Social Sights

Social Media Trend or Fad?

I get asked this question a lot and it seems that recently I have been getting this question from every VP of Marketing or CMO,   which got me thinking….  Do CMO’s and marketers hope that social media is a fad because if it is a fad the lack of control they are experiencing will go away or is it simply that they do not know how to make the marketing weapons in their arsenal effective, which will require them to rethink how they do what they do.  Wikipedia does a good job of describing the difference between a trend and a fad http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fads_and_trends a trend seems to be a line that rarely changes and if we consider the trend of the internet, it  connected data points, once those were connected companies started contributing more data points (.com’s)  now that companies have successfully contributed their data points users of the web have decided that they want to contribute as well and different than radio, tv or newspapers (http://tinyurl.com/4gbrwf)  which have major barriers to user entry, there are limited barriers to entry on the web.  Users are connected, they have a real voice are creating content faster than ever imagined, forming communities which have no barriers and engaging in the conversations which companies yearn to be a part of…  Given that users are now in complete control, companies who used to control the barriers to entry are scared… and it would seem that they are trying to avoid the trend as long as possible…. But let’s be honest companies created the web and now customers control it so if you are a marketer you have to figure out what you are going to listen to, so you can be effective….. more to come on this in the coming weeks