Recently I read two posts that neatly illustrated just how much
bloggers and marketers don't get about each other. One was written by
and for marketers in an effort to help marketers better understand
bloggers, how we think, how to approach us and how to market to social
media communities. The other was written by bloggers to explain how
marketers are getting their approaches to bloggers and social media
communities wrong and how marketers could do better.
Both were cringe worthy reading. Marketers don't get bloggers and
bloggers don't get marketers. Neither speaks the others' language,
understands the others' process nor the others' goals. What seems
obvious to me is that if marketers are to grasp how to successfully add
social media tools to our marketing mix, bilingual translators are
needed and we are in short (but growing) supply.
I am purposefully not linking to either post because I don't wish to
single the authors out for criticism. The points made in their posts
are not unique but reading them back-to-back helped crystallize my line
of thought in this post, so let me tell you a bit more about what the
marketers and bloggers are thinking.
1. The Marketers:
I've long lost count of the number of pixels that have formed to
express how badly marketers, and the PR function in particular, have
gone about pitching to, working with and attempting to partner with
bloggers and social media communities. A post from a well known, well
respected media outlet did a good job of clearly articulating the need
to get past the models of cluelessly sending press releases, offering interviews
and product samples. They pointed out why bloggers are not the same as
newspaper journalists or magazine editors and why it is important to
modify your approach. However, they still managed to make the same
fundamental error of insight that most marketers who don't grok blogging
and communities make; i.e., they did not move past the medium to
understand the varying motivations of bloggers and the dynamics of
communities.
Bloggers are not a monolith. People do not read, join networks or
participate in communities for the same reasons or with the same goals.
The advice that sending a press release will likely be received
differently and, likely negatively, by bloggers is a step forward but
still reveals just how much the authors don't know.
Sites like TechCrunch or Mashable could be considered blogs. Also there
are individual bloggers who mine similar territory. However, what those
sites do is vastly different than a personal blogger who writes about
her life. Bloggers like the former are more akin to newsites and
sending press releases or offering product for review might make sense.
A blogger who develops a blog that functions not unlike a beauty or
women's service magazine might enjoy and appreciate being approached
like a magazine editors because it serves her mission and expectations
she's set for her reader community.
Many personal bloggers write of and for themselves. They don't exist
nor are they set up to do your marketing for you. They don't hunger for
"content ideas." For many, finding the time and sometimes the
motivation to write about the many ideas swirling in their head is the
much bigger problem. That however does not mean that they are
unapproachable. Rather it means that you need to understand the
different types of bloggers as well as their different goals,
motivations and readerships. And that is what is missing from the marketer perspective and why bloggers (and folks on Twitter, Facebook, MySpace,
etc...) remain frustrated and often hostile to so many marketers.
2. The Bloggers:
This time the post was from a well known, well respected group blogging
site. The authors pointed out what they perceived as ineffective, even
offensive marketing efforts from large companies to bloggers and social
media communities. As is often the case in these broad missives and
dismissals (vs. individual bloggers calling out specific egregious
behavior from a marketer they've experience directly) is that it
reveals a fundamental lack of understanding of how consumer marketing,
from both big and small companies, works.
It is fine to be outraged by the message you hear. It is important and
worthwhile for marketers to hear your reactions and the lenses through
which you are filtering your messages. However, I have noticed a trend
from bloggers to believe that because they understand their own
experience and values that they know how to teach marketers how to do
their jobs. And that attitude was in full effect in this post.
What is disturbing about this trend is that more than a few bloggers
think that because they blog they not only know how companies should
market and that companies should therefore listen to them and that they
should be paid as consultants to teach companies how to market. The sad
and frustrating thing about this trend is not only the mistaken hubris
on the part of bloggers, but that some companies out of fear of missing
the social media marketing train and/or ignorance of the blogging and
social media universe, actually entertain and engage this advice.
In the long run it will only be bad for marketers, bloggers and social media communities.
3. The Bilingual Translators:
For bloggers who desire to engage with marketing and PR
representatives, it is important that if you do not have a background
in and understanding of marketing from a company and business
perspective, your experience as a blogger, consumer and recipient of
clueless pitches does not qualify you as a social media guru nor as a
marketing consultant. If you seek for companies to hire you for your
expertise and you offer ill-informed, bad advice it is not only bad for
companies but bad for you and your fellow bloggers in the long run.
However, this is the smaller problem by far. What is more important is
that companies get help from people who really understand using social
media tools.
I don't mean that companies should pursue the rather clueless efforts
to hire college-age digital natives who have a blog and just looooove
to update their Facebook status every hour and have thousands of
followers on twitter as I see with alarming frequency (oh and pay them nothing as an intern because they get to learn marketing). The recent
Goode Job search and initial Best Buy hiring requirements debacles show that companies, get that they need to develop
understanding and expertise around social media but don't know what to
look for. In Murphy-Goode's case they disregarded
the results of the popularity contest they promoted and were more
concerned with marketing credentials which aren't often the basis for winning popularity
contests. In the case of Best Buy, they got called out by marketing professionals who rightly questioned how having 250 minimum followers on Twitter transformed a graduate degree into social media marketing expertise. To Best Buy's credit they listened and refined their approach.
In fact, Best Buy's new job posting for Sr. Manager of Emerging Media
provides good guidance for the kind of in-house expertise most
companies, especially larger companies that engage in consumer-focused
marketing, need to develop. There need to be resources in companies who
have both an understanding of classical, proven effective marketing
techniques and meaningful, relevant experience in the social media
space.
And I believe companies need to have that expertise, those bilingual
translators who speak both blogger and marketer, in-house. Although
companies often work with outside agencies to execute and implement
marketing efforts such as advertising and PR, they still have internal
departments and deep knowledge of how to plan and use those tools as
well as how to measure results and adjust efforts accordingly. Just
as companies don't hire PR or advertising agencies without having some
basis for determining the agency's qualifications and the desirability
of campaigns they propose and then evaluating their effectiveness, companies need
to be prepared to apply those same standards to social media marketing
proposals and efforts from outside agencies. Also it is increasingly
important that marketers become fluent in these languages and that they
<i>get</i> the social mediasphere. Having in-house expertise will help them
develop that fluency and deep understanding so that
digital/emerging/social media marketing becomes part of the tool box of
every good, well-rounded marketer.
The best news is that bilingual translators exist. We are out here and
valuable collaborators continue to emerge. Plus, as marketers work
with the new tools they will build not just expertise but best
practices. I'm not going to name names here just because I'll miss too
many but if you have questions, feel free to contact me and I'm happy
to discuss my services or point you to who I believe some of the companies,
practitioners, potential hires, PR, advertising or other agencies
out there are that can speak both languages.
I firmly believe that best practices will really be established
when proven marketing techniques meet the exuberant frontier of
passionate expression and communities. Let's not ignore or fail to understand one
or privilege the other.
Bonus Reading:
Two posts from a marketer perspective emerging from the 2009 BlogHer Conference
Jeremy Pepper at POP! PR Jots: Don't be THAT PR person at BlogHer (Or Any Event)
Annie Heckenberger at Social Media Is The New Black: Let's talk about Blogher '09
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