The Dichotomy Issue: “Social Media Marketing” vs. Classic Marketing
I have the honor of being a part of the new Social Media Council of Advisors for the Marketing Executive Networking Group (MENG) and last Thursday we had our first Q&A webinar with MENG members. Other council members include: Amber Naslund, Mack Collier, Drew McLellan, Joe Pulizzi and Paul Dunay.
Last Thursday we had a Q&A webinar with MENG members. There were a lot of great questions, but one question really struck me and I wanted to share it here because it speaks to why integrated marketing and communications is critical.
“All of the panelists agree that social media are exciting new ways to listen and communicate, but they are basically new tools. So how do we get across to the marketing community that boring old marketing disciplines still apply and how do we get rid of this silly dichotomy between social media marketing and classic marketing.”
My basic response was that social media tools are not new and some have been around for ten years or more. And second, there isn’t a dichotomy because social media needs to be integrated.
I think this is a serious discussion that needs to take place because there marketers and marketing executives who have been given the wrong impression or direction when it comes to social media.
Integrating Social Media
First, I am not a fan of the term ‘social media marketing’ because a) it silos social media from other marketing communications tactics and other marketing disciplines and b) because a lot of folks out there are implementing social media tools without understanding the nature (or theory) of marketing as a whole. Second, as an integrated marketing practitioner, I totally disagree that ‘social media marketing’ is replacing classic marketing (or the theory that comes with it).
What’s new and important is how these tools are being used in business; how we have a window into what our customers are really thinking, where they interact, how to engage with them, etc.; and how we now have data to serve our customers BETTER.
But this notion of knowing our customers isn’t anything new…that’s basic marketing (and I mean ALL of marketing here, not just the promotional aspect of marketing), public relations and communications.
While CRM systems have been the tool of choice for keeping track of customers and extracting data they never really allowed marketers to put faces to names (unless there’s some stealth way to take a photo and add it to your CRM), to listen to conversations or to actively engage in a two-way manner. The only tool that allows that is social media.
The key to integration today is simple. Marketers need to be flexible, able to adjust, and most importantly able to provide pertinent AND timely information when, where and how customers/potential customers need/want it. Social media allows for that across all areas of marketing (product, pricing, promotion and distribution).
Who/What Is Creating the Dichotomy?
I think the most important issue here, however, is who/what is creating the dichotomy? Who or what is causing marketers to think that it’s an either/or situation?
Is it that we’ve been siloed for so long and that there hasn’t been a good job with integration to begin with? We only need to look at E-Mail Marketing, Search Engine Marketing, and Direct Marketing to get a sense of the answer.
As social media evangelists and practitioners we need to truly understand what is going on in our industry. Otherwise, we are doing a disservice to our customers and future as marketers.
Your thoughts?
Even More Goodness! Related Posts:
Tags: 33 Responses to “The Dichotomy Issue: “Social Media Marketing” vs. Classic Marketing”
The Harte of Marketing by Beth Harte is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs 3.0 Unported License.
Based on a work at www.theharteofmarketing.com. [If you have a question about what you can use from this blog, click on the above Creative Commons link to learn more.]
I hear what you are saying, Beth, and you are of course correct. But I see a lot of excuses being made for companies and their leaders to not make the shift to the new paradigm of relational marketing. Agencies have to make a sale to stay alive, and when a company says they don’t have time to blog, tweet, or otherwise engage with customers, the customer will always be told that’s ok. It gets couched under the VERY broad umbrella of “communication priorities.” I think these tactical decisions will turn into strategic errors for companies that continue to find excuses to not fully engage in the relational web and see marketing as a new way of thinking, not just a new bucket of tools.
Great topic!
I think one of the problems for this dichotomy is proximity. Most marketers are too close to their problems, and they’re only introduced to (or learn of)the solutions as individual tactics without a long-term strategy. I don’t think new media technology has outpaced any marketer’s ability to understand it, but I do think that because the digital marketing world is evolving at such a rapid rate, it’s extremely difficult to understand what the best practices might be.
Remember that “social” doesn’t describe “media”, but the “media” is what’s being socialized. When marketing online, it’s all social. Traditional marketing used to be about finding a large group and broadcasting them a relevant message. Today that relevant message needs to work for, and needs to be able to be shared with, the individual.
On the web where things happen fast and brand relevance is determined in and by the moment. So, public relations needs to happen in “real time.” Conversations are the new markets, and the new marketers better be great conversationalists.
