Marketing: Social media's hidden bubble

As the recession rapidly sucks the momentum out of Web 2.0's heyday, with it may go one of the era's most defining terms: the job title "social media expert."

For the past few years, people who identify with that title--as well as social media consultants, social media strategists, and social media marketers, depending on what they want to call it--have been unavoidable in the Web 2.0 social scene. You'd meet them at the endless litany of industry cocktail parties, at Tech Meetup events on both coasts, and at the likes of the Web 2.0 Expo. A search for "social media expert" on business networking site LinkedIn yields 175 results. "Social media consultant" yields nearly 400, and "social media strategist" about 300.

These are the folks who work with client companies, many of whom didn't have much of an existing Web presence, to school them in how everything from Facebook apps to Digg badges to Twitter accounts can improve their marketing strategies. And as talk of social platforms and microblogging began to dominate the tech press, there certainly was demand.

"They just come running in screaming, 'I need a Facebook page, I need a blog, I need Twitter!' without thinking about what (the company wants) to accomplish as a business and what's unique about these tools," said Laura Fitton of Boston-based Pistachio Consulting. A former marketing professional, Fitton began consulting on Twitter and other social-media tools when friends pointed out she was already giving advice about it for free and ought to think about charging.

Advertising and marketing agencies, not to mention public relations firms, put out job searches for in-house social media gurus, but this was one job description where you didn't even need an employer--just a lot of followers on Twitter. Industry cocktail parties on both coasts were packed full of avid networkers with pockets full of business cards ripe for distribution. In other words, if you could talk enough about monetization, conversational marketing, social capital, and viral distribution in order to land that first client, you were all set.

The problem? Much like the digital marketing craze that briefly swirled up around virtual world Second Life, which led to a nasty, well-publicized backlash, there was plenty of opportunism and bad advice.

"How you find expertise is a big problem," Fitton said. "You could go to a very established advertising or PR agency, and if they don't have that expertise they're going to say as much crap as a carpetbagger who's trying to be a 'social media expert.'"

One digital-strategies czar at a small media company told CNET News that a while back, before she was brought on board, her employer had enlisted a freelance "social media expert" to give the company a presence on Web 2.0's most buzzworthy communities. It was a disaster, she said. The consultant charged $200 an hour for what was effectively a bunch of Facebook fan pages and a Twitter account that most full-time staff wasn't particularly sure how to use. The final bill tallied almost $40,000.

"You could go to a very established advertising or PR agency, and if they don't have that expertise they're going to say as much crap as a carpetbagger who's trying to be a 'social media expert.'"

--Laura Fitton, Pistachio Consulting

Another marketer related that she once met with a media property in the health sector to discuss how it could have a presence on social-networking sites. The potential client was skeptical, since its marketing team had previously met with a social-media consultant who suggested the best strategy would be to create a Facebook app that let members give their friends virtual venereal diseases. The client, it seems, was left a bit horrified.

Jeff Carvalho, a consultant who specializes in working with street fashion brands and other youth-oriented companies, argues that the "social media expert" is not going to go away, but the ones who make it are going to be those who do the job right. "I'm more or less playing watchdog over the guy that (the company has) hired," he said. The role of a social media consultant, he said, should be to school the brand's community relations types in the likes of Twitter and YouTube, and then leave the ongoing strategy to the people who know the most about the company and its field.

"You need to find somebody (who) believes in the product, maybe somebody that's an evangelist, and really help that person get the job done online," Carvalho said. "You can't expect a person (who) knows the tools to also be able to genuinely go into a community and ignite people to start talking."

Research firm Gartner estimated last fall that a full half of companies' "social media campaigns" will be unsuccessful, pouring some cold water on the hype surrounding buzzwords like "app-vertising" and "engagement ads." The problem, analyst Adam Sarner said at the time, is that too many companies fail to keep the interests of the community in mind.

And even would-be successes are at the mercy of social-media sites, too. Fast-food chain Burger King got plenty of buzz for a "Whopper Sacrifice" app on Facebook that jokingly encouraged members to delete people from their friends lists in order to receive a coupon for a free hamburger, only to see the application pulled by Facebook, citing that it "ran counter to user privacy by notifying people when a user removes a friend."

