This might sound a bit odd coming from a person who “does” marketing, but
I HATE MARKETING.
Ever since the first Egyptian put pen to papyrus to create the first advertising poster, every and all forms of communication have been used to coerce people to buy stuff. You can’t get away from it! In the 1999 book ” The Consumer’s Guide to Effective Environmental Choices: Practical Advice from the Union of Concerned Scientists”, Michael Brower, PhD, and Warren Leon, PhD write:
The average American is exposed to about 3000 advertising messages a day, and globally corporations spend over $620 billion each year to make their products seem desirable and to get us to buy them.
You can imagine the number today is much higher.
I’m on information overload from the people I DO want to communicate with, let alone all those thousands who are poking at me for a piece of my attention. Cripes, the most valuable asset a person owns IS their attention, and I’m tired of giving mine away lightly.
If you’re like me, you’re as “mad as hell and you’re not going to take it anymore” from marketers. And, guess what? You don’t have to take it anymore…and you don’t even have to get mad. All you have to do is claim your voice through using Social Media!
What is Social Media? Here’s Wikipedia’s definition :
Social media is information content created by people using highly accessible and scalable publishing technologies that is intended to facilitate communications, influence and interaction with peers and with public audiences, typically via the Internet and mobile communications networks.
The Internet has evolved from the days where a static website would deliver information to site visitors like a Sunday sermon: a one-way delivery with no opportunity for direct and immediate rebuttal or comment. The new version of the internet (Web 2.0) uses the principals of social media to engage site visitors in conversation – more like the coffee-hour after the service!
You’ve participated in social media if you’ve ever:
- Written a comment to an on-line newspaper article
- Watched a YouTube video
- Given a “star” rating to content on a website
- Asked for help on a support forum
- Signed up as a subscriber to an online newsletter
What’s so powerful about social media?
The choice to receive communication or not now rests in the hands of the consumer, not in the hands of the provider! YOU can choose what information you receive on the Internet and in what form.
Because of this power, traditional marketing (both online and offline) will soon be extinct (or, at least an endangered species). And, if this prediction is correct, where will businesses be if they can no longer hawk their wares on a real or electronic street corner?
Convert to social media or die!
