Businesses Can’t Control Social Networks

It’s Sunday a.m. Yesterday was an interesting day. Breakfast with a CMO of a $x billion+ firm, then afternoon snacks at my friend Eduflack’s house (Eduflack’s blog is getting some nice attention out there, so if you’re into Education issues check it out). And like most conversations amongst marketing pros these days, both chats inevitably turned towards new media.

During conversation with said CMO, he dismissed the new media revolution as something not worth controlling. The logic, they don’t affect his buyers opinions, and the commentators are not credible. So when negative comments occur in the blogosphere he ignores them. We debated this for while, but in the end, we just resigned to respect each others opinions.

This caused an interesting analysis from Eduflack and I, both experienced PR pros and bloggers who used to work together. We agreed that my CMO friend’s analysis is true of the average consumer blog (I also think because of the nature of its business, his company probably should not have its own new media content creation strategy). However, once the negative hubris from smaller blogs gets picked up by larger, more well respected blogs, social networks and even the media, the negative hubris spreads virally. Then it becomes a big issue for a PR or brand manager tasked with protecting a suddenly reeling corporate reputation.

Social Network Control?
This is a dramatic shift for communications professionals who have been trained to control the message. Prior to the new media revolution, the biggest danger to a company was a reporter that was feeling his or her oats. A rare occurrence that only seemed to occur when scandals like Enron broke out, or a massive product recall occurred.

During conversations with conservative CMOs and PR execs, it is common to find that they dismiss new media revolution as something not worth controlling. More importantly to note, is their drive to control the message, and subsequent abandonment of this strange new media phenomena. Perhaps its because they instinctually know they can’t control the blogosphere, thus it’s not worth their efforts.

It’s only natural that you can’t contain the social networks because they mirror human relationships. Assuming that social network behavior = human behavior, we can analyze further. First, it’s pretty much assumed that people in this country really detest being controlled. They resent it. However, people will listen, they’ll even allow you to influence them and give your argument/product/service chance. However, if they find that trust is broken for whatever reason (e.g. I’m not a crook, or nuclear weapons are a slam dunk), there’s a whiplash effect that attacks credibility in very serious ways.

Back to the social networks, that means pros can’t control new media forms like they used to. It’s too egalitarian now. Consumers and communities are no longer beholden to monolithic traditional media forms, and can use new media to state their views… and they don’t have to submit to a managing editor for facts.

A paradigm shift of this nature requires a 180 degree shift in approach. Businesses must resort to influence now, and understand that controlling the message is a luxury of times now gone. Further, this influence is based on trust, so more than ever true relationship building is thrust upon corporate America. This means they have to be honest, communicate, give as well as take (value for $), and be prepared for feedback.

LComm Notes

I don’t comment as much on the company’s growth/progress. In an effort to be transparent and practice what I preach, I will try to begin the week with a little notes section. The company’s current strategy of three services — marketing strategy, PR and new media — is going very well. Further, we’ve successfully transitioned from projects to retainers over the past two months. This means sustainability.

We are close to loaded up again and are probably going to hire during the summer. In the interim, we’ve got a couple of consultants and a full time intern lined up, so life is good on the bandwidth front though unfortunately, I am starting to work during the weekends again.

The company got paid on a lot of outstanding invoices last wekk, so we promptly tithed or donated some profit to charity. That felt good.

From a self marketing perspective, the blog is about break Tech-nor-ati’s top 100,000 ranked blogs in the world (there are 71 million world wide). Also to note a couple of editorial opps are coming for the company, as well as some great sponsorships of two upcoming events. So we’re getting the word out, too. Things are rolling.

Start of the Week Quotes

“Flow with whatever is happening and let your mind be free. Stay centered by accepting whatever you are doing. This is the ultimate, ” Chuang Tzu.

“A kind and compassionate act is often its own reward,” William John Bennett.