The Dubious Use of Social Media

Since we’ve entered the brave new world of Web 2.0 and social media technology, companies have been falling all over themselves in a race to use these tools to further their interests. It’s only natural. Blogs and social networks happen to be where their potential customers are or, at the very least, where companies perceive those customers to be.

But, let’s keep in mind that the power of social media as applied to building brand loyalty and driving incremental sales still rests on some pillars that many companies find it difficult to embrace: those pillars being transparency, authenticity, and free-flowing dialogue. When you take a trip through different sectors of the blogosphere, it doesn’t take too long to spot instances where companies are using bloggers and the social media space to continue age-old one-way marketing practices that push positivity, innocuousness and, above all, product. While companies may be pleased as punch at their ability to utilize new communications mediums to reach customers, it remains to be seen if these stealth top-down messaging strategies are really serving to deepen their relationships with consumers. Because, to deepen those relationships, a little depth tends to be a requirement.

One of my recent forays into the blogosphere proved educational. This blog had to do with bath product giveaways and an ostensible blogger review of Fraiche products.

http://www.bookroomreviews.com/2009/07/14/fraiche-bath-products-giveaway/

If you take a look at the blog, there are several tip-offs that a company is behind the proceedings:

1. Lack of transparency: it’s hard to tell who is behind the blog. There’s no info, photo, or anything much about the blogger.
2. Lack of authenticity: Of course, the blog tells us that Fraiche products are just great and you should get them for yourself. That’s the message. Nothing about why they’re great, what they’re made of, why anyone should care, nothing. They’re just great. This is a tip-off. Why would anyone blog about something just to say wow, it’s great. Sure, there are polyannas out there, but more often than not it’s because they’ve been asked to do so, paid to do so, or they simply don’t exist and a company’s marketing communications department has set up the blog.
3. Lack of free-flowing dialogue: If you review the comments, they are all exceptionally short, positive, innocuous and, amazingly, push additional Fraiche products. Wow, what are the odds!? Everybody else thinks it’s just great, great, great. Gosh, I just love it when things are so great, don’t you? Sorry to be so flip, but this is another tip-off. These comments have been planted for the purpose of driving sales.

Some blogs don’t even try that much to hide their marketing intentions. This blog about financial products just pastes in marketing copy from online bank EverBank (I know it when I see it, I wrote copy for them some years ago).

http://www.suburbandollar.com/2009/07/14/everbank-review/

Okay, okay. Of course, any company has the right to play around this way in the blogosphere. But, if Web 2.0 has taught us anything these past few years, it’s that people are sick of being passive consumers. They like products and gadgets and widgets, sure, but if they’re going to engage on these topics, they are looking for some depth, some dialogue, and some helpful perspectives. The rub about this for companies is that engaging customers in dialogue, as opposed to just trying to sell them something, takes a lot more time and necessitates giving up control of the “message”.

Some advice from the peanut gallery out here to companies: If you want to be a part of the Web 2.0 world, start by listening. Find out what people are thinking about and talking about. Then look for ways to engage with them. Why not try asking questions instead of delivering messages? Why not be a part of the dialogue instead of the one who controls the dialogue. Hey, your legal department may hate it and your sales force may hate it, but if you want to build brand loyalty, you’ve got to put in a little work out here in the messy reality of a world where consumers have an increasing amount of agency and information.

As a final salvo, take a look at this blog about streaming video versus pirate downloads. If a company were listening to what this man is talking about, they could not only be a part of this dialogue, but also discover better ways to market their products to those pesky teenagers who are used to getting what they want for free.

http://www.avc.com/a_vc/2009/07/streaming-kills-piracy.html