.-= @mkedave´s last blog ..The experience is everything. =-.
I agree Beth and in fact had a long conversation today about the importance of integration. Probably the key movement right now for many companies who jumped in just to get on board.
.-= Mark W Schaefer´s last blog ..How to sell stuff on your B2B blog without being annoying =-.
Beth,
Your post illustrates beautifully why we are so lucky to have you on our Social Media Council of Advisors!
What you picked up on is the frustration that very senior level marketers are experiencing. Even those who may fully understand the strategy behind integration, and who embrace its importance, are faced with the daunting task of convincing others in the marketing community and executives across the organization – including the CEO – that social media tools are meant to be integrated into already existing marketing and business strategies.
I love that you point out that social media allows us marketers to do what we have always done – only better. It’s an empowering perspective to take rather than the perspective of fear of what might happen if we “don’t jump in and just try something already…”
Ultimately, as you so eloquently express, it goes back to what Joe Pulizzi delineated as the top 2 points that the 6 of you Council members conveyed at the MENG webinar: (1) Start with a clear strategy and (2) Social media does not fit outside your traditional marketing efforts. http://blog.junta42.com/content_marketing_blog/2010/03/a-marketers-guide-to-social-media-8-keys-to-success.html
The challenge that some executive marketers are facing is to help the rest of the organization understand the importance of these two imperatives.
Thanks for sharing your insights Beth!
@LisaPetrilli
MENG Program Director
Beth – thanks for your thoughts on a very topical issue.
I really liked @mkedave ‘s pov.
It is not a dichotomy, yet, classical marketing techniques will need to be agile in responding to the real time mobile/web enabled location intelligent environment, in order to be effective & successful.
Culture change within organizations, however, is the major road-block. The issue of scalability will require (almost) everyone in an organization to play an inclusive, participatory role, in furthering business goals and objectives with Ent2.0 & SM policies having a disproportionate impact on success or failure rates!
Marketing will have to increasingly collaborate more, internally, especially with Sales, IT, Finance, HR etc, externally with retailers and channel partners, and not to mention, with the ultimate driver of all of this – the empowered consumer.
It needs a change in mindset, and that is easier said than done.
My $0.02
Cheers,
Prince
.-= Prince´s last blog ..Social Media & Supply Chain Strategy =-.
Great topic, Beth. Extremely timely and on target. I think that there are at least four components contributing to this issue.
1. Shiny New Objects – I view this as part of what I call SNOS – Shiny New Object Syndrome (per my recent blog post “Beware of Shiny New Objects” http://bit.ly/awXlV1). It’s easy to be tempted, distracted, fascinated, obsessed (or, pick your term) by what’s “new,” “topical,” “trendy.” That’s part of the issue at work here.
2. Early Adoption Pattern – The issue you note doesn’t strike me as all that unusual in the history of marketing and business. I think it is pretty typical for earlier adopters to tend to be more tactically focused than strategically focused. They play with the tools, come up with all sorts of interesting ways of utilizing the tools, etc. In so doing they serve an extremely important role in building awareness and pushing adoption further out in the cycle, where slower adopters start to integrate the new tools into their strategic planning framework. Put another way, this “dichotomy” may become less prevalent as more “strategic, traditional marketers” start to incorporate social into their overall toolkit. Although, it could equally lead to silos, thereby reducing true integration in marketing efforts.
3. Lack of training in strategic fundamentals – I will go out on a limb and risk vilification by saying that another part of the issue is that many marketing folks today have not received the fundamental strategic training that is the foundation of strategic marketing. I noticed this trend beginning in the late ’90′s as the first dot-com boom created demand for more marketing talent that existed in the marketplace. Younger pros with some technical skills were accelerated into roles and positions without benefit of development in strategic fundamentals and basics. This is not a condemnation of a group or demographic, but merely a candid observation from someone who has interviewed and hired countless marketers and has found many of them just not trained in the marketing basics. You can throw tomatoes my way now.
4. Nomenclature – I agree with you that the term “social media marketing” is not a good one. I don’t even like “social media.” It conveys something more than what is represented. I prefer to just say something like “social tools,” as that is what we are really talking about here. It also opens up the thinking and utilization of these tools/techniques to broader application and integration within the organization (e.g., research, product development, customer service, etc.). With sincere apologies to Bill Shakespeare, I believe that this rose would smell sweeter were it to have another name.
