When I was reading 'Why We Need More Social And Less Marketing', I kept thinking of that David Meerman Scott quotation:
Think like a publisher, not a marketer.
Unlike so many in the social media business, my roots aren't in sales or marketing. My roots are in technology. What people are calling social media now is really an evolved version of what we geeks used to use to speak to each other - evolved in that it has become easier for people without technical backgrounds to do it (like people in sales and marketing). It's not to say that I know the market better or worse - I'm not sold on either - but that my roots are different and thus my perspective is different. In my eyes, marketing and sales are often about selling people things that they don't need for prices they can barely afford.
That is unfair and I know it is unfair but it's how I feel about it. I wager I'm not alone. Read up on 'How Valuable Are Heavy Social Media Users, Anyway?' and you'll find the last paragraph reads:
...Not only are Heavy Social Media users less likely to purchase online, they spend a lot less money when they do. Again the consistent theme Heavy Social Use doesn’t translate to desired behaviors. Does this mean that Heavy Social Users aren’t valuable to brand advertisers? It depends on the brand and the budget. But are results do suggest that the rush to social should be tempered with more than a little caution.
Could it be that heavy social media users have become desensitized to the charms of marketing? I don't know. What I do know is that I take certain people in my networks seriously for different things and so their opinion would sway me more than a cyberbrochure Facebooked from one end and Tweeted out the other. 'More social'. Yes. I trust my network more than I trust people getting paid to get me to buy stuff. That seems fairly rational but, admittedly, marketing and sales isn't about rationality. It's typically about emotion. And emotion has something to do with trust, I'm sure - or perceived trust.
Speaking for myself, I don't care too much how well a product or service is marketed - I care about whether the product or service meets my needs. People who know me are more likely to advise me well on whether a product or service can do that. Thus - less marketing. More social.
More publishing. Less marketing. More social. Less hype.
