C&M’s last blog post..The C&M Guide to Twittiquette (or Online PR vs Twitter)
[...] Social Media and how to Market your Small Business. Apparently, we can’t yet even figure out what to call all this stuff, as Beth Harte logged almost eighty comments on her blog when she posed the question. While the [...]
[...] Social Media and how to Market your Small Business. Apparently, we can’t yet even figure out what to call all this stuff, as Beth Harte logged almost eighty comments on her blog when she posed the question. While the [...]
[...] Social Media and how to Market your Small Business. Apparently, we can’t yet even figure out what to call all this stuff, as Beth Harte logged almost eighty comments on her blog when she posed the question. While the [...]
@BethHarte Thanks for the response! More good food for thought, and I would take it one step further to say that *everything* a company does has some underlying Marketing element.
You bring up Human Resources, but one of the core functions of HR is to market the company to attract top notch candidates — they market culture, advancement, benefits etc. to position themselves as the best choice for prospects.
So, while social media tools may lend themselves better (in some ways) to functions like HR, who spend a majority of their time engaging in conversation with candidates, I still believe that they are simply Marketing tools that, like Marketing itself, touch nearly every facet of the business.
Additionally, having cut my teeth in traditional marketing, I’d also go so far as to say that Marketing has always been about the conversation. It was always about trying to strike a chord and spark a dialogue with *customers.* And even though the one-way channels didn’t allow for the back and forth that social media vehicles do, they were still aimed at making a connection and triggering some type of interaction.
So, I’d say that across all company functions (Tech included, save for Help Desk scenarios that impact brand experience), marketers should be one of the primary roles in knowing how to converse — relevantly and meaningfully — with end users. After all, they are the closest to the market with a keen understanding of the subtleties and nuances of their audience and key behavior drivers. What better indicators are there for knowing how to reach and engage them accordingly?
All the tools really do is give you a deeper understanding of your audience so that you can communicate in ways that best resonate with them to stimulate action, which is not new, or particularly, all that groundbreaking.
In light of that, I still contend that we’ve found additional marketing tools for our arsenal that are effective and compelling, but it’s a new route-not a new invention.
Metaphorically speaking, social media hasn’t re-invented the wheel; it’s just put a jet pack under the vehicle to help us move faster and get to our destination quicker and easier, but we’re still ultimately driving to the same place. And, like it or not, we’re still just marketing.
@GenneferSnowfield, Thanks for stopping by again! Just to clarify a few things…when I said the “tech,” I didn’t mean the help desk, IT or the network folks. I meant the high-tech industry like: semiconductor, electronics, IT network/security equipment & S/W, computer, etc. companies. Tech industry companies have always had two-way conversations with their customers–including the marketing folks–but NOT via traditional marketing tactics (they were used too, of course). I mean literal conversations by either picking up the phone to talk, setting up customer committees, conversations at events, conversations in demo centers, etc. I’ve ended up having really good personal relationships with customers because we were allowed to speak with them directly…and I think that’s pretty cool.
As for mentioning HR, when I said “it’s not marketing at all” I meant it’s not the marketing department speaking for them. But, of course, you are right…they typically use marketing messages but they also have their own messaging that is determined by that department. I think it would be naive for any of us to think that marketing could/would control every single message and discussion that any other department could/would have. (I have been in companies that try this…and because of politics, it never works. i.e. Alan’s example – - and that was only a segmented marketing dept. Can you imagine the rest of the political battles?!)
And as for traditional marketing, I, too, cut my teeth there and those tools/tactics rarely elicited a conversation between marketing (unless it was telemarketing) or PR and customers. Most conversations took place between the sales team (or customer service) and the potential customer.
As well, I don’t dispute that social media isn’t a marketing tool. I just don’t like the term social media marketing for the reasons I stated.
I think we are on the same page and semantics are at play here…as well as different vertical industry experience.
[...] Social Media and how to Market your Small Business. Apparently, we can’t yet even figure out what to call all this stuff, as Beth Harte logged almost eighty comments on her blog when she posed the question. While the [...]
I got through about 50 of the comments before I decided to give me poor brain a rest!
This post and all the comments afterward sure stopped me in my tracks. I recently left a job – or should I say the job left me – to start up my business again. I have been designing and developing websites for small business for nearly 12 years now. I’m in the process of rethinking my own services and how I will present them. In addition to design & development, I also offer SEO services, and now (dare I say) Social Media Marketing.
Hi. My name is Kathy, and I am not a “Marketing Professional.”
In reading the posts I needed to stop, step back and think for a moment as to whether I wanted to continue with that description for what it is that I offer. In a nutshell, I help the businesses I work with to develop a plan using a combination of onsite and offsite methods for promoting their website and their business via their website and the internet.
SEO starts with the basics – a well designed and optimized site with copy that is readable, relative and keyword balanced. There are additional steps including article writing and submission. The next step is to incorporate viral marketing (there’s that word again) using a variety of (what is referred to these days as) Social Media tools.
I am not a big company serving big companies. Some of my clients generally do not have a marketing budget or any other marketing plan except for their business cards and brochures. Some barely have a budget for a website, let alone a huge marketing effort. So in their case what I do for them IS their marketing effort. Its not media, or marketing, in the “Madison Ave. sense of the word” as Roger from C&M put it. But what it does do for very small businesses is get the word out – or market – them to people trying to find their types of good and services.
I’m not going to argue with the buzz words of “social media.” As we all know vocabulary and the semantics change so often these days its hard to keep up with it all. (Just the other day someone called me Phat and I just about punched them in the nose!) I like those terms – social media – together, from a techie’s point of view, they really get the meaning across – today’s meaning. And they have a sexy sorta sound to it that people like. And I like the very basic sense of the word “market” – Mar”ket, v. t. To expose for sale in a market; to traffic in; to sell in a market, and in an extended sense, to sell in any manner; as, most of the farmers have marketed their crops (especially the ‘traffic in’ part).
I am not a MarCom person. I am a very intuitive and savvy tech person. And I am great at understanding people and how they understand – social media. It works for me!
For us non-Madison Ave types, or professional MarCom folks, marketing just means getting the word out and selling our stuff. Our goal is not to diminish your profession or skills. So, no offense, but I think I’ll keep the word ‘marketing’ in there. still, I might modify it to say “Social Media Strategy and Marketing”. (I liked what Leslie Carothers said).
Kathy, thank you so much for dropping by and offering your viewpoint to the conversation here, it’s very refreshing and insightful to get a comment from a self-proclaimed non-marketing professional. That said, you do market your business, so I think we can safely say you are indeed a marketer!
I had a professor once ask me for the definition of marketing (BTW, he was hiring me for my first teaching gig ever…a grad. level marketing class and I was nervous as all get out!) and as I stammered for a super smart response he said “Beth, you know the answer. It’s simple. It’s the exchange of goods/services for money/barter. That’s it.”
Why do I mention this? Because you brought it all back home… sometimes as “professional” marketers we forget this simple definition and try to convolute it instead of just offering value.
[...] But Beth Harte is and I highly recommend her blog The Harte of Marketing and this post “Is social media the same as marketing?” I also highy recommend the expert blog, The Viral Garden. The author, Mack Collier, replied to Beth [...]
[...] social media has arisen, we’ve come across the strange duopoly of social media experts who are tactically proficient and corporate communicators who don’t [...]