Recognizing and addressing all or some of the above would help mitigate the issues you’ve highlighted and improve the quality of the marketing and business building efforts being undertaken in today’s world. It may sound old fashioned, but it makes more strategic sense to begin at the beginning and have the objectives drive the strategy and tactics rather than the tactics dictate the objectives.
Thanks again for a stimulating, thought provoking post, Beth. Keep up the great work!
Ted
@tedlsimon
This dichotomy is so similar to the PR vs. Marketing debate that has gone on for years and years. The big difference now, of course, is that Marketers are saying, “We can do that too,” and the PR folks are generally saying, “We’ve been doing that since before the internet” (that is, have a two-way conversation with your stakeholders).
It’s like all the ad people woke up one day and realized that they need to actually talk to people, and not at people. And yet, many marketers still treat SM channels like advertising channels. The stakeholder approach to communications is generally, in my experience, lost on most ad people (aside from the echo chamber comments they like to make about engagement and such).
That said, I think we need to explore what marketing becomes in the context of SM becoming a mainstream communications media. The question, to me, is whether or not users are having meaningful experiences using social media. Seth Godin actually wrote about this today, about how TV once provided a meaningful experience, but it’s not the case any longer.
And that’s really the point here (sorry to take so long getting to it): providing a meaningful experience is far more important, and probably has far better ROI, than focusing on what our next Tweet/FB post is going to be.
.-= Daniel´s last blog ..Three Reasons Foursqaure is NOT the new Twitter =-.
I couldn’t agree more with Dave’s last sentence and the point of his comment. What we’re experiencing today is nothing more than a rebirth of what you call classic marketing. The beauty of this process however is seeing how us, marketers, keep colluding and complicating what could be termed simply as a two-way conversation. Like you said Beth, there’s nothing new here besides names and URLs. At the end of the day it all comes down to listening and responding. The person (or group or agency) that is able to grasp such a simple concept is already ahead, riding this trend successfully for their clients.
Great post! ~~Paul
.-= Paul L’Acosta´s last blog ..marketingfails: "Social Objects are the catalysts for conversations and occurrences — online and in real life — and they…" http://tumblr.com/xe57groi3 =-.
Beth
Best post about this that I have been talking about for some time. I believe the dichotomy is caused by the companies themselves and perpetrated unfortunately by others involved in the whole area of internet marketing. I still speak to many groups where the issue is “should I be using Twitter, Facebook, etc” instead of looking at the issues and forming a strategy. Too many companies continue to do marketing in a vacuum – without a strategy. By adding new tools it just makes it more critical to do so.
From the standpoint of those under the umbrella of Internet Marketers I still hear too many giving advice on specific tools and not bringing the discussion back to the whole. As long as we allow the discussions to be about parts we cannot achieve a discussion on the whole – just my 2 cents
Beth, this is a great post and pushes the envelope of what it will take to make integrated marketing mainstream.
In response to your question, I think the dichotomy will exist for awhile for several reasons:
1. Institutional: Both companies and agencies largely still manage marketing silos. Until social media is looked at as an essential ingredient and not as another marketing channel, the institutional biases will continue.
2. Generational: Many senior level marketing and advertising professionals are not practitioners of social media, did not grow up with it, and it is not “natural” for them. It will take awhile for those that get it to be the real decision makers. This generational divide leads to viewing social media as a tactic and not strategically,
3. Scale: Traditional media still wins on a scale basis. Managing social media integration is time and people intensive and there are no standard measurements yet.
Thanks again – Mary Ann
Mary Ann’s most recent blog post is: Digital Cocktails: Cheers to Social Media Measurement – http://www.bizworks360.com/blog/bid/35793/Digital-Cocktails-Cheers-to-Social-Media-Measurement
Beth,
Great article. I still see so many companies/marketers who don’t understand social media and the conversational aspect if it. They have been “pushing out” marketing materials for so long that the social aspect is not coming easily. It seems that some intuitively grasp social media but they are not in the majority… Is the skill set of the traditional marketer different than the skill set of the social media director? In some cases it seems to be…
With respect to the author, to treat Social Media as just another aspect of a marketing mix seems to me to ignore why it developed and offer little hope that we’ll behave better than when we helped make TV unwatchable and radio unlistenable.
