Traditional Marketing Doesn’t Matter As Much (As It Used To)
Last week I was in a meeting with people from a number of different organizations all discussing a common issue. I was the “social media” guy at the table with a few traditional marketers with various specialties along with non-marketing people working through an particular situation. During the course of the discussion I realized again how stark the difference is between the way I approach marketing and promotion compared to some more traditional marketers. I attribute this difference in thinking to people like Seth Godin, Chris Anderson, and Robert Scoble…all of whom have provided books and blog that have formed the way I approach the new technology for marketing purposes. I took some notes of my thoughts at the time and here’s what came out…
It’s not that television as we’ve known it doesn’t matter. It’s just that it doesn’t matter as much as it used to.
It’s not that newspapers as we’ve known them don’t matter. It’s just that they don’t matter as much as they used to.
It’s not that radio as we’ve known it doesn’t matter. It’s just that it doesn’t matter as much as it used to.
It’s not that marketing, advertising, public relations, and any other form of promotion as we’ve known it doesn’t matter. It’s just that it doesn’t matter as much as it used to.
It’s not that the way you’ve been marketing isn’t effective anymore. It’s just that it’s less effective today than it was yesterday and it will be increasingly less effective tomorrow, next week, and next year.
The lesson here isn’t that you have to make a total switch to social media marketing today. The lesson is that you need to be moving toward social media marketing and as you do, you can’t think about it the same way as the old way you did marketing.
Tags: Chris Anderson, new media marketing, Robert Scoble, Seth Godin, social media marketing, traditional advertising, traditional marketing
April 29th, 2008 at 4:40 pm
I might agree. I definitely think social media marketing is where its hot right now… and seems to be the hot button for the future. I’ll be interested to see if you posts more on social media marketing as followup to this.
April 30th, 2008 at 11:33 am
I learned from Brian Solis, that technology and thought leader extraordinare Stowe Boyd has begun training others on brevity. Stowe told the world that he is posting a schedule of the times that he will make available for meetings with companies at the Web 2.0 Expo, and he is not going to accept email-based proposals to meet, only Twitpitches.
So I got to thinking, how would Abraham Lincoln have pitched the Gettysburg address on Twitter?
April 30th, 2008 at 3:42 pm
Terrace, stick around and you’ll see social media marketing is most all I talk about. I look forward to you comments down the road.
Carter, thanks for the info. Twitpitches are an interesting idea. It reminds me of the Webby Awards where the winners can only five words in their acceptance speeches if I recall correctly.
May 5th, 2008 at 6:40 pm
Maybe this is optimistic, but I think consumers still want to hear the story as its told by the company offering the product or service, and paid media is still an excellent way to tell that story exactly how you want it told. The number of eyeballs and impressions might be harder to manage, calculate and aggregate into critical mass, but there is still unique value there. So maybe those media won’t necessarily matter less, but they will matter differently — assuming the advertising tone evolves. Hmm, it might have been more concise if I’d just written “I agree.”
May 5th, 2008 at 9:45 pm
Captain, thanks for the comment. You made me laugh out loud! Glad to see we agree…and it would have been fine if we didn’t, but it was fun to see your thought process.