Social Media

Umair Haque tweeted a couple of times over the past week about the merits of the social web. In them he argues that it was built by marketers for consumers, implying that the social web was constructed to deliver marketing messages on steroids.

Umair couldn’t be further off-base on this one. While I agree that the social web plays a large part in helping to generate awareness about products and services, and is a powerful data collection tool, in many ways it has completely reconstructed the relationship between consumers and marketers. Many of the classic methods marketers have used to sell products have been undermined or are less impactful than they once were.

Over the past two weeks or so I’ve been reading Buyology by Martin Lindstrom (Great book, pick it up). The book provides a fascinating look in to the world of neuromarketing and delves in to the techniques that marketers have been using for decades to influence the product choices of consumers. Perhaps the most impactful portion of the book talks about how markets appeal to our senses in order to sell products:

• That amazing smell in Banana Republic retail outlets. Now available in cologne I believe… every time I smell it I instantly think of Banana Republic.
• The smell of fresh baking bread when you walk in to the grocery store. Makes you feel like the food is fresh, eh? I know it makes me want to chow down on the nearest bread product.
• Lindstrom talks about a study he conducted with Bang & Olufsen stereo remotes, one heavy and one light. Participants all felt the quality of the heavier remote control was superior. The difference? A meaningless hunk of aluminum inside one of the remotes, they were otherwise identical.

All of our senses & emotions are powerful tools that can be employed by marketers to influence our purchasing decisions - It’s been going on since the dawn of time. These factors are completely meaningless on the social web.

What Umair fails to recognize is that these tools have potential to shift the balance of power between consumers and marketers. Consumers are now equipped with substantially greater amounts of data about the products being sold to them and can seek advice from peers in an instant. Think about mobile apps like Red Laser on the iPhone allow barcode reading for instant price comparisons while on the move. What about the fact that I can instantly put out the call to over 5000 of my peers via Twitter to ask about a product I am considering?

Either Umair thinks we’re all really naiive or he has a fundamentally skewed perception of what the social web is all about. Today, the capacity for consumers to make conscious value-driven decisions instead of passive/unconscious ones is more prevalent than ever. How can you ignore this?

Yes, the social web is an incredibly powerful awareness-generation tool for marketers. Yes, advertisers have access to more data about us than ever before. But try selling an inferior product in today's marketplace and see what happens.

What do you think? Does the social web empower consumers to make better decisions or is it just a tool for marketers to collect data and sell us more stuff?

Two weeks ago I spoke with Justin Kozuch about the importance of community and authenticity in building social capital. It was early, and sadly we never got around to answering the main question Justin posed: whether or not there is a process for building social capital, and why community and authenticity are a key component of that process.

The inspiration for our discussion came from a tweet by Judy Gombita – who later took issue with my definition of social capital: “Your access to the information and skill sets of others”. In retrospect – I think Judy is right to take issue with this definition. It’s probably more accurate to define social capital as an assessment of ones value or worth.

That being said, someone’s social capital does in my opinion result in increased access to information and the skill sets of others and can be used as a qualitative means of measurement when assessing your reputation. But I digress, I see the process of building social capital as a cyclical one - the benefits you as an individual may gleam from your worth/skill can in turn help you build your worth/skill even further thus increasing your social capital even further.

So why are authenticity and community important? If you’re starting from scratch you need to prove your worth within appropriate communities. You’ll have a hard time doing so if you aren’t authentic – people tend to have a pretty sophisticated bullshit detector and are much more open to doing business or talking to people they like.

So how is this relevant to this blog? It’s tough to be an aspiring musician these days. While the cost of producing a record has come down, I don’t think anyone needs a reminder about the state of the music business and the low returns one can expect from trying to sell singles or albums. Building social capital by putting yourself out there in the right communities and being authentic will ultimately help you make more contacts and be more productive – hopfully giving you access to the resources you need to keep doing what you’re doing.

That being said, I’m totally in need of an alto sax player to record on my next EP. Who wants to earn a little social capital and help a brother out? :)