"A lot of them will flop," Laura Fitton said in agreement. But "they say fully half of advertising money is wasted, we just don't know which half. The beauty of social media is that we know exactly which half." Not only do we know which half, but when a social media campaign goes the "epic fail" route, it's plastered all over the Web. The same Web 2.0 tools that marketers are so easy to use--Twitter, Facebook, blogs, forums--can be turned against them in an instant when the community, or at least loquacious bloggers, decide to start ranting.

Given the financial climate, too, companies and brands are more likely to pursue a "handle with care" strategy rather than haphazardly putting themselves on Twitter and Facebook--or hiring someone to perform that task for them. There is, at this point, a blogosphere's worth of free advice and examples on what worked and what didn't. They can read about Dell's success offering promotional deals on Twitter, and the unpleasant results when environmental activists turned a video-remixing contest for the Chevy Tahoe into an anti-SUV public service announcement engine.

"I think things do need to fail because that's how we learn," Fitton said. And not only will many of these marketing campaigns fail, but so will a big chunk of the opportunistic consultants who've seized the chance to mint themselves into experts. For those who have established a solid reputation, a shakeup isn't necessarily bad.

"When the first Web bubble happened," Fitton mused, referring to how tough times can put a welcome damper on an industry gold rush, "we (marketers) kind of breathed a sigh of relief."

[peter_kim]

Great attention-grabbing title and lede, but then it's difficult to tell whether you think social media marketing campaigns will fail or the people who create them will fail. You seem to indicate that the answer is both.

Lots of potential in the idea here, would love to see you go deeper with it in the future.

[Markus644]

It's like Mitch Joel said: look at what your 'social media expert' has done over the last 6-12 months. Proven results? Great. Blather & hype? Keep looking.

When social media works, it works wonders: look at Fiskars, Mentos or Blendtec. It's simply that there's too many poseurs taking advantage of people's ignorance, and leaving a bad taste in their mouth when they don't produce results.

There may be a bubble effect, but social media is no more likely to fade away than the web itself, which was also a "bubble" at one time.

[vernongetzler]

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vernon getzler
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The paradox of social media marketing is that the minute too much marketing occurs on a platform, the users tend to shy away and migrate toward the next new/unsullied thing. See the evolution of social networking from Classmates to Friendster to MySpace to Facebook. Mee thinks Twitter will suffer the same fate if they ever do employ that much-needed (from a financial perspective at least) business plan of allowing paying corporations to send out their message one tweet at a time.

Advertising Age had a great post about it a few months back. Twitter, R.I.P.? Or Is There Gold Buried in Them Thar Tweets? -- http://adage.com/mediaworks/article?article_id=131993

The problem for social media consultants is the very thing that makes social media so interesting and effective - the do-it-yourself ethos that drives the need for direct communication and interaction. Problem is that this same transparency lends itself to a learn-it-yourself environment and that is what is happening. After a couple of years many organizations have mastered the simple tools and now have some experience with what works, what doesn't, and how to experiment to figure it all out. In other words, the democratic nature of the supporting technologies and processes is having its desired effect. This is bad news for "consultants" but good news for the rest of us.

[capernicous2]

This country needs to get back to creating and manufacturing new technologies (like those created during the space race), such as to clean drinking water, new clean engergy, rebuild the grid, etc. That is the only way out of this recession. Social (make believe)/ retail economy is a failure, we cant go on using credit to buy things, holding meetings where nothing is really accomplished and doing each others laundry.

[Markus644]

I know. Only when we're back to making farm tractors and underwear will our economy truly rebound. Imaginary, fluffy stuff like communication will lead nowhere.

[cristi_popa]

Basicaly social media is just another media. Having a twitter account doesn't make you an expert on social media as owning a Tv does not make you an audio-visual expert. As for the market research ypu can read "Using Twitter in qualitative research" on http://yellowsubmarinequal.wordpress.com/

[richard_adams]

It's a touch unkind in a deep recession to seem so happy about any bubble bursting. I also think you are a bit confused about the nature of social media and as a result you are concentrating on applications rather than what social media actually is i.e. media that enables social behaviour.

