Social media marketing consultants: The trolls under the disused bridge by the new information superhighway
Last night my friend, let’s call her @trudy_adams, was headed to a comedy gig in Brisbane. Being a young early-adopting Twitter user she did of course tweet her intentions and happened to mention the name of the performer. Within a few minutes a bar next door to the comedy venue had started following her and given her a special offer if she popped in for a drink before the show. She was chuffed because they’d taken the time to give her something of value. They won themselves an extra customer for the evening.
Cost to both parties: nil.
This was not a major corporate chain with a team of social media strategists working behind the scenes to squeeze dollars out of sentiment, this was just a small business owner overhearing a conversation by a potential customer and engaging.
It had never occured to me that starting a social media marketing agency was a dumb idea. I’m reasonably cluey, not too bad at making business decisions, and have done OK for myself over the last decade since I stopped working for The Man, but it didn’t occur to me a firm which focussed solely on helping companies create meaningful, profitable relationships with their customers via social media was doomed.
You can be a gatekeeper to a new technology for a while, but you’ll quickly end up being a troll trying to eek out a living guarding a bridge to nowhere, oblivious to the fact that a new bypass has opened up just down the river.
Social media is just another bunch of communication channels which work the same way as talkback radio and letters to the editor do. The only difference is that everyone gets to be Rupert Murdoch and the old people aren’t invited. It’s not rocket science, it’s just the way people communicate now. If you’re interested in it and you’re adept at expressing other people’s opinions in 140 characters or less, you’re looking through a small window of opportunity here to pimp yourself out as a social media consultant. You’ve got about 8 months left to hold seminars and help newbies guide the way, but by 2010 all the road maps will have been re-written and marketing managers, PR firms and advertising agencies will be bypassing your little bridge in the woods as they travel down the newsest section of the information superhighway, on which Twitter will have been relegated to the slow lane and Facebook will be a distant speck in the rearview mirror.
Make hay while the sun shines of course, just don’t try and build your house from the crop. Remember what happened to the little piggy.
