Comments on: The By-Product of Social Media Becoming a Buzzword

By: Cotton Rohrscheib

Cotton Rohrscheib — Sun, 13 Dec 2009 19:05:42 +0000

Patrick – Thanks for the comments. I agree, eventually all of the pigs have to get into the mud (love this analogy), but before any of my pigs (clients) jump into the mud pit, I want to make sure they have some skills to make them stand out instead of just being another muddy pig. LOL.

Something that I think has been neglected a lot today are some of the things that we learned pre-Web2.0, for instance, I think that if people can blog effectively and know how to put together an interesting enough ad campaign, they can lean on social media to really get their message to the masses and have great success. On the other hand, a competing brand with possibly an even better product with the exact same social following could roll out a less interesting campaign, with the same boring approach they have used for 20 years, and before you know it the people who were swept off their feet by the competitors campaign will be tweeting to their friends about how the other product or brand (inferior product) sucks. The success of social media campaigns today (as I see them) is heavily based on perception. I have been encouraging my clients to think outside the box, but not to abandon the basics at the same time. Just make sure they bring their A game because w/ social media it's always a packed house staring at you.

Thanks for the comments.

By: pbarbanes (pbarbanes)

pbarbanes (pbarbanes) — Sun, 13 Dec 2009 05:33:14 +0000

The By-Product of Social Media Becoming a Buzzword from @cottonr http://bit.ly/5KGB7y

By: @pbarbanes

@pbarbanes — Sun, 13 Dec 2009 05:29:45 +0000

Cotton, you've brought up a very valuable idea in this post – an idea that is often overlooked in many of the discussions I've been in about social media. Because much of the “wide-eyed” zeal is promoted by social media specialists themselves, with the common mantra you note that a conversation is probably going on, anyway, so it's better to join it than not. But not too many zealots/evangelists (and I'm one) go on to point out to someone what you (and I) believe, that “If they are doing a terrible job promoting their brand right now, it’s going to be compounded by adding social media.”

But that's NOT to say that someone shouldn't jump into the social media space – and I don't think you were saying that. Re-evaluating the basics might be necessary before doing anything else. OR it just might be that adopting a specific tone or engagement strategy in social media MAY help…even if their basics are not up to snuff. Each case is different, as I'm sure you know. So while I agree that use of social media will not put lipstick on a pig, I'd hesitate to tell ALL pigs to wait to jump into the mud. : )

By: Blogging is Foundational, Social Media a Tool : Cotton Rohrscheib

Blogging is Foundational, Social Media a Tool : Cotton Rohrscheib — Mon, 23 Nov 2009 22:28:27 +0000

[...] On a sidenote, by social media becoming such a strong buzzword, a lot of clients are inquiring about it. I think it’s good to be a realist and debunk a lot of myths regarding social media when talking to clients who sit there with hopeful eyes as you discuss Facebook & Twitter. This is one thing that my partners and I try to do when we meet with our clients and the topic of social media comes up. We emphasize that, yes, in some cases amazing things can happen, sometimes almost overnight (we have seen this first hand), but it’s important to stay grounded and not put all of your eggs into one basket. Something else that I try to emphasize that while we might not be re-assuring you that you are going to do great things w/ your social media presence, it’s extremely important to have this presence regardless, the conversation is going on anyway (probably more on this topic here…) [...]