The marketing community doesn’t get that no one goes on Facebook to be sold. All I can assume is that it’s not in our interest to understand that “consumers” want to talk to each other, not us and/or our clients. They don’t WANT us to “empower” them. They pretty much empowered themselves, thank you.
The business community has turned into the offensive guy at the bar, incapable of understanding that the girl he’s following around and keeps sending drinks to doesn’t want his attention. If he can’t figure out how to offer HER some real value he’s going to land a no-contact order. (Do Not Call and Do Not Email lists?)
To talk about what we’re doing for consumers – inform, educate, empower, whatever – when the consumer would be cool with us shutting up and going away has a sense of “you don’t even get that you don’t even get it” about it. A client’s need to talk (because then we get paid) is NOT a consumer’s need to listen. We don’t get that. Consumers do.
At some point we need to face the fact that WAY too much of what marketing does are expensive exercises in jargon creation if we won’t step back, gulp some oxygen and realize that new technologies aren’t necessarily a plus if we still don’t have anything uniquely valuable to communicate.
When a paradigm blows, it does no good to try force-fit a new model into the old. A rush to explain that how what we do and the way we do it wasn’t what caused the old model to be tossed may make us feel better, but sure doesn’t fix anything.
Folks, thanks for the comments and insights…I’ll circle back to comment more. For now I want to address Kevin.
Kevin, thanks for stopping by. You don’t know me or, obviously, read my blog. If you did, you’d know that I understand social media more deeply than the average bear. My goal here is to show how to integrate all marketing and communications — including social media, which is a communications channel. The sense that I get is that you don’t understand integrated marketing and communications (and I am NOT talking about the mass marketing!), because if you did you’d know that customers haven’t wanted messages pushed on them for a long, long time. That said, let’s be realistic when it comes to all marketing and communications. And that reality is that marketing/corporate executives want hard data, sales numbers and ROI. The “mushy” stuff you espouse above (I am a reformed social media purist, I know one when I see one) doesn’t work with executives. How do I know this? Because I am in the trenches working with them day-after-day. So, if you’re plan is to change ‘evil’ marketers, you better do it with more than just kumbaya sentiment.
As for marketing and communications theory, it’s not broken. Just the people who have implemented marketing/communications (without knowing that theory) for years are… But, don’t get me started on ‘anyone can be a marketer.’ I mean, look at you… Radio Announcer/System Admin/Writer gone social media guru!
“The first thing we do, let’s kill all the lawyers.” (Dick the Butcher, Henry VI, Part 2)
The point is not to kill social media marketeting boosters, but to get them to have perspective.
First, social media marketing is an awful misnomer. Media are not social…consumers are. (BTW, anybody know about anti-social media–that would be talking to yourself, innit?)
Second, if you believe the Keller Fay people, digital social media accounts for about 10% of brand conversation–I’m re-quoting this from something I read, so the exact number could be wrong. So, word of mouth remains much larger than word of keyboard.
But, digital social media might represent the most vocal of your consumers and customers.
So, working with social media is a skill all marketers must acquire. But, it’ll never be the only thing–just like mass marketing was never the only thing for astute marketers. It’ll take a while for digital stuff to replace conversation for most (not all) product categories.
So, let’s ban the term “social media marketing,” but learn all about how to use all digital media channels (or whatever you want to call them) and their use. But, keep it in perspective.
BTW, I asked the question at the MENG seminar. Great to see the debate. “Let a thousand flowers bloom.”
Beth this is a great discussion point that can really be a call to action when doing all these activities within the marketing, communication, and PR context. I am a consumer and I really like is seeing integrated marketing strategy for campaigns. I like getting marketed to within the channels I am participating in, it makes me take action and some of those actions are track-able. I am a ok with that because marketers and communicators can start delivering marketing and communications based on my actions. Now that is cool!
I think you are right we need to start connecting the ecosystem together to work for the campaign strategy and that does not mean you will use everything, but you know you have all the right people in place to do so. Plus those people know how to collaborate and add value to each other!
Companies can build the relationship and trust while delivering the ROI that the executives want. There is also ROI in lowering costs on marketing activities that do not make sense for the segment you are trying to market and communicate to, also. If you know the segment you are marketing to do not buy magazines and would like to see things on youtube, a blog, or facebook put it there, don’t put ads in magazines that right there could be a cost savings to your campaign (That is ROI). You achieve this by using the data that is given to you on a daily basis.
