Comments on: Social Media Is Rocket Surgery

By: Hypocritical Mass: The Big Lie About Twitter | Atomic Tango

Hypocritical Mass: The Big Lie About Twitter | Atomic Tango — Tue, 27 Oct 2009 21:19:09 +0000

[...] Shevlin — who I met and actually, really, honestly follow on Twitter — noted this about companies socially interacting with customers: “…for years, firms have been “listening to customers” (market research is hardly a [...]

By: Ron Shevlin

Ron Shevlin — Sun, 25 Oct 2009 13:36:31 +0000

JC: The body of “science” around social media is growing. But I think it would be wrong to simply conclude it’s all art.

The following links are some examples of what I’m referring to as “social media science”:

http://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=1480088

http://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=1460183

http://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=1344756

http://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=1418625

http://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=1261751

By: uberVU - social comments

uberVU - social comments — Sat, 24 Oct 2009 01:30:20 +0000

Social comments and analytics for this post…

This post was mentioned on Twitter by mmpartee: RT @rshevlin: Guess what? Social media IS rocket surgery (new blog post) http://bit.ly/3zvJid…

By: Jordan Cohen

Jordan Cohen — Fri, 23 Oct 2009 22:12:09 +0000

I’m not sure there’s a great deal of science involved in social media marketing to try to uncover. I see it as more of an art–and some people have a gift for it while others don’t. It can be hard to translate social media art into best practice science, b/c so much of it is instinctual and personality-driven.

In which case, you are right: People shouldn’t be going around professing to teach social media marketing when the key to their success is their own super-special personality, and not some list of bullets that just anyone can spin into social media gold…

The other thing here to consider is whether or not the direct marketing team should own social media. I think pretty much all social networking sites are put to more effective use by PR and customer service (with PR being the top dog). Maybe I am biased, given my anecdotal, artsy-fartsy experience, but I think the best use of social media is for story telling, not driving immediate direct response. And that’s PR’s job.

I try to connect online with smart people who tell interesting stories on their Blogs and Twitter (like you, Ron), and have a very hard time understanding what kind of person would use Twitter to receive and respond to direct marketing. Imagine logging into Twitter or Facebook and seeing Mr. Clean on your homepage? I have a hard enough time as is dealing with all those Kanye Wests out there.

By: Twitter Trackbacks for Social Media Is Rocket Surgery « Marketing Tea Party by Ron Shevlin [marketingteaparty.com] on Topsy.com

Fri, 23 Oct 2009 16:17:07 +0000

[...] Social Media Is Rocket Surgery « Marketing Tea Party by Ron Shevlin marketingteaparty.com/2009/10/22/social-media-is-rocket-surgery – view page – cached In an excellent blog post, Amy Mengel lists five reasons why firms are failing at social media. To support her conclusion that social media “isn’t rocket surgery,” Amy says: — From the page [...]

By: Ron Shevlin

Ron Shevlin — Fri, 23 Oct 2009 15:17:15 +0000

Joe: Years ago (12 to be exact), a former colleague of mine wrote a report called The Third Skill. What he was talking about was that, at the time, businesses needed a new skill from their people. There were people with marketing skills, and there were people with technology skills. But “new media” skills — the third skill — was in short supply, and in fact, not existent at the time.

Today, we need a fourth skill — social media. I’m simply not buying the claims of some of the early attention grabbers in the space that they have this skill, let alone are able to teach it to other people.

By: Joe Young

Joe Young — Fri, 23 Oct 2009 14:01:55 +0000

That is certainly an entertaining title for the post alluding to the perceived difficulty of a socail media strategy for corporations. What you are bringing to light is the unknown of how to measure it, how to implement it, who to involve, and per your post who to trust with managing it. I couldn’t agree more that “experts” who are emerging aren’t really well versed or experienced with this strategy or implementation of a concept, which social media really is. Social media is that ambiguous blend of technology and human capital that organizations tend to not understand very well at all. These two elements are the most expensive and sensitive resources for companies and decisions related to them are often approached so carefully and at times, with such fear that the ultimate implementation of a solution is half baked and falls short of the real value that it can deliver.

The bottom line with connecting to consumers or your client is that you have to be prepared for brutal honesty. The most profitable best liked companies who engage with projects that solicit input and feedback from their clients WILL receive negative feedback. It is inevitable. P&G is a model company that effectively leverages social media and consumer feedback effectively.

It’s what you do with that data, how you respond to those individuals, and the manner in which you truly embrace constructive criticism that will benefit a company long term and contribute to the success of a social media project.