I was shocked when I came across an article in Brandweek titled “What To Do About Web 2.0”. The theme of the article was that social media marketing or web 2.0 is overblown and full of hype.
Brandweek targets brand marketing managers and I am sure that many Madison Avenue agencies are really worried about social media marketing and what role that they will play. So there is a certain bias in the way that the argument is written.
Some of the choice quotes from the article:
Yes, we acknowledge, something called Web 2.0 has arrived, but its potential is so overblown, its hype so out-of-control, marketing managers would do well to take a collective deep breath while determining its real significance and value.
The user-generated content upheaval—manifested in blogs, podcasts, videocasts and wikis—is quite real, and so is the revolution of consumer empowerment. But despite the resultant chaos, brand managers simply must learn to maintain a balanced perspective. Yes, the digital media environment is being democratized, but that doesn’t mean that you have to turn the keys to your brand over to the digital inmates of the Web 2.0 asylum.
If you’re to have any hope of maintaining your brand equity in the Web 2.0 world, you must begin by assuming that while your happy customers will remain silent, your critics will be all too happy to denounce you online. So you might as well provide the place for discussion and retain some control of how the dialogue develops. An invitation to the public to air its views need not, however, be a free-for-all. You should take a hard-line on obscenity, vulgarity, hate speech and intolerance. You may even want to curb anonymity to raise the overall civility of the discourse.
You should think of Web 2.0 as a collection of evolving tools—some valuable, but some of no more cultural or social importance than the hula-hoop. Each needs to be evaluated critically. No tool is sacred, not even those fostering Web 2.0 pieties such as conversation, collaboration or community.
Web 2.0 changes the composition of the toolbox, but your business is still your business. And that should be the heart of your Web 2.0 survival strategy. Engage your customer, ignore the hype and don’t fear the revolution—whether it’s downloaded from iTunes, read from blogs or stolen from YouTube.
My takeaway from the article was that if you are a brand manager don’t pay much attention to all this web 2.0 stuff. It is overblown, and nowhere as important as traditional marketing campaigns using TV, print and radio. So please don’t leave us for a social media marketing company!
Great post David!
Did you expect anything else? In my experience, traditional advertising is terrified of the web, and with good reason – the game has changed, the medium has changed, and as a result, they simply don’t know whether or not there will be a chair waiting for them every time the music stops.
The funny thing about this article is it doesn’t even acknowledge a bigger issue, which is the rate at which the web is more and more becoming the dominant medium for information and entertainment. That fact alone is enough to compel most savvy brand managers to at least dip their media budget, errrrrr toes, in the SMO water.
I know Jason. I was just shocked that in 2007 that marketers are still thinking this way about social marketing.