My Morning WalkNew day, uninterrupted thoughts

The social media concepts we see in place today are affecting business relationships, specifically in the marketing and advertising worlds. Marketers can now identify with laser-accuracy the perfect customers based on personal tastes and preferences and narrow their messages to an exact profile. That’s very positive because the benefit is that the customer’s suitability to the business/individual they will be working with is far more compatible. The negative side is that non-suitable clients do not give attention to the business relationship because of a lack of commonality. NOTE: Many marketers and businesses truly believe this “trend” will fade and that the world will return to “the way it was”. Such an observation is both inaccurate and short-sighted and those that refuse to believe will be left behind.

This issue is extending to personal relationships as well. How many blogs are there? Over 1.9 Million and growing. What are they about? Better yet, what AREN’T they about? Individuals can literally search for any topic of interest and discuss it in any format they choose: Skype, e-mail, blog, text, phone, letter (not likely), FB, Twitter, My Space, YouTube, LinkedIn, …… You get the point. The challenge is that our tolerance for discussion of topics OUTSIDE our interests is drastically reduced…we’d far rather give attention to things we genuinely CARE about…not things SOMEONE ELSE cares about…There simply isn’t enough time in the day to learn enough about someone else’s interests to engage in an intellectual discussion with them included. Like it or not, this isn’t going to change. Call it information overload in the Information Age, call it targeted social interaction, call it whatever you want. It may or may not break down longstanding personal relationships depending on the coping capacity of the people involved in the discussion.

People are actually finding themselves drawn to others who share much more TARGETED interests than 20 years ago. Remember in the 80’s and 90’s? What did we have to talk about? Football, basketball, local news from the NEWSPAPER, what mixes well with watermelon schnapps…Are we on the same page? Today, we are all challenged with too much information. Dining room table conversations don’t happen like they used to, even when the entire family is present. Family gatherings are becoming stressful instead of relaxing because there are now MILLIONS of topics someone could possibly choose to discuss. For example: If a discussion begins about something for which you are totally unprepared, what do YOU do? I personally feel that’s the reason there’s football on Thanksgiving.

Happy Holidays.

What differentiates the two? Answer: The perception of sales strategy.

“Calling something to the attention” of someone (advertising) is a passive sales strategy. TV, radio, Google, and newspaper ads are all just that: Advertisements. There is no real call to action for the viewer/reader. Ads create awareness that a product or service is available if the viewer decides to pursue the need or want. The only party with a financial interest at stake is the purchaser of the ad. It physically takes an additional interaction for the transaction to occur. This span of time could be called a “trust gap” or “investigation period” for the viewer to determine which service provider to use and is an opportunistic point in time for the social media activist.

Marketing is “the act or process of selling” and is an active sales strategy. It involves a transaction between a buyer and seller and usually the seller has at least an equal financial stake in the decision of the buyer. In this scenario, there is no investigation period prior to the intial interaction. So the question: “Will one or the other have a longer life span or will they both remain effective for the next century and beyond?”

Prediction: Advertising will survive. Marketing in its present form will be forced to evolve or become extinct. Why: Advertising is essentially harmless except for the attention factor. Marketing, on the other hand, interrupts, pushes, and closes. It creates a negativity that increases the awareness that competitors DO exist. When consumers get “closed” enough, they begin to look for alternate solutions.

No one can really predict the future, but the evolution of social media is bound to have a profound impact on both marketing and advertising. It will be interesting to see if either or both can withstand the knock-out punches ahead.