Am I on the right track here? Look forward to seeing more topics like this. BTW love the rebuttal!
Beth, you must have ESP! Today’s eMarketer article, The State of Social Media Integration (http://bit.ly/904cnb) backs up your point-of-view on the “silo-ing” of SM (along with other marketing disciplines). Thank you for this great post.
.-= Tony Faustino´s last blog ..New Media Players Like Mashable and TechCrunch Don’t Need the iPad to Survive a Publishing Industry Shakeout =-.
Actually, when dealing with people who do not know much about the Web 2.0, I have found that it actually calms the jitters by saying that social marketing is just another component of the normal marketing program. It reassures them that I’m not trying to shake up their entire world by moving them into this new Marketing Age. It lets them know that, no, I’m not trying to replace them. Just add to and adapt a current strategy.
Beth
As usual, great post. Here is my 02 on why this silo has occurred and why it occurred with digital, email, etc.
Ad agencies have been the stewards of marketing for over 50 years. However, they are (by and large) slow to adopt new technologies/capabilities preferring to wait until the marketplace has established the new offering. Thus, they only add new services/offerings that can reasonably be expected to be profitable.
That creates a vacuum, which is promptly filled by niche or specialist firms.
To ensure a future, these firms must position themselves and their “category” as unique, different and requiring a specialist. We saw it with web in the late 90′s, email in the early 2000′s and now with SocMe. It makes sense, but at the same time, IMHO it sets the precedent by which companies and agencies for that matter will organize their efforts.
So because each new technology is treated as something separate, companies create a silo for it and then we get into the whole “integration” discussion.
But alas, it’s nothing new… we only need to remember the days when ad agencies started TV departments
@TomMartin
http://www.HelpMyBrand.com
.-= tom martin´s last blog ..Three For Thursday – March 18 =-.
This is very informative post about Social media vs. classical marketing.Its interesting for me to read this post about their comparison.I like that you have shared such valuable information with us.
.-= dean graziosi´s last blog ..Mortgage rates influence the real estate market =-.
Great piece Beth
I Agree totally with what you are saying. Traditional marketing will always have it’s place but integration is critical.
The great thing about SM is that it opens up marketing and reach to the smaller guys and allows them to compete. However there is a lot of bad advice going on out there and whilst we would never want to silo SM the fact is that there’s a whole new industry of ‘Social Media Experts’doing exactly that.
As we continue to define SM and push the boundaries the level of scalability will be recognised and the monoliths of the marketing world will wake up to the realisation that they may well have made a serious error of judgement.
Thanks once again for a great article
Great post! And perhaps in part it is a “perception” amongst many in the C-Suite that Social Media is not “serious” and is the bane of kids, that adults don’t engage; it’s a disconnect. I think that’s a starting point, once that hurdle is overcome then it’s into the serious side of integrating it with the traditional marketing communications mix.
.-= Giles (Webconomist)´s last blog ..Social Media Marketing – Understand the Channel Culture First =-.
I think if we were to take a more holistic view just in terms of what we call “modern marketing” today we may call it “integrated marketing.” But that doesn’t really describe what it does. Lately, I’ve been using the term, “influence marketing” when speaking with prospects and clients. At the end of the day for whatever strategies and tactics you deploy in your marketing tool box, the goal is to *influence* a decision that moves a prospect through the sales funnel. This to me seems to encapsulate traditional/classical marketing with inbound, social media, modern, integrated, whatever-you-call-it today marketing!
.-= Greg Elwell´s last blog ..iPad for Business: Buy Now or Wait? =-.
Let me simply say I am glad you are a visiting professor at the college level and teach integrated marketing here.
I believe the tools are still new to many marketers and this comes down to education and fear. Fear of unknown and of ROI ($ and time). More fear: who represents the brand in the open medium – effective recruiting on brand values and how negative feedback would be address. Although I believe most marketing executives don’t know about what happened to Nestle, I think they are afraid of this:
http://www.yourbrandplan.com/forum/brandchat/30854-brandchat-recap-mar-31st-chat-theme-brandjacking.html#post87847
.-= David Sandusky´s last blog ..TechCrunch: Search Growth Slows In The U.S. =-.
[...] know I’m not alone in trying to end the social media vs. marketing dichotomy and know that a lot of you marketers out there are getting tired of this whole thing, so let’s [...]
