One client showed me a proposal outline from a “social media marketing” company, and the company was charging a third of my year’s salary for things like: setting up a facebook and myspace page, creating a twitter account, “Search Engine Marketing,” Content Syndication, “RSS Strategy Development”, “pay per click”, “video optimization”… I am not saying some of this isn’t useful and/or necessary, but I think a lot of companies are capitalizing on the fact that there are clients out there who will pay for what they think they need, even if they have no concept of what the return on investment is.

I also had a client who was nearly talked into paying $800/month for “search engine optimization.” It boggles my mind…

Nobody spoke about the objectives of the campaigns … Can we say that Skittles was a bad campaign, no gifts, no TV shows, no crazy creative, just awareness!

If they are entertained and informed I guess they’ve been marketed to; i.e. you’ve created a favourable impression of yourself, established your credentials, or ‘brand’ even. This is an honest exchange in a way that traditional marketing or advertising isn’t. Traditional ads/campaigns try to persuade you that their product is the greatest thing ever. That’s why the language is often elusive (marketese), and you get phrases like “qualified green light facilitation”

To understand how all this works you need to know that selling the Web Trend Map is not a profitable business. Not at all. So here is how it works: Some Web Trend Map fans are business owners. Some of these hang it on the wall because we try our best to make it look and work as good as we can. A few fans become our customers, because after lookin at the map they read our articles, and eventually, they like the way we think and speak and work. However, most clients come through existing real life contacts. The (success of the) Web Trend Map just reconfirms their impression that we’re actually different. Nothing works better than selling to a existing contact that has seen our poster in the Google, eBay or TechCrunch head office.

Now, if you want to call the Web Trend Map series a branding, advertising or marketing campaign, be my guest. The effect it has certainly is comparable to what used to be called like that. But please, call it Internet marketing and not social media marketing. Enjoy your sushi. :)

1. No matter how ever fluffy any marketing association wants to define itself, “improving society” is not how most people, especially the customer, but also CEOs and CFOs understand marketing. The marketing guy needs to improve the numbers and not waste more time on facebook chatting with bored people and trouble makers (often the image of the average user that wants to talk to companies, as portrayed by the “social media marketing” gurus is awfully naive).
2. You need to make sure that customer support and getting customer feedback works on your own website first of all.
3. All of the Internet is “Social Media”. Marketers prefer to use “Social Media” instead of “Internet” because “Internet Marketing” sounds old and cheap and not very exciting.

a) Market communication about products now happens more and more without the corporation—and that’s how we all want it to stay. We don’t trust anonymous companies, we trust our friends. (So much for the “social” in social media marketing. It’s unreachable by an anonymous commercial entity. We don’t need that weirdo sticking his head over our shoulders when we talk with our friends).

b) Companies need to use the Internet to get customer feedback and get input for product development. But that’s not social media either; it’s just “Internet”. (I don’t want to get social with Bugaboo’s customer service, I just want them to send me the replacement for that broken piece without making a fuss).

c) The real question is: Why do you guys now say “social media marketing” and not “Internet Marketing” even though big commercial and small social are an obvious mismatch? Answer: Because “Internet marketing” sounds cheap. And it is cheap in different ways. If it’s smart: In a good way. If it’s cheesy: In a bad way.

I’m not against classier terms and smart sales tactics; but “social media marketing expert” is a deceiving term. It suggests that you can market (easily) through social media, if you hire an expert that knows the trick.—Fact is: There is no Social Media Marketing trick. It is almost impossible to reach the customer through facebook, twitter, friendfeed. And that’s not just my opinion. Look at the numbers. Social media does not sell anything—unless it’s free.