Thursday, September 25, 2008

Is Social Media the 'New Marketing'

About two months ago, I chimed in on a Twitter-conversation (twitversation?) about this:

Thought of the day: Marketing is no longer about "psychology", but rather
"sociology". Sociology is the new Psychology.
The conversation that ensued was interesting. (Check it out here. You can use the “show conversation” tool on my tweets and any of the others to see details) The discussion was a good representation of the friction between ‘old-school’ marketing pro’s and social media evangelists.
Is social media changing marketing? Sure. Technological innovations have a tendency to do that. But I am not convinced that social media is “the new marketing”, rather it is a branch of marketing. The reality is that consumers have always communicated with each other. Networks are not new. The change is in the way we communicate, isn’t it? Social media has made it easier for people/companies to communicate that maybe wouldn’t have before.
An article on emarketer.com addresses this issue as well. Is anyone surprised when they read this?
“Because online social networks do not capture the real social graph,
tapping into those extended, real-world connections are important for
marketers.”
Of course conversations happen offline as well! Yes, social media
offers a dramatically new and exciting way for companies to communicate with
consumers and vice versa, but the principles of ‘old school’ marketing still
remain true, and marketing and media are not synonyms.

2 comments:

  1. Interesting point-of-view. I agree, Social Marketing isn't the new marketing, it's just a new branch of marketing. Just like paid search and email and organic search are new branches of marketing. There's an interesting post on The 60 Second Marketer blog called "Will the Bad Economy Kill Social Media?" It might be worth checking out because it says social media will be the first thing killed in marketer's budgets for next year.

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  2. I agree that social media is another tool in the marketing toolbox. I don't think that we have an idea of how it will all play out because it is so new (did anyone envision that 8 out of every 30 minutes on TV would be commercials, and that eventually we would ignore them). I don't think it's going anywhere soon, because even with "bad" economy, it can be a much more effective way of reaching a targeted audience.

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