“The Old Door” © R.L. Herron
When I started this blog it was to talk about my writing and my photography and my views on those art forms as a means of social comment. I present an image with every post, and I’ve talked about a lot of things since I began.
Lately, I’ve been thinking about the substantial changes in the advertising and marketing world. I grew up in that world and, not that long ago, marketing revolved around a mix of print and broadcast media.
However, the arrival of the Internet started a profound change. At first, everyone scrambled to build web sites, often without really understanding what they would do with them.
Not many asked themselves the fundamental question: Why? A “presence” on the unique new venue was all that mattered.
Today, the exploding universe of social media has become a tool. The various online sites in existence (Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, MySpace, et al) are no longer venues belonging only to the young. People who still believe that are far behind the times.
Even the world’s largest marketer, Proctor & Gamble, has opened a California office primarily to develop its Facebook presence. But they haven’t abandoned traditional media.
P&G is learning how to balance the new technologies in their promotional mix to ensure the messages of their many brands are positioned to best advantage. Smart marketing.
Creating a place for people to come for information is good thing. But, in a setting of social media, the success of those messages depends on the perceived sincerity of the messenger. We’ve all seen those “try me” or “buy here” Tweets and blogs that hug the border of spam … and get treated that way.
Posts on a social media venue, such as this blog, are more of a one-on-one contact. People follow because of personal credibility, whether real or imagined. Posts that are hard-sell, or measured only for lead generation, don’t really communicate in such a setting, or open any doors.
Like the old door in the picture above, they become one-way portals that do little more than sit in a dark corner gathering dust, without establishing a relationship or cutting through any noise when it counts.
Painting With Light 
July 15, 2011 at 12:09 am |
Good insight. I particularly like your observation about social media, when used incorrectly, becoming “one-way portals that do little more than sit in a dark corner gathering dust…”
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