Sink or SWM: The fine balance of Social Web Marketing

Joshua Porter has written quite a good article about Titled "The Problem with Social Media Marketing".

In it he is cynical of the claims of most people who call themselves "social media marketers" and instead talks about social media's "amplification" qualities and that you have to change your business for your business to get better.

If only things were this simple.  It certainly presents a challenge to the philosophy of many company directors and managers.  Too many of them will see social media marketing as just another selling tactic.  Marketers are traditionally given orders to get a product or service out there to meet certain targets, then they have to find the best way to do it - whatever it takes.  In doing so, too often they ignore or misrepresent their own customers.

Social Media turns the tables round.  Most companies don't want to change their business unless they absolutely must, let alone for their customers.  I think that these days you simply can't ignore it, people will talk whether you like it or not, and the web gives their messages exponential reach.  The first thing when I want to evaluate a product is type the name and brand into Google followed by the word "sucks" or "sux".  To me at least, negative comments seem to amplify much easier than positive ones.  I can't think of any real way for any snake oil can counter this.  In my opinion this is the first problem.

I believe that the best social marketers are experts at facilitating customer feedback in a semi-controlled environment, whether it is negative or positive.  This way they can generate some positive feedback just by participating.  They get a better feel for what the customers like and don't like and this should be channeled back into product development.  Therefore social marketers should have much more input into the direction of products and customer service.  They are the eyes and ears of the company.  The role of the marketer becomes more important, and to be most effective, they need buy-in from the highest level.  However this is extremely difficult and sometimes impossible.  That is the second problem I see with social media marketing - it requires huge cultural change.

The article is right in its assertion that at least on the web, consumers create the demand and buzz, not social marketers.  With the web, consumers have amplified choice.  It would be great to think that companies really had choice.  Unfortunately, in a more competitive marketplace, businesses have little choice because profitability only comes by amplifying the demand for your products.  Too many still consider consumers to be dumb, but long before sports stars started endorsing breakfast cereals people could still weed out the fake from the sincere - even if they still ended up buying your product.  People are naturally skeptical of positive comments, but take negative comments seriously.  The web is making consumers smarter, today they can make informed choices.  In today's market, it is no longer possible to sell a product with one or two testimonials.  If a company drops the ball, it faces a mass exodus to its competitors.  Social media marketing is actually becoming necessary but it has to be done right.  It is about weight of numbers and it will bring some honesty, ethics and accountability back to doing business.