When Ashton Kutcher started Katalyst Media he essentially eliminated the need for Madison Avenue media and advertizing agencies by leveraging his brand and becoming his own media company mostly through Twitter. Now celebrities are being paid big bucks for tweets that promote a product or service, although I don't know who some of these celebrities are, but they are cashing in on their brand without any help from an advertizing agency.
- Kendra Wilkinson $11,765
- Kim Kardashian $10,000
- Soulja Boy $10,000
- Bob Vila $9750
Company's like Social Media Today are innovators and understand how to build communities, moderate them and make them effective influence channels. The business models of traditional advertizing and media companies are being completely disrupted by this and the social media tsunami. Every business model has its day; some called this unpaid media in the beginning and ignored it, now they can't ignore it anymore as competitors are gaining advantage in brand, social media marketing, communications, product development and innovation.
Read this month's Harvard Business Review feature article on social media by Edelman, although much of the discussion is what I call rear view mirror, it is a call to action for all marketing and advertizing and a bellwether for the future.
The social media peer group is a new and innovative form of advertizing and an effective means of building brand in targeted markets, aggregating influencers in that market and creating demand generation. More importantly social media marketing brings you closer to the customer than ever before and companies that get it like Disney, Proctor and Gamble and of course SAP are quickly using it for competitive advantage.
I will continue to say this over and over again; the power of the pen has never been more powerful than in the "dawn of social media" that we are engaged in. But what are the rules of engagement for those of us that regularly engage in communities? Earlier this year I blogged and had fun with a "Pirate's code of ethics" for bloggers, but there seems to be no code or form of behavior that anyone follows today. Content scraping, the newest form of plagiarism is taking off in the blogosphere where ideas can be hijacked at lightning speed.
A Professional Bloggers Code
- Bloggers have a duty to provide valuable insights into the current affairs of their ecosystem.
- Bloggers will not create spectrums of negativity and hate amongst the social media peer groups they influence and reward everyone fairly.
- Bloggers will not gamble with a person, organization or company's brand by unfairly interfering in the business of business and damage the reputation of others, organizations, companies and their products and services.
- Bloggers know when it is time to move on, avoid obsolete information; their mantra is no obsolete information.
- Bloggers are not self appointed gurus, their ship is built on a foundation of experience, intelligence, honesty and integrity and they keep their mind sharp.
- Bloggers know who they are and not everyone is a blogger.
- Bloggers stick to their guns and don't waver in their analysis.
- Bloggers don't attack other bloggers with unfounded and inaccurate information and analysis.
- Bloggers know the challenge is the next blog and accept the creativity and innovation required to command respect.
- Bloggers know how to share the prize.
Elements of Trust
Nearly all social media research studies point out how important trust is in social media communities and environments; and how these environments are changing brand perception and purchase decision making for many products and services. The reality is there is no code and you really have no idea who you can trust unless you follow them and they provide total transparency about their experience, and/or who they may be working for.
During the course of this year I have read many blogs and I have written 25 primarily on Thesocialcustomer.com and MyVenturpad.com.
The Top ten things that have driven me crazy about some blogs this year are:
- Bloggers regurgitating press releases without valuable insights or comments.
- Bloggers promoting false statements from thought leaders such as my father created the Bay Area Rapid Transit System.
- Bloggers that don't have anywhere near the experience to provide any insights and value on about almost anything they are commenting on, where is the beef?
- Bloggers that don't provide transparency on their background and experience.
- Bloggers that use a community venue to promote their consulting practices and services through so-called thought leadership.
- Bloggers that use a community venue to post predictions about industries and openly show bias by promoting one company over another.
- Bloggers that steal other people's ideas and promote them as their own in other venues.
- Bloggers that use their pulpit to openly attack others and other companies.
- Bloggers that provide summaries of research and/or events with no valuable insights, observations and/or vision.
- Bloggers that consistently and brutally promote the virtues of their company, products and services.
Net/Net
Social media has significantly disrupted the traditional advertising agency business model. And as the social media tsunami continues more companies will realize that they don't need traditional advertising and that they can own the customers and interact with them in ways never conceived of before. One of things that I like most about the enabling platform of Web 2.0 is that it now allows us to comment on virtually any news item, this is fun. And this is the future, but just be careful about comments you post with your name because the SEOs will find it. Until next time I wish you great selling and marketing in the millennium.