Marketing (&) Mischief

Social Media is THE hot topic for marketers right now. Just like web 2.0 used to be a year ago. No surprise there. Attention follows people. Where the masses are that’s where marketers focus their attention.

What really scares me is the way everyone is pretending to be an expert when it comes to social media. Blogs of so called experts pop up and agencies claim they’ve got the key to Pandora’s box. The behavioural change that social media has triggered is just starting to take shape and will be a moving target for a long time if not forever. So how can anyone claim they’ve got the solution AND more importantly: It seems to me that the core of the change that social media has brought is that there IS NO FIXED SOLUTION. What is needed is a mentality shift. Companies and agencies need to embrace the openness, the transparency, the dialogue: listening and acting based on the feedback. The continuous development. The forever Beta.

I guess it is again natural for the old skool to try and force this new thing into a process and an operational model they can comprehend. It just does not work that way anymore. Just go with the flow and let go of control.

It hit me while listening to the Agency 2.0 -panel discussion at Web 2.0 in San Francisco last week: Advertising agencies are desperately fighting the change. They claim they “get it” but the truth is that they just don’t want to let go of the past. The past where they were the ones who “understood” consumer behavior and knew how to manipulate it to the benefit of the marketers they worked for.

I realised that it wasn’t the ad guys on the panel who you should turn to for help in this new world. It was the audience: The bloggers, the guys with the start-ups and web 2.0 companies, the digital natives who live and drive the change who understand that you no longer can control your brand or trick consumers into buying your shitty product. Talk to them and even if it scares the hell out of you – listen and take action.