If, for example, unknown to you, there's some toilet paper stuck to your shoe, do you want someone among the others aware of your situation to tell you or would you prefer they just talk amongst themselves? I kind of think that frames the social media risk/reward analysis question. Just because you don't know you look ridiculous doesn't mean you don't look ridiculous.

I came up with this question in response to this item by Jenny Hoffbrand in PrecisionMarketing yesterday. Entitled "Social media sites 'too risky,'" it is about a UK survey of marketing professionals. While more than eight of every ten involved in the survey use social media sites personally, more than half think social media sites are too risky for business. They prefer print.

Of course they do. See, it isn't about risk. It's about control. Businesses take calculated risks all the time. They invest in new and unproven products and services for example. But they usually do that behind closed doors, in a controlled environment. This mentality continues into the marketing phase of the just finished new product. In print advertising, the marketer owns the paper and the message on it. Outsiders can't talk back or change the words. (Most people these days basically ignore the polished print advertisement because we know it is only one side of the story anyway - the advertiser's side.)

This means that just because you haven't given people a chance during and after the new product development process to tell you that your product or service may be flawed doesn't mean your new product or service is perfect. But you'll never know. Or you won't know until the final results come in and your new product bombs. Wouldn't it be less risky to open up the process, talk along the way, invite comments both good and bad, let people have a say in what you're making for them? Of course it would, but control would go out the window.

I speak from long experience as a former PR control freak. PR people hate surprises and they dread negative comments. How in the world can such things be explained to clients? Surprises and negative comments are our fault, right? Well, sometimes. But sometimes new products really are flawed and in case you haven't noticed, PR people are among some of the last people on planet Earth who are going to tell a paying customer that their new product idea is a disaster in the making. That's because some of us have no idea, and some of us are more rabidly interested in client retention than honest intention.

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