Because of the amount of buzz being generated around the term social media, the title of Dave Evans last post “Defining Social Media“ grabbed my attention right away. Of course he wasn’t able to produce the be and end all definition of social media but he did discover two “camps” in the discussion on what it might be.
The first are the people that use social media themselves to post their thoughts to blogs, or photo’s or video’s to sites like Flickr or YouTube. The people who like Evans says put the “social” in social media.
The second camp are the marketers who are interested in the “media” side of social media and how to use it for marketing. There are famous examples of the deception this can lead to (the Wal-Mart “Drive Across America” campaign) and for this reason the first camp is up in arms about preventing social media to be “hijacked” by marketers.
He points out that in social media a lot of the messages that drive sales will be passed around, if not outright created, by anyone with a related interest or point of view. His most interesting advise to marketers I found was therefore to “work to improve your products and services continuously”. When it comes to social media the quality of products and services have become important marketing issues.
Social media and marketing
Because of the amount of buzz being generated around the term social media, the title of Dave Evans last post “Defining Social Media“ grabbed my attention right away. Of course he wasn’t able to produce the be and end all definition of social media but he did discover two “camps” in the discussion on what it might be.
The first are the people that use social media themselves to post their thoughts to blogs, or photo’s or video’s to sites like Flickr or YouTube. The people who like Evans says put the “social” in social media.
The second camp are the marketers who are interested in the “media” side of social media and how to use it for marketing. There are famous examples of the deception this can lead to (the Wal-Mart “Drive Across America” campaign) and for this reason the first camp is up in arms about preventing social media to be “hijacked” by marketers.
He points out that in social media a lot of the messages that drive sales will be passed around, if not outright created, by anyone with a related interest or point of view. His most interesting advise to marketers I found was therefore to “work to improve your products and services continuously”. When it comes to social media the quality of products and services have become important marketing issues.