[alisamleo]

well put richard, this is exactly what i was thinking. yes, those "social media strategists" and "experts" who Twitter and love the word "widget" are a dime a dozen....they also focus entirely on the wrong thing (and so does most of the media)...which is to say "social media" is not a technology or a "space" or a "there"...and to say its "media" is kind of a misnomer as well.

Social media, rather, is merely evidence of the rapidly changing models of behavior, consumption, communication, power, work and entertainment. It is understanding social media in terms of the underlying macro-trends and applying them to new models that is the ultimate task of "experts." That my own title contains "social media" in it has always been much to my chagrin and I have long touted that this unfortunate epithet has a shelf-life. I am not interested in widgets and shiney gadgets....I am interested in behaviors, trends and new models of business that will result from the undeniable shifts that of occurred.

And finally, as the Web is iterative and will continue to shift...what we know as a digital experience today will be very different in the (near) future, particularly with data portability coming to the forefront of social computing...the real social media "experts" in my opinion? The champions of VRM...

[Harrison912]

Thanks, Caroline. Like all things simple, there are those who want to make it complicated and charge a bunch to learn about it.

I've been on FaceBook as well as other social sites for about a year socially marketing my safety and security web site and raising awareness for its products. It's not brain surgery.

Someone within a company with some social and computer skills can figure it out and there's lots of sites on the internet that teach it for little or no money. Forty thousand dollars is crazy!

[shivbirsingh]

Interesting perspective. I think the social space is about to explode even more. However organizations that think of social as something distinct from every other marketing effort are missing the point. It needs to be deeply integrated with every other marketing campaign and activity. The companies that realize that are the ones that have the most success. Its not about social media consultants. At Razorfish we focus on social influence marketing which is centered on marketing to the network of peers that influence purchasing decisions and brand affinity too. The fact that it often happens on a social component is just one part of the picture.

[richard_adams]

Is your social media marketing as poor and as shameless as this transparent and unneeded plug? I wouldn't employ you guys if this is how you market yourselves...lol

[shivbirsingh]

Richard, I'm not sure why you think that. Is it because I mentioned my company name? I do genuinely believe that social has to be looked at in the context of other marketing activities and not isolated from them. I also think there's more to this than just using the social media channels but rather focusing on influence.

[DarcyBev]

Companies need to establish a strategy for social networking that will help them determine what audience they want to engage with and how they can create value. Then the organization needs to work together to create the value by collecting customer feedback, empowering employees, integrating the internal silos, understanding and communicating the customer's needs, and creating metrics to track success. The problem is not the technology and understanding how it works. The problem is having a good strategy ,being able to deliver on the strategy, and being sure that you are providing value by asking questions and being transparent.

[RonMcFarland]

Maybe there are a lot misses with Social Media but the upside is enables direct conversation and there are lot of people talking today.

Also, seems that when traditional advertising tries to just pluggin in as another channel, they are the odd person on the street.

New times and learning and trying is the operative mode.

[AnneEasterling]

It seems to me that all of the hoopla about "social media" is mostly an effort to understand a new tool. This shake-out time is no different than what any new media has gone through, probably even starting with the printing press. What makes social media different is the authenticity it demands. And that's why I like it.

[WeCanDoBIZ]

An amusing article. I agree with the sentiment. Even now I read blogs on respected websites giving advise on how to make the most of social networking without any consideration for whether a company's market is even actually present on those social networks, let alone whether the effort helps achieve high level marketing goals.

I fear that social media experts are the new SEO experts, who, in turn, were the new snake oil salesmen...

Ian Hendry
CEO, WeCanDo.BIZ
http://www.wecando.biz

[Bill Cammack]

hmm... That's interesting that Facebook has a "privacy policy" against informing people when someone deletes someone else. I suppose their point is that you can technically opt-out of the other announcements Facebook likes to make, such as when you break up with a gf/bf or when you buy a movie ticket or a book on some service that has NOTHING to do with Facebook.

I wonder if you can opt out of Facebook's targeted advertising?

[cianw]

scarily like this article

http://www.techchuff.com/media/snake-oil-retailer-advocates-social-media

"Clarke Stanley, the ?Rattlesnake King?, today conducted a fascinating interview on the huge success he has had promoting his online Snake Oil business via Social Media advertising and a whole bunch of stuff his crooked digital agency sold him he didn?t understand."

[vernongetzler]

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vernon getzler
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