You can’t talk about social media these days without the conversation involving authenticity. Many businesses fail to understand why it’s important to be pure in motive and identity in online social situations.
In many ways, this finds its basis in the notion that PR Pros can spin and advertising writers can pitch or write “clever copy.“ But in actual day to day relations, authenticity is paramount because you are building relationships, not just marketing from a remote distance.
Sometimes it is just easier to show people, rather than tell them. No one likes that guy wagging his finger at them.
Last week at TECH Cocktail, David Armano, Frank Gruber and I played a little prank to start our panel on building brands with social media (we were joined by foodmomiac Danielle Wiley). Our intent was to demonstrate what in-authenticity does to relationships. The following video was captured by Chicago Tech Report’s Blagica Stefanovski.
Couldn’t agree with you more. It’s exactly the same issue as with the explosion of blogs developed “because we can monetize a blog”. Social media only works if everyone, or at least the majority, adds value to the network. It’s not something that you can simply take from, and I think that’s proving to be one of the biggest obstacles for widescale corporate takeup.
Robin – Couldn’t agree more.
By the way, I’m having some problems with the video.
Let’s talk about what social media is not. In fact, what if the term social media was banned from our lexicon, what would we call it then. Is it an accurate term to use? Have we trounced on it too much? Or is it still this mystical nirvana like state that marketers, advertisers, agencies, and corporations are all chasing? Are they chasing the dragon? Are we forcing them to chase the dragon?
Robin and Daniel: I don’t think companies in general get it, and they are struggling mightily I’m just not sure we are close to effective corporate social media. It’s going to take time.
Marc: I thought you were going to talk about what social media is not. All I see are questions though…