[...] Social media marketing vs. classic marketing by Beth Harte – The Harte of Marketing The Dichotomy Issue [...]
Beth, I’d like to add my humble two cents’ worth.
OK. Any talk about separation between “new” social media marketing and “old” world marketing is crap, and blinkered crap at that.
ALL marketers—regardless of the field they’re in or of their training or aspirations—we ALL need to forget about barriers, titles, boundaries, and classifications because all these things do is SEGMENT the craft (and it IS a craft and I don’t care what anyone thinks) of marketing.
Anyone in business is in the business of marketing. What they do is not the point because their job title is meaningless. It’s how they connect in whatever way they DO connect with their customers or with their corporation’s customers. And anyone who says “I’m just a back room person, I don’t mix or interact with customers!” is an idiot, and a dangerous idiot at that.
You said “What’s new and important is how these tools are being used in business” AMEN SISTER! Rock and roll!
Anyone thinking or saying that social media is “where it’s at daddy-o” and thereby ignoring all other methods of messaging customers is missing the point: if the message ITSELF is not sticky—if it fails to connect—the WAY the message is delivered is meaningless.
A year or so from now it will be some other new, hot, hip, happening site that promises to be the next Facebook, or the next Twitter, or whatever. And that site (or those SITES, because social media sites are popping up like weeds) will be lauded in the press by over-educated halfwits who wouldn’t know a decent marketing message if it bit them in the ass—as the NEXT killer of traditional media. And those pundits will be just as wrong then as they are now.
It’s NOT the way the message is delivered—it’s the relevance to the customer of their projected future using that thing, product, service, etc that really matters.
To REALLY have an impact, social media’s got to be used as just one small tool of a larger tool kit—an increasingly essential tool, yes, but it’s just ONE tool: it’s NOT the toolbox, nor is it the workshop. For anyone arguing the other way I’d say this: “Here’s a Phillips screwdriver: build me a house.”
.-= Gary Bloomer´s last blog ..How will you cater to the female shoppers of 2015? =-.
Gary, this is why I respect you…you have such a way with words and a way to make the complicated simple. By the way, “blinkered crap” has now just been added to my vocabulary!
It’s just both. It’s traditional marketing as a baseline with adaptation to the new dynamic, right?
.-= Jon B´s last blog ..10 s-commerce best practices =-.
As usual, Beth, I loved the post. I can always count on you to take a structured view on topics, standing firmly grounded in principles to cut through the haze of fluff.
I think one of your latter questions struck me the most – “Is it that we’ve been siloed for so long and that there hasn’t been a good job with integration to begin with? Email marketing, direct marketing et al. suggest the answer is yes.”
Taking a step back and looking at workplace self-preservation habits for a moment, could it be that the silo effect (which began, to your point, way before the rise of Social Media Marketers) is a natural result of marketing practitioners using concentration areas to create an air exclusivity and specialization? Think about it – when companies have reductions in force, marketing is the first to get chopped. But if you’re the ONE GUY who knows how to finesse the email database, or how to set up and track Facebook advertising, then that mystique might preserve you for awhile. Assuming you also know how to write the strategy project that’ll get dumped on you as a result of so-and-so getting canned…
I think, too, that sometimes the endless pontification and philosophic waxing many people in the social media space do is enough to forge the Us v. Them mentality that can create anxiety and animosity with some classicly trained marketers. That kind of fear doesn’t exactly encourage an atmosphere of integration and collaboration, does it?
Man, I hope this made the kind of sense in writing that it did in my head!
.-= Heather Rast´s last blog ..Change the Conversation =-.
Beth,
Social media has been around for while in Internet years, but its best and highest use in the P.R. and marketing realms has yet to be determined.
Social media is a great tool for targeting, interacting and engaging audiences. Marketers definitely need to be listening to these soundboards for important conversations and be on the cusp of any and all emerging technologies.
-Chelsea Langevin
Hey Beth,
I’m a little late to this party, forgive me.
A great, insightful post for sure but… is it me or isn’t it somewhat sad or a sad indictment that such a post is even necessary? I mean shouldn’t it be obvious that social media should be integrated into the grand plan?
I don’t know… maybe it IS me…
.-= steve olenski´s last blog ..Nonprofits and Social Media =-.
[...] a recent blog post, Beth Harte commented that social media gives us “a window into what our customers are really [...]
[...] “All of the panelists agree that social media are exciting new ways to listen and communicate, but… [...]