Currently, a fellow student and I are writing our master thesis about branding on social media. We have decided to be controversial in our methodology: If companies ought to listen to their customers online, so should marketing students! Therefore, we think it would be interesting to have social media enthusiasts (you guys) commenting on selected extracts that I will post continually. Everybody's opinions and ideas are highly appreciated.
Social Media Marketing - An Oxymoron?
In our opinion the concept of social media marketing is an oxymoron. As we have been indoctrinated by marketing scholars like Philip Kotler (2005) - generally speaking - marketing means, "Persuading people to buy our stuff against a competitor's. It is 'us and them' thinking, while social media spaces are about facilitating social connections, building relationships and removing friction from communication and collaboration" (Taylor, 2010). In our opinion, a strict marketing approach to social media is doomed because a marketing based social media strategy has the wrong point of departure when defining the objectives by purely marketing metrics (Taylor, 2010).
Marketing goals are - in our opinion - a defective approach when it comes to social media. Brand advocates should keep in mind that consumers are not on social media to purchase and - as argued by digital editor of Adweek, Brian Morrissey - "People don't go to these channels to talk about brands. If you're not adding value, you're spam" (Morrissey cited in Keane, 2009). So, instead of pure sales goals, "Better objectives look more like those of a research brief than a marketing brief (...). These objectives are not about propagating a message, but about unraveling a story, listening and joining a conversation, collaboration and discussion" (Taylor, 2010).
Many companies are simply not succeeding in their social media approach, because they commence with the wrong objectives. Social media platforms are not well suited for traditional marketing based on persuasion and with a broadcast mentality, where the brand talks and the customers listen. Rather, social media provides "(...) all the tools needed to build a meaningful co-ownership of brands and build productive partnerships with those brands (...) and it requires bravery and commitment to be the brand that people want you to be" (Taylor, 2010). However, this approach to social media requires a flexibility and agility about ones brand. It also requires brands to accept the fact that social media allow no brand control. We argue that brands are not losing control on social media because they never had it in the first place. Consumers have always communicated amongst each other about brands offline and the online element of social media has merely expanded the conversation and given brand managers a chance to listen in. Amazon.com's founder, Jeff Bezos highlights our argument perfectly when he states that "A brand is what people say about you when you're not in the room" (Møller-Elshøj, 2010). In short, what is wrong with social media marketing is that is distracts companies from the real opportunities and benefits.Therefore, we argue, that companies should be engaging - not in social media marketing - but in social media brand collaboration (Taylor, 2010).
