Every once in a while you read blogs from ad people (mostly planners) where they question whether agencies can ever succeed in social media. The most pessimistic ones in the discussion refer to the lack of successful examples in the past. And sure, you could say that there aren’t many, even though there are definitely more than one (Nike+ being the one most often referred to).
But you could also say that there are infinitely many – they just don’t surface in Cannes or Guldägget because successful social or viral campaigns aren’t necessarily visible.
One of these writers referred to a quote from The Big Kahuna: “As soon as you lay your hands on a conversation, to steer it, it’s not a conversation anymore. It’s a pitch.” But who said anything about steering conversations? What about being the subject of conversations instead? Or being the facilitator of conversation?
Back in the day, word of mouth used to be the main channel of communication. But then we got mass media, and suddenly we stopped listening, just because we had a loud enough speaker system. We couldn’t steer the conversation perhaps, but we could drown the conversation by speaking loudly.
Then along came social media. People got their voice back, and with an unprecedented efficiency. We are back to where we started. Word of mouth is back. Along with posts, comments, tweets and reviews. Can we steer the conversation? Hell no. But we can be interesting. We can offer incentives in the form of emotional payoffs, humor, utility, and exclusiveness. And more. If you stay tuned.
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