It's been a long time since I've read an argument as cogent and as interesting as this one by Glen Tomlinson appearing in MarketingWeb. It's about the future of big and small social media sites. He's saying the biggest strength of the big sites — the ease with which people have access to the technology and can join — will be their downfall because people can just as easily opt out when the new or next big thing comes along. He's saying the big sites are a nightmare for marketing/advertising people. He's predicting that smaller places that join like-minded people over common interests or concerns will emerge as people on big sites have less and less in common with the masses. And throughout it all he drops some factoids of great interest that only make his assertions that much more credible.

I wish he were wrong, but you know what? I think he's right. He is especially right when he says the following:

One of the things that surprises me is how few advertisers and marketers have embraced the essence of what makes social networking so unique compared to almost every other media form; the ability to create conversations between individuals. Most marketers do not understand the environment or culture they want to market to and think that forcing themselves on individuals demanding to be heard, is how they are going to win market share.

If you've tried Facebook as I have, or MySpace (which I've browsed), Mr. Tomlinson's point about why people want to belong to a group has to ring true, too. Honestly, I don't plan to re-represent everything in his long article, but this is perhaps the most important idea as far as I'm concerned:

If we take a closer look at why people in general enjoy social networking, we need to understand the compulsion behind that desire to belong. The Social Comparison Theory (Festinger, 1954) describes an individual's need to look externally to assess and judge their own opinions and abilities and gauge how they compare to the group… When a social network includes every walk of life under one roof, that sense of belonging begins to feel meaningless.

Please read the article if you have time. I think it is a major contribution to understanding the here and now — and the future — of social media.

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Funny that nobody does an ROI on corporate lawn mowing, business cards, new carpet, new signage, etc…

It's a fact that some things must be done, regardless of how trackable the results are. Fortunately, social media is infinitely measurable. However, a business must first decide, “Do we wish to engage in conversations with our customers & stakeholders? Are we willing to try new ways of communicating and hearing from the public?”

In an empirical world, where we want to know about Return on Investment, it’s important to know what efforts are worth the most to a company. Even as organizations become aware that they should take advantage of social media, the question that rushes in behind that awareness is, “How will I know anything is happening?”

How? We’ll tell you how…by sending a weekly report of blog traffic, podcast downloads, social networking group hits. Virtually every metric can be drilled down to reveal valuable information that can then be passed through your organization, to the appropriate contacts, for more targeted conversations with customers, partners and prospects that have real meaning.

Social networking should be part of a business model, part of the marketing, sales, and customer relations. But since it’s customer-centric, many firms balk at it.

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An interesting analogy to my professional life these days came to mind this weekend while helping my 95-year-old father build his compost pile. Composting is what I do for a living. Fertlizer is that with which I compete.

See, fertilizer is convenient. Everybody uses it. It's readily available, it comes in tidy bags, and makes things grow… for awhile. But after many applications, you have to add more and more for the same result. After that, there's little, if any, organic matter in the soil. And, the run off has polluted the rivers, lakes, and streams. Fertilizer, like traditional advertising and establishment PR, is a one-way street. It doesn't give back to the soil. There's no organic dialogue.

Compost is like social media. It's time-consuming. Messy. It works to an unpredictable timetable. It is a whole lot more interested in a small amount of the very best result than in a ton of stuff that achieves nothing, or worse! To compost is to accept the natural order of things. You can't force it or shout it to life. It has to want to participate and it has to be nourished.

But the end result is something real and rich and lasting. It's authentic. And it is transparent in the sense that there isn't anything in there you don't know about and can't see for yourself or that won't hold up to analysis.

Are we in the age of fertilizer? Are dead monologues inevitable? Maybe. But I see it trending the other way.

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