Water, Water everywhere...so let's have a drink.

"Social media" buzzword is as hot as Megan Fox on the cover of Stuff...and believe me that's HOT! All of this social media can begin to make your head spin. Remember in the good old days of marketing, there was print,radio,TV... and internet. But now there appears to be a new social media application everyday; MySpace, Facebook, Twitter, Blogger, Stumbleupon and the list goes on. What to do? How to control it? And more importantly...do you want to control it? Stop. Drop. and roll a big fat ...sigh of relief. Sure there is a lot of social media available, but you do not need to get caught up in the frenzy of being in all places and available to all people. Remember that social media is one of many tools at your disposal to relay your clients message to their consumers, buts it not the only tool in the box. The most important thing to know about social media, (no matter which you incorporate into the marketing mix), is the word "social". If you want to connect to potential consumer your message needs to address their interest with sincerity. Here is an interesting article from AdvertisingAge.com that I read this morning, titled "How to Get the Most Out of Social Networks and Not Annoy Users"

How not to use Twitter for marketing...

Everybody is jumping from one social media forum to another looking for that magic marketing mix. The economy is in a recession and will be there for a while longer. Meanwhile everyone is trying to keep market share or ,at the very least, not let it drop like an ATT call. What happens next is marketing/PR/advertising firms throw the social media mix on the wall and sees what sticks. Here is an article to my point that I read today from the website socialmediatoday.com, "Using Twitter for the wrong reasons", by Matt Rhodes

I just read about the Twitter plans of DiGiorno Pizza in the US. It’s a perfect example of getting over-excited about social media and putting the technology before the strategy.
Here’s a brand with the tagline “it’s not delivery, it’s DiGiorno” and yet in order to create some Twitter Buzz they are planning to “deliver” pizza to influential Tweeters.
Is there a better example of fogetting brand values and the brand message for the sake of a quick bit of buzz?
They talk about building engagement, yet if they’re really after online engagment they ought to be thinking about sustainable conversations and relationships. Not one-off Tweetups.
I’m all for trying out Social Media and giving things a go, but this is so clearly off-message that I can’t believe it’s been thought through. It’s stinks of traditional PR/ad agency thinking applied online.