Are Corporate Elder Marketing Types Slowing Social Media?
January 30th, 2008 by Sterling Hager
More and more new media advocates of late have been saying that establishment corporate types, the over 40 crowd let's say, and traditional PR firms and practitioners, are responsible for the lag in social media adoption among businesses. Earlier this week, for example, Hollis Thomases, the President and Founder of Web Ad.vantage, Inc. sent me this item. By Mike Grehan, it is about his astonishment upon learning, after checking around, that a lot of traditional PR firms aren't up to speed with social media. Responding to a reader comment to an earlier column he wrote, Mr. Grehan says:
What struck me particularly was her comment: "I think traditional PR firms may be on their way out as well."
How many traditional PR firms are embracing new style strategies such as the ones Mettler describes? I started looking at how many PR firms are up to speed… I was stunned at how few I came across that actually had search and social media in the mix.
Then just yesterday I came across this piece. By Janet Driscoll Miller, and entitled, "Can We Close the Marketing Generational Gap," I found it a rather astute assessment of why reluctance to social media still runs high in established corporations principally run by establishment, older middle and upper management types. I hasten to add there are exceptions. We have clients who are exceptions, in fact. Age isn'talways the defining factor, of course. But speaking generally…
Ms. Miller writes: I’m 36, and I can tell you that with a few noted exceptions, most of the marketers I know over the age of 40 don’t really seem to understand the cutting edge of online marketing, much less the basics.
You'll really want to read both of these posts.
Sphere: Related Content
Tags: Corporate Blogging, Anti-Establishment, Legacy PR, Social Media
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January 30th, 2008 at 4:17 pm
Glad you found the article informative, Sterling, and that you wrapped it around Janet Driscoll Miller’s piece is great…and so apropos! She is so on the money with her assessment (albeit, I think you and I are both over the age of 40, so we must be a few of the noted exceptions).
I think it’s even worse with PR folks than marketing ones — to one of Driscoll Miller’s commentors, “I’ve seen PR folks who are younger than I am who are adamantly opposed to online marketing. My view is that the loss of control is the biggest issue, not their age.” What’s your opinion on this, Sterling?
It’s *extremely* frustrating trying to persuade old-school, old-minded marketing types that they ought to be doing online marketing & PR. After all, aren’t the majority of today’s users online each day more than off? And yet, the marketing dollars flowing into online and disproportionate to those spent elsewhere.
As someone who’s been in this business for a decade now, such reluctance really just doesn’t make sense!
January 30th, 2008 at 4:34 pm
Hi Hollis–
I agree, and thanks for writing by the way. I would say it is a combination of the fear over loss of control, fear of the unknown, reluctance to admit ignorance about something new and to seek help from younger people and/or other experts, preference for the lucrative status quo and protective corporate infrastructure, a growing national epidemic leading to a widespread inability to read or write (even among PR types), a dulling-down of the national imagination in general, overbearing political correctness etc etc etc. In all fairness, I think it is hard to get people who have been in charge of every public utterance to stop it and let corporate types speak for themselves. If corporate professionals start talking for themselves, directly to the audience, without management, why do we need PR people around daubbing makeup on the words? Sorry. Like you, I could rant on this for hours on end. Hey, maybe we’re wrong. Maybe the whole community interactive social media online marketing thing is just a bad idea that’s not ever going to really catch on… but I for one can’t go back to the old world no matter how long it may take the new world to really arrive.
Thanks again.